Can insights be cultivated through deliberate practice? What specific paths lead to those “aha” moments that change everything?
In Seeing What Others Don’t, Gary Klein reveals that insights aren’t random strokes of genius but natural outcomes of staying curious and open-minded. He outlines distinct ways to become more insightful, sharing practical methods anyone can use to create conditions where insights flourish.
Keep reading to discover how to be insightful through simple mindset shifts and systematic practices that will transform the way you solve problems and generate new ideas.
How to Be Insightful
Klein explains that insights are more accessible than we think. Rather than treating insights as rare events that require special conditions to arise, Klein’s research suggests we should view them as natural outcomes of staying curious and open-minded. Whether through noticing contradictions, making unexpected connections, or pushing through desperate situations, insights are available to anyone willing to question their assumptions and remain receptive to new understanding.
While we can’t force insights to appear, Klein explains that we can create conditions that make them more likely to emerge. He shares practical advice on how to be insightful, starting with a fundamental shift in mindset followed by systematic practices anyone can adopt. He also describes three paths that can lead to insights.
The Mindset: Embracing Uncertainty
The first step in Klein’s method for cultivating the right conditions for insight is counterintuitive: Instead of trying to be right all the time, we need to get comfortable with being wrong. Klein’s research shows that people who have more insights approach their work with a willingness to question their own expertise and welcome information that challenges their beliefs. They view contradictions not as threats but as learning opportunities, maintaining curiosity about things that don’t quite fit their understanding.
The Method: Systematic Discovery
Next, while insights might feel random, Klein outlines a systematic approach to spotting them. It begins with casting a wide net: gathering diverse information, especially from fields outside your expertise. Pay particular attention to things that surprise or puzzle you, and don’t dismiss coincidences or “almost connections”—those things that feel related but you can’t quite explain why.
Once you’ve gathered information, look for patterns. What themes keep appearing in different contexts? Which problems seem to have similar structures, even if they appear in different domains? What contradictions show up repeatedly? These patterns often point toward potential insights.
The next step is to follow your curiosity wherever it leads. Investigate coincidences instead of dismissing them. Explore “productive dead ends,” or failed approaches that might reveal something unexpected. Challenge your basic assumptions by asking “What if?” about ideas you take for granted.
Finally, make time for connection and reflection. Set aside regular periods to review your observations and look for connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. Pay attention to things that challenge your existing beliefs—these often hold the seeds of breakthrough insights.
| The Mathematics of Discovery Klein’s systematic approach to cultivating insights resembles mathematician Henri Poincaré’s famous account of mathematical discovery. In his 1904 work The Foundations of Science, Poincaré described how his mathematical breakthroughs emerged through a process that mirrors Klein’s recommendations. First, Poincaré emphasized that major insights often come when we’re engaged in seemingly unrelated activities. His own breakthrough about Fuchsian functions came while stepping onto a bus during a geology excursion, demonstrating Klein’s point about gathering diverse experiences and remaining open to unexpected connections. Additionally, Poincaré described how mathematical insights emerge from alternating between focused work and periods of unconscious processing. He noted that “sudden illuminations” only come after periods of conscious work have “set agoing the unconscious machine,” and often arrive during breaks or diversions—like walks along the seashore. He noted that he could spend days working on a problem and apparently making no progress, and it was only then that inspiration would strike. This illustrates Klein’s advice about gathering information before looking for patterns and remaining open to insights arriving through unexpected paths. |
The Three Paths to Insight
After studying hundreds of breakthrough moments across different fields, Klein discovered that insights might feel random, but they typically arrive through three distinct paths. Understanding these paths—challenge, connection, and creative desperation—can help us recognize and cultivate insights in our own work and lives.
Path 1: Challenge
Have you ever discovered you were completely wrong about something you thought you understood? That’s the challenge path to insight. Klein explains that this kind of insight happens when we encounter information that conflicts with our existing beliefs. This clash between what we believe and what we observe is uncomfortable and forces us to re-examine what we think we know and rebuild our understanding from scratch.
To leverage the challenge path to insight, Klein recommends that you:
- Stay open to evidence that challenges your beliefs.
- Actively seek out different perspectives.
- Pay special attention to data that doesn’t fit your current understanding.
Path 2: Connection
Sometimes insights come from connecting dots that nobody else thought to connect. Klein explains that there are many pieces of information that a lot of people have access to. But sometimes an insight arises from an unexpected connection between ideas that most people wouldn’t think are related. The connection path often produces the most surprising insights because it combines ideas from completely different domains.
Klein has the following tips to leverage the connection path to insight:
- Expose yourself to diverse ideas and experiences.
- Look for patterns across different fields.
- Practice making unexpected analogies.
- Pay attention to coincidences.
Path 3: Creative Desperation
Sometimes we only find breakthrough insights when we’re backed into a corner. Klein explains that this is the creative desperation path to insight. We go down this path when the pressure of an impossible situation forces us to abandon our usual thinking patterns and search for a novel way to solve the problem.
Klein has the following tips to leverage the creative desperation path to insight:
- Embrace difficult challenges.
- When you’re stuck, question your core assumptions.
- Consider solutions that initially seem impossible.
- Use constraints as creative fuel.
Making the Most of All Three Paths
Klein explains that the power of understanding insight isn’t just in recognizing these patterns—it’s in actively creating conditions where insights are more likely to emerge. We can deliberately seek out contradictions that challenge our thinking, cultivate diverse experiences that enable unexpected connections, and occasionally put ourselves in situations where creative desperation can drive breakthrough thinking. In some situations, it can also be helpful to keep an eye out for coincidences and to pay attention to pieces of information that pique our curiosity: Klein reports that these can sometimes represent useful paths to insight, though they are a less common route to breakthroughs than contradictions, connections, and creative desperation.
Most importantly, Klein explains that we need to stay open to insights arriving through any of these paths. These paths represent fundamental truths about how we learn and how we expand our knowledge. Sometimes we need to be wrong to get it right (as seen on the contradiction path). Sometimes we need to wander outside our expertise to find answers (as seen in many situations where we make unexpected connections). And sometimes we need to hit a wall before we can break through it (as demonstrated by the creative desperation path).
