In his audiobook The Science of Personal Achievement, Napoleon Hill tells the story of an inventor named Dr. Elmer Gates, who would withdraw into a completely darkened room — nothing but a table, a sheet of paper, and a pen. He called it "sitting for ideas," and he'd stay crouched there in the silence for hours, until the flash came.
That may have worked for him. But when I sit at a desk for hours, my body sends my brain exactly one signal: day's over, you can relax now. That blocks my thinking.
I need dynamics. My brain hits its best form when I change location and move.
In the evening I climb onto my Honda Forza 750, ride through the silence of the night, and feel the wind blow my head completely clear. Then, when I arrive somewhere quiet and dark — some empty parking lot out on the edge of town — I get off and pace back and forth in the dark, undisturbed. In the walking, in the physical activity, my thoughts sort themselves out almost on their own. Speaking while walking has a sharpness all its own.
We're not biologically built to give birth to big visions sitting down. We think best when we're in motion.
