Where To Find Your Next Great Idea - Out the Window

When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time looking out the windows at home. I looked up at the trees, the clouds, the leaves and whatever sunlight graced the shady canopy over the house. When I did big questions came to mind. Why are there clouds? Where do we go when we die? (My atheistic mother always said, “When you die you die, and that's it,” but I always thought there must be more.) Is there a God? If there is what exactly is it? What if when we die we discover a whole new form of being unimaginable by us? Just how big is the universe? Does it have an end point? If so, what’s on the other side? Are we a speck of dust to some other colossal form? What if what we think is real isn't?

While I had no answers I loved thinking about my questions. Just as a book provides comfort and an escape to a book lover so did my questions engage and liberate me and feel like a great friend present to my own thoughts. They created an expansiveness of mind that felt like a blue sky shining through a blanket of clouds, reminding me there is always an open space above and within me, an infinite world of mystery and wonder never to be understood, freeing me to relax knowing no amount of effort will ever reveal the answers, at least not in this lifetime. I could endlessly feed on my wondering whenever I chose. It was my play space. And it is that which has kept me happy and content at a deep level no matter what life throws me.

In some circles, mind wandering has had a bad rap. In our productivity-driven society mind wandering or daydreaming has been seen as a waste of time and counterproductive. Research has shown, however, that this isn’t necessarily the case. The work of Jerome L. Singer and his protégée Scott Barry Kaufman as well as other psychology researchers has shown daydreaming in fact has positive effects. As Kaufman discusses in “Mind Wandering: A New Personal Intelligence Perspective,” among the benefits are, “self-awareness, creative incubation, improvisation and evaluation…future planning…moral reasoning, and reflective compassion.”

For me, gazing out a window, being near or in nature and letting my mind wander fosters my curiosity and imagination. It causes me ask what if and why and what might be beyond the surface of things, and imagine new possibilities in all realms of my life. It has allowed me to be an experimenter, innovator, changemaker and artist. What if I depict the music notes through art? What if I crush eggshells and put them together in the form of an egg? This is how I came up with some of my most fun art ventures. What if I imagine my left hand and right hand at the piano are a two people arguing, what sound will that produce? This is how I prepared for a piano concerto competition as a child. What if everyone cared enough to make sure every child, especially children in poverty, gets an excellent education? What would this look like? Why isn’t this the case? This is what led me to direct a college preparation program for underprivileged students that also inspires young people to become educators. What if people could see themselves teaching or leading by watching videos of their practice? Wouldn't that shift their practice quicker than just receiving someone else's feedback? This is what informed much of the program design of an emerging leaders program I helped launch.

All of my best ideas and contributions started with questions. And my questions came from a spacious “looking out the window” state of mind.

When do you get your best ideas?

How often do you let your mind wander and wonder?

What are you doing with your wonderings?