Do you wonder why some people consistently have breakthrough ideas? What pathways lead to those “aha” moments that can change everything?
Psychologist Gary Klein reveals how to find insight through three distinct paths. While insights may feel random, they typically emerge when we encounter information that challenges our beliefs, make unexpected connections between ideas, or find creative solutions under pressure.
Read on to discover how scientists, inventors, and even astronauts have leveraged these three paths to breakthrough thinking—and how you can apply these same principles to find your own insights.
How to Find Insight
After studying hundreds of breakthrough moments across different fields, Klein discovered that insights might feel random, but they typically are found through three distinct paths. Klein explains how to find insight in our own work and lives through the three paths of challenge, connection, and creative desperation.
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.
Klein explains that a great example of finding an insight through a challenge to existing knowledge is the story of Barry Marshall, the doctor who discovered that ulcers are caused by bacteria. The medical establishment “knew” that bacteria couldn’t survive in stomach acid and that ulcers were caused by stress and diet. But Marshall kept finding H. pylori bacteria in his ulcer patients—which directly conflicted with accepted wisdom. Klein notes that instead of dismissing this evidence, Marshall followed it to a Nobel Prize-winning insight that revolutionized treatment for millions of people.
| How Unexpectedly Colorful Corn Led to a Nobel Prize Marshall’s experience with ulcers illustrates a common pattern in how contradictions lead to insights, one that also played out in Barbara McClintock’s Nobel Prize-winning discovery of “jumping genes.” Both scientists encountered evidence that directly challenged the established wisdom of their fields: Marshall found bacteria thriving in stomach acid when experts “knew” this was impossible, while McClintock observed corn kernels showing color patterns that violated the accepted rules of genetic inheritance. Instead of trying to explain away the evidence that didn’t fit existing theories, both scientists followed their observations wherever they led, even when doing so meant challenging fundamental assumptions in their fields. McClintock’s response is especially instructive: When her 1951 presentation of her findings met with skepticism and even hostility, she didn’t abandon her research. Instead, she noted, “I just knew I was right. Anybody who had had that evidence thrown at them with such abandon couldn’t help but come to the conclusions I did about it.” Both cases demonstrate Klein’s point about the courage required to pursue observations that challenge our existing knowledge: McClintock worked for over three decades before her insights were widely accepted, while Marshall famously had to infect himself with H. pylori to prove his theory. Their experiences show that following insights often requires, not just intellectual openness, but also the persistence to defend your ideas in the face of established opposition. |
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.
(Shortform note: The SETI Institute’s work studying humpback whales to understand non-human intelligence squares with Klein’s recommendations. The institute’s researchers challenge the assumption that meaningful communication requires human-like language. They also actively seek perspectives from multiple fields, like marine biology, linguistics, and artificial intelligence. And they pay special attention to data that doesn’t fit our human-centric understanding of intelligence. They believe studying whale communication could help us recognize intelligent signals from extraterrestrial life—but only if we’re willing to abandon our preconceptions about what “intelligence” and “communication” look like.)
Path 2: Connection
Sometimes insights are found by 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.
For example, George de Mestral’s expertise in engineering and his love of the outdoors led him to invent Velcro: When de Mestral went hiking, he noticed burrs stuck to his clothes and his dog’s fur. Instead of just brushing them off, he got curious about how they adhered so strongly. So he examined them under a microscope—and saw a hook-and-loop structure that he realized he could replicate in fabric.
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.
| The Art of Unexpected Connections in James Joyce’s Ulysses While Klein focuses primarily on scientific insights, his principles about the connection path to insight take on new meaning in artistic breakthroughs. James Joyce’s Ulysses demonstrates how connection-based insights can transform entire artistic forms: Where scientific insights typically build on previous knowledge to solve specific problems, Joyce’s literary connections created an entirely new way of seeing how narrative could work. Joyce took Homer’s ancient epic about a warrior’s decade-long journey home and connected it to a single day in the life of an ordinary Dublin advertising salesman, exemplifying Klein’s recommendations. Where scientists might draw connections between related fields, Joyce sought the widest possible range of sources—Greek mythology, Catholic liturgy, Dublin street songs, newspaper advertisements, scientific theories, medical texts, and the latest developments in psychology. Rather than using patterns to solve problems, Joyce used them to create new meanings, showing how mythic patterns could reveal the extraordinary within ordinary life. Additionally, his analogies (like turning a newspaper office into the Cyclops’s cave) weren’t meant to clarify understanding, as scientific analogies are, but to create multiple layers of meaning for readers to explore. The result wasn’t just a great novel but a new way of thinking about literature itself. Where scientific insights often aim to simplify and clarify, artistic insights can purposefully complicate and deepen our understanding by creating new patterns of meaning—an approach that continues to influence writers like Margaret Atwood and Madeline Miller, who use ancient myths to illuminate modern experiences in unexpected ways. |
Path 3: Creative Desperation
Sometimes we find insights only 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.
An example of the creative desperation path to insight is the Apollo 13 crisis, when NASA engineers had to figure out how to filter carbon dioxide in the Lunar Module using only the limited materials available to the astronauts on the spacecraft. Their insight—creating a makeshift filter using plastic bags, duct tape, and a hose from a spacesuit—came from the desperate need to solve an otherwise impossible 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 be found. 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).
| Creating Conditions for Finding Insight: Lessons From the Labyrinth The ancient practice of labyrinth walking offers a metaphor for Klein’s advice about creating conditions where insights can be found. Unlike a maze, which is designed to confuse with dead ends and false paths, a labyrinth has only one path that leads inevitably to the center. This mirrors Klein’s assertion that insights aren’t random but follow predictable paths—we just need to create the right conditions for finding them. The labyrinth embodies all three of Klein’s paths to insight: Its winding path often contradicts our expectations, teaching us to stay open to challenging our assumptions. Its meditative nature helps us see unexpected connections in our lives. And its moments of productive frustration—when we seem furthest from our goal—mirror how creative desperation can lead to breakthroughs. This ancient practice suggests a practical way to implement Klein’s principles: Create physical and mental space where you can step away from usual patterns of thinking, embrace uncertainty, and remain open to insights being found on any path. |
Exercise: Map Your Path to Insight
Klein identifies three distinct paths to insight: contradiction, connection, and creative desperation. Understanding which paths you tend to follow—and which you might be neglecting—can help you cultivate more breakthrough moments.
- Think of one (or more) significant insights or breakthrough moments you’ve had in your work or creative life. For each one, consider: Which of Klein’s three paths led to this insight? Was it noticing a contradiction, making an unexpected connection, or being forced by circumstances to think differently?
- Next, think about what conditions made your insight(s) possible? (For example: Were you actively looking for it? Did it come when you stepped away from the problem? Were you forced to abandon your usual approach?)
- Looking at your answers, do you think you tend to favor certain paths to insight over others? How might you cultivate the paths you use less often?
