The Extended Mind - The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

Most people assume their best thinking happens at their desk. It rarely does. A desk is where you respond, deliver, look competent. Insight tends to appear everywhere else: on walks, in the shower, mid-meditation or at 3 a.m. when your brain decides to solve a problem.

Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind explains why and in doing so, quietly redefines what we mean by intelligence. Her central idea is simple: thinking isn’t an isolated, in-the-head event. It’s distributed — through the body, the environment, the people around us, our tools and the moments when we’re not “trying” to think at all.

This matters because leaders keep trying to think harder. The book argues:

Stop thinking harder;

think wider!

A few ideas that stand out:

• Your body thinks too. Paul cites research on traders whose nervous systems detected market shifts before their conscious minds did — a concept called interoception. Good leaders notice this and make space for it.

• Space shapes thinking. If you’ve ever escaped to a coffee shop to write or reconfigured a room to get clarity, you’ve already experienced this. We think with our environments. It’s not about discipline, it’s about setup.

• Minds connect. The best conversations aren’t information exchanges — they’re shared thinking events. Intelligence literally expands (or contracts) depending on who you’re with.

In a world where attention is fragmented, bodies are stressed, spaces are noisy and relationships are increasingly digital, Paul offers a refreshing reminder: intelligence is a whole-system act:

• The body contributes data before the brain catches up.

• Environment shapes clarity.

• Great colleagues extend cognition.

• Tools hold what we can’t.

• Rest recalibrates the system.

• And flow emerges when the whole system aligns.

It’s a book that validates something many of us instinctively know: we think better when we’re not trapped in our own heads.

At Noggin, this lands. We believe experience is everything and Paul gives us the science behind why that’s true. When thinking extends, leadership stops being a solo brain effort and becomes something shared, embodied and far more intelligent.

Intelligence isn’t self-contained — connection is part of how we think. Which is why sometimes the smartest strategy isn’t trying harder at your desk but stepping away from it and letting the rest of the system come online.