Dots

After listening to a podcast discussing the importance of giving the mind space and quiet to actually come up with ideas, I started thinking about AI and its role in solving problems - and what we risk losing if we outsource our thinking entirely.

The Art of Wandering

We've all been in brainstorming sessions where everyone rushes to find answers. But that's not what brainstorming is about. It's about surfacing the right questions - and then giving the mind the space to process them.

The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain we consciously use to solve problems, has access to surprisingly limited information. But the subconscious mind has access to everything we've ever experienced, and accounts for roughly 90-95% of our mental activity.

To tap into that, the mind needs room to wander. Listening to music. Doing nothing. Staring at paintings. Embracing silence. As Simon Sinek puts it, "Creativity is the skill of finding order in chaos" - but you can't find that order if you never give yourself the quiet to look.

We've all had the experience of a solution appearing out of the blue - weeks after we first encountered the problem. That's the mind connecting the dots, not because we forced it, but because we gave it time to explore. For me, ideas often arrive scarily close to the deadline. But they arrive - because I give the mind space to do its work.

The Glorification of Busy

The problem is that we've built a culture that fears the quiet. We cling to our smartphones, afraid of missing out, filling every gap with noise. As I wrote in "Focus," it's easy to get caught up in the glorification of busyness - to feel, as Bilbo would say, "thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread."

But busyness isn't productivity. Being constantly stimulated isn't the same as being creative. I've learned as a leader that listening - truly listening, with the courage to stay quiet, not just waiting for your turn to speak - is one of the most powerful things you can do, both for others and for yourself. Listening to your own mind wander is no different. It takes courage to step back, to sit with the discomfort of silence, and to trust that the answers will come.

In my experience, the spark of creativity doesn't survive in a packed calendar. It needs oxygen. It requires the deliberate choice to disconnect, to let the mind go wherever it wants, even when that feels unproductive.

The AI Paradox

This brings me to what worries me. We live in a society obsessed with the end result, and AI exaggerates this to an extreme. If we can get to the answer faster, why bother with the journey of thinking?

But the journey is the point.

If you're old enough, you remember knowing dozens of phone numbers by heart. Today, I can barely remember my own. I'm fine with that - the smartphone handles it for me. But what happens when AI starts handling the thinking for us? When it connects all the dots, surfaces all the patterns, and delivers the answers before we even formulate the questions?

Just as smartphones eroded our ability to remember, there's a real risk that AI will erode our ability to think creatively. Not because it's a bad tool - it's an extraordinary one - but because the more we rely on it to connect the dots, the less we exercise the mental muscles that do the connecting.

As I wrote in "Beyond," Social Intelligence and genuine human skills become more relevant, not less, as AI handles the routine cognitive tasks. The leaders who thrive will be the ones who protect the process of thinking, not just chase the result.

The Question

If AI is connecting all the dots for us, will we lose the ability to do so ourselves?

This isn't a question about whether AI is useful. It is. It's a question about what we sacrifice when we let a tool replace a fundamental human capability - and whether we'll notice the loss before it's too late.

The answer starts with the courage to be quiet. To wander. To give the mind the space it needs to do what no algorithm can truly replicate: connect the unexpected, see what no one else sees, and create something genuinely new.

Take time to let your mind wander. The dots are waiting to be connected.