There are moments in life when the world seems to remind us of our proper size.

Stand along the shore of Big Spirit as the sun rises over perfectly still water. Watch the sky slowly change from darkness to orange and gold, reflecting across Iowa’s largest natural lake that has been here for thousands of years and will hopefully remain long after we are gone.

Or visit Garlock Slough during the spring or fall migration. Thousands of birds arrive and depart according to ancient rhythms, traveling enormous distances without calendars, highways or GPS. You can stand quietly among them and realize that this remarkable cycle was happening long before we arrived to witness it.

And then there is music. You're driving somewhere, thinking about the stress in your day, when suddenly a song comes on from your younger years. Within seconds, you're transported somewhere else. You remember people. Places. Maybe someone you loved. Perhaps an earlier version of yourself. And somehow, for the next few minutes, the problems that seemed so important become a little smaller, and your day seems brighter.

There is a word for what these experiences can create: awe.

Psychologists describe awe as the emotion we experience when encountering something so vast that it challenges how we the world.  Researchers have discovered that awe changes us.

In a series of five studies involving more than 2,000 people, researchers Paul Piff, Dacher Keltner and their colleagues at U.C. Berkley found that experiencing awe can produce what they called the "small self." People experiencing awe became less focused on themselves and demonstrated greater generosity, helpfulness and concern for others. In one experiment, simply standing among towering trees increased helping behavior and reduced feelings of entitlement.

Think about the implications. We spend much of our lives trying to become bigger. Bigger jobs. Bigger houses. Bigger bank accounts. Bigger influence. More recognition. More followers. More accomplishments.

Our professional lives can make this even worse. We become consumed by the next meeting, quarterly results, organizational politics, promotions and problems that seem enormous while we are living through them. 

Awe interrupts all of that. It reminds us that the world is much bigger than our problems and that we are part of something much larger than ourselves.

Music can have a similar effect. Researchers studying long-term memory found that older adults reported particularly strong emotional responses to popular music from their youth, with emotion closely connected to what they remembered. More recent research confirms that familiar and memory-evoking music can produce powerful emotional responses.

Maybe that explains why an old song can change our entire disposition on an otherwise ordinary day. For a moment, we stop managing life and we simply experience life.   We need more of those moments.

We don't necessarily need another productivity system, leadership book or time-management app. Sometimes we need to watch a sunset. Walk through the woods. Listen to the birds. Look at the stars. Sit beside the water. Play the song we haven't heard in twenty years. Jackson Browne’s Running on Empty will forever remind me of summer vacations in northern Minnesota as a kid.

And pay attention. Because feeling small isn't the same as feeling insignificant. When we recognize that we are one small part of something enormous, we begin to appreciate the extraordinary privilege of being here at all. We become less consumed with ourselves and more attentive to the people traveling alongside us.

The irony is beautiful. We spend much of our lives trying to become bigger, when some of life's greatest wisdom may come from occasionally remembering how wonderfully small we are.

When was the last time you experienced genuine awe? Where do you go or what do you do to remind yourself that you are part of something larger? And what might change in your personal or professional life if you deliberately created more moments that made your problems feel smaller and the world feel bigger?

Tony Thelen is the founder of The River Coaching and Consulting, LLC, an executive coaching firm based in West Okoboji. He is the author of "Am I Doing This Right?" and "Things We Desire." He works with CEOs, business owners, and executives to remove pain, anxiety, and stress while making room for true personal and professional growth. Contact Tony at [email protected] or learn more at www.therivercoach.org