There are moments in conversations when something just clicks. Sometimes it happens while talking to someone. Sometimes while listening to someone. Occasionally it happens during one of those slightly unhinged conversations you have entirely with yourself.

A thought you have been carrying around suddenly meets another thought. Someone understands where you are going before you have fully explained it. Better still, they take the idea, add something you hadn’t considered and throw it back at you with more energy than it started with.

I’ve started calling these boom moments. They aren’t necessarily breakthroughs. Nothing needs to be solved, per se. There doesn’t need to be a whiteboard covered in arrows or a dramatic revelation at the end. It’s simply that wonderful feeling when thoughts, curiosity and excitement suddenly align. I’ve had a few of them recently!

One happened while talking with a colleague who contributed to the IPCC’s 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning work. I was showing some hyperspectral satellite imagery I’d been processing and explaining where I thought the technology could take us. Then came the response…

And suddenly we weren’t just talking about the cool satellite imagery or studying vegetation dynamics. We were talking about carbon, how we measure it, how we verify what is happening on the ground, and where this could fit into a much bigger picture. 

One idea connected to another, which connected to another, and everything started falling rather satisfyingly into place. The interesting part wasn’t that someone agreed with me. Agreement is nice, but it is also slightly boring. It was that they amplified the thought! That’s the distinction. A good conversation doesn’t simply confirm what you already think. It gives the thought somewhere else to go.

Then another arrived from a completely different direction. I was talking to an investor and founder of a venture capital firm about networking, visibility and the slightly uncomfortable business of putting yourself out there. The conversation drifted towards comparison - something remarkably easy to do when everyone else’s achievements are permanently available through a small glowing rectangle in your pocket.

His advice was to imagine the blue ocean. Stop looking sideways. Don’t compare yourself with the person swimming next to you, because you don’t actually know where they’re going. Look at the ocean in front of you and ask what you need to do to get where you want to go.

That one stuck. Not because comparison suddenly disappears - I’m fairly certain our brains aren’t wired that way. But because it made me look at the question differently. Someone else’s trajectory is not particularly useful evidence for whether yours is working.

And I think that’s what connects all these moments.

Sometimes another person gives shape to something you’ve been quietly exploring. Sometimes they challenge it. Sometimes they add the missing piece. And sometimes they simply phrase an idea in exactly the way your brain needed to hear it.

The best conversations, therefore, aren’t necessarily the ones where you learn something completely new. They’re often the ones where something you already half knew suddenly becomes clearer.

Perhaps that’s why the people we surround ourselves with matter so much. Curiosity is wonderfully contagious. Talk to people doing interesting things. Talk to people outside your little professional bubble. Share unfinished ideas before you’ve polished all the interesting edges off them. Listen to people you disagree with. Put yourself in rooms where you aren’t entirely sure what you’ll contribute.

Because occasionally, somewhere between your thought and somebody else’s, there is a tiny collision.

And when the right ones collide? Boom 💥