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Welcome to Treasure Hunt

Six years ago we got curious about a simple question: What would it be like to live like we're on a Treasure Hunt?

We didn't expect to be exploring physics and potato chips, neuroscience and crows, fallen leaves and the nature of time. And we didn't expect to find simple new pathways to happiness, effectiveness and meaning.

So come get curious, play with us! We'll share some of the treasure we find, and please let us know what you're discovering.

--Barak, Paul and Carol

Treasure Hunt In Action

porcupine
WHY TIME MANAGEMENT WILL NEVER WORK FOR TWO-THIRDS OF US

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And isn’t much better for 90% of everyone else We spend a lot of time, money and energy trying

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Hunt Treasures Right Now

yellow leaf 1
How you can lose 10 pounds, travel all summer and turn into a leaf

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Or, how I gave up trying to fix things, and found myself slim and in Maine.

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Treasure Hunt for Couples

Hunting Treasure in Amsterdam
Sometimes Life Is Like a Sappy Romance Novel

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Boy meets girl. Boy meets girl thirty-eight years later. Boy marries girl. Life really goes like

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Barak’s Treasure Hunts

crows on dead tree
The Curious Case of Cackling Crows

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I love taking long walks, noticing the world around me. By noticing and getting curious about the wo

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Share Your Treasures

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What do you want?

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What if you could want it all, like a kid wanting a pony? Tell us what you want!

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Our Latest Treasure

WHY TIME MANAGEMENT WILL NEVER WORK FOR TWO-THIRDS OF US

And isn’t much better for 90% of everyone else

CCC. Aidan Jones on flickr.com

We spend a lot of time, money and energy trying to manage our time. For some of us, it works easily.

For most of us, it doesn’t.

Mainly we end up feeling resigned, guilty, stressed, anxious or like failures because we can’t manage our time.

We’ve been set up! Time management can never work for most people, because it doesn’t line up with how our brains are wired.

We can’t get better at managing our time without twisting our brains into unpleasant, inefficient knots.

But time management is only one way to think about time.

You can learn to be one of those people for whom time is an easy, and natural part of life! Things are handled. Time is your friend.

It takes getting curious about time, and playing with how we can handle it. It’s a leap into a strange and wonderful rabbit hole. (more…)

You Don’t Have Time to Read This Blog

I just read a blog post about time management for lazy people.

By the time I was done, my head was spinning. It listed seventy-two things to do, and wisdom from three very smart and talented masters of time management.

It had photos of desks, rules on how to have phone calls, when to stand and when to sit.

And all so you, too, can be productive–or at least 30% more productive than people who don’t manage their time.

What does this say about our society and our world? What does this say about our values?

I think it says a few scary things:

  1. It’s all about being productive. If you get things done it’s good. If you get less done, that’s not so good. (Last week I asked a fifteen year old student in my leadership program how his morning went. “Productive” he said. His morning involved skiing with a three year old. How can you be productive skiing with a three year old?)
  2. If you can’t manage your time you aren’t trying hard enough, or haven’t practiced enough, or, even worse, you just don’t care. There’s some moral, ethical or personal failure here. Shame, shame on you, you unproductive, poorly managed people!
  3. There’s a right way to live, to relate to time and to get things done. And that’s to manage, control, and structure everything. Forget about mystery. Forget about happiness. Forget about wonder and joy and adventure and the brilliant spark of creativity. It’s all about doing things the right way. It’s all about living a managed, controlled and structured life.

Ugh.

Over the past several months I’ve been getting deeply curious about time, and about how we move through time.

There are 600,000 google searches every month on the phrase “time management” and virtually every result comes up with a version of the same message: “If you just use my time-o-matic system, you’ll manage your time well, and manage to be productive, and manage to get the right/virtuous/meaningful things done!”

Never have I seen anything questioning the underlying metaphor of managing time.

And that’s where we run into trouble.

(more…)

Treasure in the New England Woods

Keeping on the Autumn theme, here’s another way to learn from leaves.

Treasure Hunters notice things other people miss. And when they notice them, they continue on and get curious.

It’s a huge part of Treasure Hunt, that simple ability to notice and get curious. They’re skills that we can practice so that when life doesn’t seem like a treasure, it’s easier for us to switch things around.

And when we engage all of our senses--including sound--we can help our brain to relax and become more open to the world around us.

Spend a couple of minutes watching (and listening to) this Treasure Hunt I found myself on in Massachusetts not long ago. And take a couple of minutes to notice the sounds around you. Become aware of them for the rest of the day.

Intentionally stopping to notice and get curious about your surroundings can help you train your brain to see treasures you’ve been missing and, over time, can help you become more present, relaxed and focused.

And that’s always a treasure!

How you can lose 10 pounds, travel all summer and turn into a leaf

yellow leaf 1

Take a minute or so to look at this wonderful child of the New England Autumn

  • What do you notice? What patterns are you seeing?
  • Do the swirls and whorls make you think of anything else?
  • How did this little leaf become this way?
  • How did it know to look like a birch leaf, and not a maple or oak leaf?

It’s all a matter of following some Simple Rules
Mathematicians and biologists talk about fractal formations, attractors and dynamical systems. From the leaf’s perspective it all boils down to:

Follow a few simple mathematical rules over and over again, and you’ll end up looking like a birch leaf.

As cells divide and shift and combine and mutate, they follow these simple rules, and over time you get a leaf. It is unlike any birch leaf that came before, but by following the same rules as all other birch leaves; it clearly is still a birch leaf.

And the brown swirls are all close cousins, if not brothers and sisters.

We call these oft-repeated mathematical principles, The Simple Rules.

Simple Rules govern our lives as well.
The tiny little rules we follow over and over again are both intimately familiar and mostly invisible to us.

Over time as we follow these rules we get something that looks pretty like our predictable life. I have a couple of powerful examples in my life from the past year or so:

My 43-year-old body was stuck at almost-fit-but-never-quite-there. Then, I noticed and got curious about my simple rule of walking to the store five days a week for a can of soda and a candy bar. I replaced it with popping a handful of nuts and raisins in my mouth and drinking a glass of water before heading to the store. And before too long, I changed the Simple Rule of I need my daily Coke to I don’t like sugared soda, it makes me ill. Lost 10 pounds like nothing at all.

A year ago I noticed a recurring thought: “Don’t Trust.” It would sneak in throughout the day, and without realizing it I was making lots of little decisions and taking lots of small actions grounded in not trusting. As soon as I noticed it, I got curious. What triggered it, what it led to, and what did it feel like? And, by playing around, I replaced it with the question, “what would I do if I were being BOLD?” Changed everything. Thousands of little actions later, I’m at the end of an amazing four-month summer on the East Coast, working on the road and visiting family and friends.

I used to look for the big fixes, or settled for the inevitable. Neither worked, neither was satisfying. Noticing my Simple Rules, getting curious about them, and playing have worked magic in my life, and in the lives of many Treasure Hunters out there.

What are your Simple Rules?

  • What’s a small thing you do over and over?
  • What’s a small thought that comes into your head on a regular basis?
  • What’s a familiar sensation or feeling you have?
  • What small patterns repeat again and again.

Just notice them, and get curious. There’s nothing to fix, nothing to change.

You can play with them, interrupt them, use them as triggers to start another simple rule. We’ll explore some ways to do that in other posts.

And for now just start with noticing and getting curious. Sometimes this is all you need to break free of a simple rule, and allow something larger and unexpected to emerge.

Have fun!

The Curious Case of Cackling Crows

I love taking long walks, noticing the world around me. By noticing and getting curious about the world around me (and the world inside my head) I find myself more peaceful, more aware, more open to the moment and to the treasures around me.

Cackling and cawing.

A flock of crows in the woods, flitting about, chatting with one another, seemingly oblivious to me or the cars on the road nearby.

crows on dead treeAre they just making noise because that’s what crows do? Is it some sort of basic, simple communication system? Or, are they talking about what to have for dinner, Gladys and Herman’s falling out, how well the kids are learning to fly and how brave some of them are in the corn field?

An ornithologist, I’m sure, could answer some of these questions—but right now I don’t care about the answer.

The questions and the curiosity are just too enticing.

For the first time in my life, I’m looking at crows and not thinking something like “if you’d just shut up I could sleep a little longer!”

Suddenly, in their mystery, they are interesting to me—and that makes life in this little sliver of time more interesting.

I may, when I get home, google ‘crows’ and find the answers to my questions. But for now, I’ll put down my paper and pen, look up, listen, and enjoy the wondrousness of the world when curiosity rules the roost.

(And here’s something extra curious: A group of crows is called a “murder.” This name came about because a group of crows will sometimes kill a dying crow.)

Notice. Get Curious.
Before you can get curious, you need to notice something. Otherwise, there’s nothing to get curious about!

You may notice something that’s shiny and new, or a movement in the distance, or a sound.

You may notice a thought in your head, or some words that come out of your mouth. Or words that come out of someone else’s mouth..

You can notice things in the physical world, in the spoken world and in the world of your mind.

And every time you notice something, you have the opportunity to get curious.

And that’s when the world gets a lot more interesting.

Your Treasure Hunt
This is a deceptively simple, incredibly powerful, and way-too-much fun practice that will get you “curiouser and curiouser.”

When you notice something, keep your attention on it and get curious.

When you notice your mind working, keep your attention on it and get curious.

Don’t try to understand anything. Don’t try to fix or change anything.

Notice. Get curious. Just look, see, listen, explore.

It really is that simple!

When Bad Things Happen To Good Treasure Hunters

hubble galaxySometimes I forget that I’m on a Treasure Hunt. All of the fun and the playful strategies move into the background, and I don’t think about it. I just go about my life.

And then, when I least expect it, I occasionally rediscover what it means to have a Life Powered by Treasure Hunt.  I had one of those moments not long ago.
–Barak

I’d been growing a little alarmed about how angry, frustrated, resentful and deflated I’d been feeling all day. I wanted to scream and yell and throw things and explode over every little nothing.

Omega/Swan Nebula, taken by the Hubble Telescope

Until I remembered that Russ had died.

Russ was one of those friends who pass through your life and make a big impression for a just a short while.  We were in the same karate club when I was in graduate school. Russ got his Ph.D in astrophysics, moved to Baltimore and found his treasure doing research with the Hubble Space Telescope.

About a month ago he died of complications from surgery.

I discovered this as I was trying to get in touch with him for the first time in several years, and to get together for a beer for the first time since 1993.

I had a good cry when I read he had died. Russ was a great guy, and I was very much looking forward to seeing him during my stay in DC.

But I didn’t make the connection that morning when I noticed I was angry, annoyed and frustrated.  Hours later, as soon as I remembered about Russ and noticed what my brain was doing, all of the anger went away, replaced by simple sadness.

Treasure Hunt doesn’t always make life a jolly, playful, pain-free adventure.

Treasure Hunt is simply a metaphor that helps me (and perhaps you) navigate through life. And sometimes, life doesn’t seem to want to be navigated easily. Sometimes the going is tough.

The fundamental navigation tool of a Treasure Hunter is curiosity, the simple curiosity of a little kid. When I realized that there was something really unusual going on, I didn’t try to fix my anger, or find the root cause. I simply got curious about what was there right now, and suddenly it all became clear. Here’s what I got curious about:

  • What’s happening around me, right now?
  • What am I feeling, right now?
  • What thoughts are going through my head, right now?
  • What physical sensations am I having, right now?
  • Where am I, right now?

This is simply making a treasure map of the present. It’s a way to get yourself located where you really are.

For hours, when I was just angry, I didn’t realize that there was something to get curious about. But within minutes of engaging my curiosity, I remembered Russ had died, and all of the anger, rage and frustration floated away in a moment.

Your Treasure Hunt
Curiosity is something we’re born with-it’s hard-wired, like breathing. It’s the fastest, easiest way for us to learn, grow and develop. (It releases the same neurotransmitters as falling in love-a nice free bonus!)

You can practice getting curious anytime, anywhere. The more you do that, the more easily you’ll be able to bring curiosity to bear when the going gets tough on your Treasure Hunt.

Spend a few minutes getting curious about the same kinds of questions I asked myself.

There’s no right or wrong way to do this. What you discover won’t necessarily be something you can describe or talk about.

At first, when you get curious, you are simply noticing what’s there. Over time, more learning, growth and development will happen, but for now, just get curious, notice what’s there.

Put your attention on each of these for a bit, and get curious:

  • What’s happening around me, right now?
  • What am I feeling, right now?
  • What thoughts are going through my head, right now?
  • What physical sensations am I having, right now?
  • Where am I, right now?

All day long, all week long, get curious. Rediscover your simple curiosity, up it a level or two, play with it and have fun.

That’s the shortcut to becoming a Treasure Hunter.

Happy hunting!
Barak

Yo Ho Ho! From Barak, our Chief Treasure Hunt Guide

That Person In Front of You Is Full Of Treasure. You May Be Missing Most Of Them.

Some treasure is right there for you to grab. Like a sunny day or a five-year-old’s laughter.

Other treasure is hidden — even buried.

Treasures hide everywhere.  Often they’re hidden in plain sight — we just don’t see them. In fact, most of us become so used to the world around us that we stop seeing the treasures that are right in front of us. The world can become a little, well, gray.

Treasure Hunting trains our brains to find treasure all over the place, whether it’s in plain view or buried or just hidden by a fog. The color can come back into the world.

And one of our favorite places to hunt for treasure is the people right around us.

spanish-street-scene---bw-a (more…)

Matt, Isaac Newton, and the Master Plan

matt-gold-ingot

Matt Had a Plan

My good friend Matt is a twenty-two year old geologist with an amazing job in Mali.

Before he left for Africa, he shared his master plan with me:

  1. Work for a year
  2. Pay off loans
  3. Save money
  4. Travel the world
  5. Get a Ph.D

By this time he’d be twenty-eight. He’d be in a relationship, ready for marriage and a bigger apartment.

Matt didn’t seem very happy about this plan. He wasn’t even sure he would want to be a geologist by then. But he insisted it was the right plan, and he was sticking to it.

So we did a little Treasure Hunting. (more…)

Change the question, change the world.

This quick (four or five minute) Treasure Hunt will help you notice what questions are already floating in the back of your mind, and will help you learn how to shift your question (and the world) in an instant. If you haven’t read the post Potato Chips Are an Excellent Source of Potassium, that’s a great place to start.

the-thinker

Part One

Take a few deep breaths. Wiggle around your fingers and toes. Shake out your hands and feet a bit.

Get curious. Let the question

What questions have been floating around the back of my mind?

float around the back of your mind. (more…)

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