Some time ago I was listening to a TEDx speech by Jason Fried the CEO of 37 Signals. His message was that companies spend so much time “collaborating” that people don’t have time for the real work.

Even worse, employees can’t find enough uninterrupted time to get mentally quiet or reflect. As a result, innovation suffers and creativity is submerged under endless process and the burden of too many meetings.Fried told his people they can only call meetings as a last resort. He also instituted “no talk Thursdays” during which his people cannot schedule any meetings or interrupt each other with questions.For the outsider these are some good sounding ideas, but Fried represents and outward solutions for an inward problem.Attaining mental quiet is a worthy goal.

You’ve probably noticed that you do your best thinking away from work – in the shower, driving, or maybe on vacation. During these times, your mind is quieter. But then you get back in the office and there’s the internal noise again, and it looks like your workload is the thief of your mental quiet. It really looks like that doesn’t it? But it’s not really true.

It’s an illusion of the mind.Work assignments, co-workers, bosses, the economy, or even meetings cannot make you think a certain way. It just looks that way, but nothing external has that much power. Your experience of life is generated within your own mind via your thinking. This doesn’t mean you don’t have a large workload or that co-workers and bosses aren’t demanding.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t have too many meeting on your calendar. It simply means that how and what you think about your circumstances determines your experience in that moment. Whether these things take away your quiet is between you and you.

Now, I’m not saying you should start controlling your thoughts (that’s impossible and a quick way towards burn out) or do incantations or mantras (they have limited effects) or even ignore your thinking.

However, one of these 3 (or all 3 at a time) seems to be what everyone is doing. Your thinking can’t be controlled. It’s just there, like your heartbeat and your breath. You’re not doing them are you? Thoughts are there like clouds in the sky.

The point is not what you are thinking. The point is that you are thinking and that this thinking is creating your reality in the moment!

You are a thinker.

You might also notice that you carry a great deal on your mind at work. It seems the responsible thing to do. Yet, embedded in the creative process of the human mind is a universal wisdom designed to give you a flow of useful insights. When your mind is more free (like in the shower, driving, etc.) this natural capacity emerges.

Companies use a variety of techniques like Fried’s to attempt to bring more mental quiet to the workplace. They bring in trainer after trainer to teach them the newest techniques and tricks to quiet the mind but they find out soon that they only work for a short term at best. It’s a waste of time and effort.

When you realize the noise is generated internally, you can look there instead. The potential for mental quiet is always in you.

And nowhere else.

Even in your 6th meeting of the day.