Sonder: A Series To Change Your Perspective On Success
By: Niklas Göke
Tags: Self Improvement, Psychology, Life, Entrepreneurship, Success

I just learned the word ‘sonder.’ It’s a sudden, deep shift in perspective:

The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.

In German, ‘Sonder-’ is a prefix for everything that’s special. You’re special. But so is everyone else. Realizing that is a special experience. A feeling. Sonder. John Koenig invented the word. It’s made up. But now it’s real.

Thousands of people know the word ‘sonder.’ They can point to it when they have that feeling. They can grab it in conversation. Pass it on. John didn’t invent the experience. Just the label. He changed his perspective and, in doing so, solved a problem. A problem others wanted to solve. Sonder is success.

Sonder is Einstein’s secret. That’s why he said stuff like this:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

And this:

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

Einstein may have had superb thinking skills, the right environment, and impeccable timing. But he also had sonder. He was relentlessly open-minded. That’s why he always talked about imagination, about reading children fairy tales, about treating presidents and janitors the same. It’s change, not brains.

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

How often do we experience sonder? Once? Annually? Never? Einstein felt it twice a day. When your problems keep changing, keep changing your perspective. It’s a radical approach, but we live in radical times. How willing are you to forget what you learned yesterday? This is the future of education.

It’s also the solution to your problems. The path to success, however you define that destination. Sonder. The faster you flip through different angles from which to tackle an obstacle, the faster you’ll find one that works. But each shift requires another mode of thinking — and that takes an open mind.

So let’s not waste our year-end reflections, but use them to actually improve. To consider abandoning not just what we know, but that we know. To look at success with a new pair of eyes. That’s what this series is for. Sonder.

Each week in December, I will publish a piece about our conventional, Western idea of success. We will question some notions, validate others, and consider opposing sides at the same time. We’ll change our perspective.

You’ll find all pieces here, along with short introductions. To read everything, I suggest you become a Medium Member. It’s a no-brainer, really.

1. The Simplest Way To Improve Your Life

Bruce Lee once said that: “A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” Learning means abandoning labels. Unless we’re willing to change our perspective, we won’t grasp a thing. It’s not a matter of doing but of being. The reason the wise man can learn from even the most foolish question is that he never considers it foolish in the first place.

This piece is about opening your mind and, hopefully, keeping it this way.

2. What Are The Habits Of Successful People?

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is one of the best-selling books of all time. It’s good, but the title has embedded four big problems into our culture. The notion that an ideal combination of habits causes success, let alone that said set is finite, timeless, and universally applies, is false. So let’s debunk it.

This piece creates a new context for you to consider habits and success in.

3. How To Really Develop Self-Awareness

Today, successful people are thinkers armed with leverage. But first, you have to think yourself into that position. Warren Buffett is a great example of what it takes: a life-long practice of discovering yourself. This discovery happens on three levels and besides taking on the task, we must give it time to compound.

This piece argues self-awareness as non-binary and shows you how to find it.

4. Self-Awareness Is Not A Character Trait

It’s one thing to know what a successful journey of self-discovery looks like, but another to begin and lead that journey yourself. One huge misconception we have around self-awareness is that it’s a feature, like being tall or thin. It’s not. It’s one of many cognitive states you can learn to be in at any time.

This piece helps you see self-awareness as a measurable habit of thought.

5. Habit-Building Self-Awareness Exercises to Keep Yourself Accountable

Learning to be more and more in the cognitive state that is self-awareness takes time. But by repeating several exercises over time, you can work towards making it your default. Here are the 11 I like the most and how to do them.

This piece gives you 11 specific self-awareness exercises to cultivate it with.

6. Don’t Imitate Successful People, Learn From Your Mistakes

The more self-awareness fills the backdrop of your life’s canvas, the less bound by dogma you become. Once you’re free to run your own experiments, however, it’s tempting to turn back. To tune in to advice culture. Don’t. Failure hurts, but it leads to the right data. Don’t remove yourself from the source.

This piece is about fully dedicating yourself to independent inquiry.

7. Everything I Know To Be True

Underneath it all, the human experience is very similar for most of us. We might all learn the same lessons, but we do so in different ways. Once you filter everything you see and experience through your own, unique perspective, you’ll come up with new ways of expressing old wisdom.

This piece is a collection of all the lessons I’ve learned on my own.

8. Do You Believe In Ethical Wealth?

One of the biggest preventers of success I’ve identified in myself is the subtle, but deep-seated belief that being rich is wrong. Historically, society has always branded wealth as a selfish endeavor, but that’s not necessarily true.

This piece shows you 10 anti-wealth behaviors and how to avoid them.

9. What Habits Does Your Best Self Not Have?

At some point, you realize success and self-improvement are two different games. The number of win-win moves is small. Once you’ve made them, the tradeoff gets harder. But I found there are some things that get in the way of both. So I’m trying to let them go.

This piece identifies 8 behaviors that serve neither your self nor your career.

10. How To Unlock Your Confident Self

When you have a stack of behaviors you’re proud of and continue to learn more about yourself and the world through mistakes, all that’s left is to push past the barrier where you believe you can fly. It’s impossible to explain and I’ve only begun to feel it myself, but I hope these stories will help you find it.

This piece tells a few stories of people who’ve learned to live life to the fullest.