Rediscovering Wonder: The Power of Curiosity and Innovation

Join Bob Fibbs, the retail doc, at the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke as he explores the significance of curiosity and innovation in shaping our world. Standing beside a massive steam engine, Bob delves into historical anecdotes, such as the origin of the phrase "the real McCoy," to illustrate the power of human ingenuity.

Bob expresses concern about the current generation's lack of engagement with the world of wonder and encourages parents, aunts, uncles, and mentors to expose young minds to the marvels of history and engineering. Through captivating stories of past inventions and the challenges faced by early workers, Bob emphasizes the importance of curiosity and creativity in fostering self-esteem and driving future innovations.

Discover how simple yet ingenious solutions, like the use of sand to aid train traction, exemplify the boundless potential of human creativity. Bob's message is clear: inspire the next generation to dream big and aspire to achieve great things.

Join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments. Bob Phibbs, the retail doc, out. Thank you.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, it's Bob Fibbs, the retail doc. I'm here at the Virginia Transportation
Museum in Roanoke, and it got me to thinking that this is a huge train,
if you couldn't tell. Amazing.
And, you know, there's a huge crisis going on right now in America that,

(00:20):
well, all over the world, that young men are being on Game Boys.
They're not being challenged. They're not going through and transitioning to adulthood.
And my concern is that we aren't bringing them into the world of wonder.
If you stop here and you think about what did it take for someone to say,
we're going to come up with an engine
built on steam and we're going to go through, and this thing is huge.

(00:43):
And by the way, it runs on coal and there's going to be a firebox right back there.
There's going to be an engineer, there's going to be a fireman,
and there's going to be another guy.
And he's going to scoop the coal in. And occasionally, oops,
some of those ash are going to come right out and be right at your feet and
the whole thing could go up in fire.
And someone had to fix that. And people actually had to work in that,

(01:04):
not as a choice. That's what they just did for a job.
Or you go through and you hear the story about the real McCoy,
right? You've heard that before, right?
It was all based on a guy who came up with the oiler for a train. It was perfect.
Everybody loved it. But people kept trying to copy it and it didn't work.
And so we got the expression, the real McCoy. My concern is too many times we

(01:25):
end up finding that people aren't living in a world of wonder or what could
I do because they aren't being shown.
So if you're watching this as a parent or even if you don't have kids and you've
got nephews and nieces, bring them out to places like this and ask questions
that get them to think, what would it have been like to have come up with it?
And to think about it, this was all done.

(01:45):
So let's say somebody could go from Roanoke to Richmond in an hour instead of
a day or a week or something.
It was our convenience that we are benefiting from people who were curious.
And they also had jobs like, you know, there was used to be a drill that you
had to drill to put in the ties.
And you would drill down and then you would pull it up and you'd then put the dynamite in the packet.

(02:09):
And then sometimes it would go through and it would go off in your face and
that rod might go through your head.
Like one guy who went to the hospital, they pulled it out. They took him to
the hospital. When he was done, they go, well, thanks.
And he lived with it. But he ended up not having a choice. That was just his job.
Take this example, for example. So do you know how these big trains get going?

(02:30):
They're huge steam engines, and they're slick wheels.
So one of the interventions that one guy did, and you can see this on all these
old trains, is they need sand to get them going, right?
You know that if you had tires in a snowstorm.
And so what they did, somebody came up with the idea, Well, we're going to have
this little tube come out, which I think you can see. There it is.

(02:53):
And it's going to spread sand in front of those wheels so it gets going.
All of this to say is we all should live in a world of wonder where we're trying
to figure out things and encourage other people to look at the creativity of others.
And from that, we get our self-esteem, we get innovation, and we drive young
men particularly to a world where they can aspire to do great things.

(03:15):
Let's do this. Let me know in comments. What do you think? Bob Fibbs,
the retail doc, out. Thank you.