“When I stopped trying to figure it out, the answer just came.”

I often write about insights. New thoughts that significantly shift something, in me or in one of my clients.

Where do they come from?

We all seem to have access to a deeper wisdom. A deep and often sudden knowing that seems to come from beyond what we have personal access to. Something that only seems to appear when we stop trying!

And most of us, myself included, wonder how we can have more of them.

There’s a quote attributed to a variety of different spiritual teachers that goes something like this—

“Enlightenment is an accident, but some activities make you accident prone.”

I feel like insight is the same way. You can’t force an insight. But I find I have more insights, or perhaps notice the ones I do have, when I’m quiet.

They emerge from the silence. In the pauses. In the letting go.

And yet our lives, our stories, seem to conspire to keep us in motion. To keep us “productive.” Answering meaningless emails, doing things that any number of people on our teams could do better and faster.

That’s why I find myself saying less and less in my coaching conversations. There’s something in my silence that is helpful for theirs.

What do you do to make yourself “insight prone?”