The Information Age is over. The Imagination Age is here.

Start With Wow

The leadership book for a moment that just changed everything | By Harris III.

Artificial intelligence just made knowledge cheap. Wonder is what's scarce now. The leaders who thrive won't be the most informed — they'll be the ones who can still see what doesn't exist yet, and get a room full of people to build it. Available now.

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Something changed.

And most leaders haven't caught up yet.

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For 30 years, the best leaders were the best informed. If you knew more than the room, you led the room.

Then AI took that job.

The problem isn't that leaders are being replaced. It's that the thing that used to make them valuable — knowledge, expertise, having the answer — just got commoditized overnight. And most of them are still leading like it's 2019.

They're getting better at how.

Faster workflows. Sharper prompts. Cleaner ops.

But the leaders who will actually shape the next decade aren't the ones getting better at how.

They're the ones who remembered how to wow.

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This book is the shift.

Start with Wow is a new operating system for leaders who refuse to be replaced by the very tools they're rushing to adopt.

It's built on a simple idea Harris has spent 25 years proving on stages in front of Fortune 100 companies, sold-out theaters, and rooms of the world's best storytellers:

Wonder isn't the opposite of getting things done. It's the part we keep skipping — and it's the reason so much good work never happens.

Inside, you'll learn how to:

  • Start with wow — protect wonder long enough to see what's actually possible, before pressure narrows the vision.
  • Move into a healthy how — turn possibility into execution without killing the magic that sparked it.
  • Narrate the impossible — articulate a vision clearly enough that others can see it before the evidence exists.

This isn't a book about slowing down. It's about leading from the one place AI can't reach.

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About the Author

Why Harris.

Harris III isn't a professor of wonder. He's a professional magician who spent his life engineering it.

For over two decades, he has performed for more than two million people across six continents — from stadiums to Fortune 100 boardrooms — and studied what actually happens in a room when human beings encounter something they can't explain.

He founded Istoria Collective around a single conviction: as AI dominates knowledge, story and wonder become the scarce human currencies. And the people who can wield them will lead everything else.

Start with Wow is the distilled playbook.

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Here's what you'll walk away with.

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The frameworks Harris has been paid seven figures to install inside companies you've heard of — written for the leader who has to walk into Monday and actually use them.

You'll learn how to reopen imagination in a team that's been trained to execute. How to protect wonder without losing rigor. How to build a culture where curiosity isn't a poster on the wall but a competitive advantage.

You'll learn how to lead people who are quietly wondering if they're about to be replaced — and give them a reason to lean in instead of lock down.

You'll learn how to make a case for something that doesn't exist yet, and make it stick.

And you'll walk away with the language, the framework, and — this is the part that surprises people — the permission to lead like you actually want to lead.

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Here's what early readers are saying.

"Start with Wow is one of the most important leadership books I've read in the last twenty years — and one I'll be recommending for the next twenty."

Mark Miller
Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of Culture Rules; Former V.P. of High Performance Leadership, Chick-fil-A, Inc.

"Harris III offers a refreshing and timely message for leaders navigating an increasingly complex world. Start with Wow reminds us that innovation, purpose, and meaningful leadership begin with wonder. This book challenges conventional thinking while providing a powerful framework for cultivating imagination, inspiring teams, and creating a future others can believe in."

Michael Hyatt
New York Times Bestselling Author and Business Coach

"Most leadership books tell you how to execute. Very few ask what has to come first. Harris does. After years of building teams at scale, I've learned that the organizations that outperform are the ones that protect wonder before they optimize for output. Start with Wow gives leaders the language, the framework, and the confidence to build cultures where curiosity fuels results."

Jacqui Marker
Global HR Executive, Fortune 100 Company

"I've spent years telling clients they're allowed to take up more space and dream bigger than they've been led to believe. Harris hands them a permission slip and the playbook. This book makes a case that wonder comes first — before the strategy or the grind. Every founder I know who's weary from figuring out their next 'how' needs to read this and emotionally start over."

Carrie Wilkerson
Bestselling Author and Business Coach

"I think we forget we were each made to be amazed. Harris remembers for us. I read this book and immediately wanted to go do something brave. That's how you know it worked."

Bob Goff
New York Times Bestselling Author of Love Does and Everybody, Always

"We all have a broken soundtrack that says the responsible thing to do with a new idea is to immediately figure out why it won't work. Harris found the off switch. Start with Wow makes a genuinely convincing case that wonder isn't the opposite of getting things done. It's the part we keep skipping, and the reason so much good work never happens."

Jon Acuff
New York Times Bestselling Author of 11 Books

"For decades, I've studied the stories that have guided humanity through periods of profound change. Harris III understands that before every innovation, every movement, and every shift comes an act of imagination. In Start with Wow, we are reminded that imagination is not a luxury but a skeleton key that unlocks what seemed impossible. This book is a compelling invitation to reclaim curiosity and become the kinds of leaders our rapidly changing world now desperately needs."

John Bucher, PhD
Executive Director, Joseph Campbell Foundation

"Harris breaks the magician's code by revealing the secret to real Wow know-how. His book Start with Wow unlocks a portal and swings the door wide open for leaders to thrive in a glorious new Imagine Nation."

Pat Hazell
Emmy-nominated Seinfeld writer; Chief Creative Officer, Sweetwood Creative
Signed First-Edition Book Set

Start with Wow. Then move into How.

Harris III's COO and closest thinking partner on this framework, Shane McKenzie, wrote the execution companion. Healthy How releases the same day as Start With Wow — and for a limited time, you can get both books, personally signed by both authors, shipped free to your door.

  • Both books, hardcover, personally signed by both authors
  • Free shipping included
  • $47.99 — only 250 sets available

"Wow without How is wishful thinking."
— Harris III

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Only 250 sets. Once they're claimed, that's it.

One more thing before you decide.

Here's the honest version.

You already know the moment we're in. You've felt it in the last 18 months of your work. The rules changed. The tools changed. The people changed. And some part of you keeps waiting for a book, a framework, a leader — something — that names what's actually happening and tells you how to lead through it.

This is that book.

It's not a manifesto. It's not a hot take. It's 25 years of stagecraft, coaching, and hard-won leadership work distilled into a playbook you can start using the week it lands on your desk.

Order it. Get the bonuses. Put it in front of your team. And let's find out what leaders can do when they stop skipping the part that actually matters.

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