“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” That old saying highlights the importance of hard work and stick-to-itiveness. But that ninety-nine percent isn’t the real mystery. The interesting part is that one percent.
Where does inspiration actually come from? How do new ideas arrive in our heads?
Think about Archimedes shouting “Eureka!” in his bathtub when he figured out how to tell if something was gold. Or Einstein playing his violin to help him solve tough math problems. Or Larry Page, co-founder of Google, who woke up from a dream with the idea for the internet search engine.
Were they just lucky? Did some muse just arrive one day out of the blue? Or was it that Archimedes, Einstein, and Page were somehow special, able to connect with ideas that the rest of us couldn’t?
I do think luck plays a small part in big breakthroughs. But I don’t believe inspiration only comes to certain people. I believe there are things anyone can do to invite inspiration into life and work.
I realize this will sound like a bumper sticker, but I truly believe that when you need answers, the answers you need are out there waiting for you to discover them. A clear example is a musician sitting at a piano trying to write a song. There are only 12 notes in the musical scale, and all the notes are literally right in front of the songwriter.
If you adopt the “answers are out there” mindset, it changes how you look at inspiration. Instead of asking, “How do I get inspiration?”, the question becomes, “How do I open my eyes to see what’s already around me?”
First, it can help to ask the right questions. I learned this the hard way back in my ramen days playing music in New York. To pay rent, we used our band van to move furniture. One really tough day, I called out, “God, if you can hear me, how can I stop being in the moving business?” Two days later, the van was stolen. Poof! No more moving business. But also, no more transportation for our instruments. The lesson? Be specific when you ask for something.
This also applies when you ask for inspiration. It’s helpful to avoid vague questions and multi-part questions. Instead, try making your question as specific as possible. Get granular.
Then, once you have your question, try saying it out loud. I’m serious. Actually speak the words with your actual voice so you hear them with your actual ears. I’m not sure why it helps, but it does. It forces you to hear the specific question. It allows you to identify if the question is not quite right or has an odd ring to it. It helps to clarify exactly what you’re trying to know. Saying it out loud also takes the idea from inside your head and flings it out into the world. It’s an incantation. You ask the question, and that creates a kind of tension that exists until an answer boomerangs back to you.
Maybe this activity is just psychosomatics or superstition. But I know that when I’ve been stuck on a problem, speaking the question out loud has helped me find an answer. This is what we do when we pray. Asking a higher power for guidance. When you ask the question, you’re saying you believe an answer exists, and you’re preparing your mind to receive it. It’s like a castaway writing a message in the sand knowing it may be spotted by one of the planes that periodically fly over the island.
When I was a kid, I fell asleep on the front lawn under the stars. When I woke up, a little green praying mantis was on my chest, staring at me with its weird, triangular alien head. I loved insects, so it didn’t scare me. What surprised me was that I’d never seen a mantis in real life. I didn’t even know they existed that far north. And suddenly, there it was, looking at me.
Inspiration is a bit like that insect. You can’t force it to come to you. No matter how much you wish for it, you can’t make it land on your chest. Its arrival feels like chance, not something you accomplished.
It’s one of those strange things: the harder you try to grab something, the more it slips away. Like trying to catch smoke in the cup of your hands. Inspiration is like that. The more desperately you want it, the less likely it is to appear.
It’s helpful to create a mental environment where inspiration wants to land. Think of it as a good conductor for electricity, allowing current to flow. Keep a mind that is open. Wishful. Yearning. Keep a mind that is, what’s the word… fertile! And when inspiration does arrive, it’s like receiving a gift, so be thankful.
Creating a mindset that’s conducive to inspiration is like an athlete stretching before a game. It’s about preparing the situation for something to happen, like setting a table for a dinner guest or preparing a nursery for a baby’s arrival. You’re inviting something that is yet unseen.
Think back to Archimedes, Einstein, and Page. They were all actively working on their problems, investigating them, trying to find solutions when their big ideas hit. It often helps to create a routine or environment where inspiration has a chance to happen.
In those famous examples, although each person was deeply focused on solving their riddles, the solutions came when they were doing things that had nothing to do with the problem: a bath, a violin, a dream. These activities seemed to let their minds step back from the immediate problem. They were relaxed when the answers came.
Often when an idea first arrives, it’s small, not a full idea just yet. It’s more like a feeling, an impression. You can see on someone’s face when these mini-thoughts are flittering in their mind like little moths. The person is lost in thought, daydreaming, far away. They’re there, but not really.
Preparing for inspiration often involves being open and present. Imagine a fisherman with a baited line in the water, patiently waiting, alert to any nibble. You won’t catch a fish if your line isn’t in the water. But also, having a line in the water doesn’t guarantee a fish.
It’s the work of solving that problem that seems to prepare your mind for the inspiration to arrive.
Like tuning a radio dial, listening through the static to pick up a clear signal, it often comes down to patience, readiness, and attentive waiting.
Inspiration delivers a shift in how you see things. When it arrives, it changes your perspective and gives new energy to the problem. It’s a kind of transformation, making your familiar, ordinary subject feel suddenly extraordinary.
To conjure inspiration into life and work, it helps to ask the right questions. It helps to prepare your mind with a sincere willingness to receive the answers. And it probably doesn’t hurt to occasionally let yourself fall asleep under a starry sky.
