Wisdom and Ingenuity

Topping My Go-To List for Life and Leadership

If I were asked to choose two of the most important qualities needed for life — particularly life in the 21st century — I would choose wisdom and ingenuity. It wouldn’t take long for those two words to escape my vocal cords because I’ve seen the consistent value of both elements.

Wisdom is often described as one’s ability to discern and access a specific virtue in the moment it’s needed. Wisdom turns knowledge and experience into behaviors that enhance the moment. Wisdom can challenge the lethargic, comfort the broken, and inspire the weary. Wisdom enables us to strategically and compassionately influence the trajectory of situations, circumstances, and relationships. My go-to description of wisdom is this: Wisdom is the ability to access a virtue when its needed.

Wisdom is the ability to access a virtue when its needed.

Ingenuity is the clever arrangement of resources that creatively solves a mission-oriented challenge (whatever that mission might be). Ingenuity is more likely when people face challenges or opportunities with a possibility-oriented mindset. From that place of possibility, they focus more on the resources they have, then the one’s they wish they had. They get quickly to solving with those available resources with positive urgency and engagement.

Without ingenuity, much of our way of life would be impossible. Ingenuity-in- action is the stuff of creative-solution-making. When we encounter vexing problems, we are ingenious when we “find a way” to overcome the obstacle by arranging what we have in novel and usable ways. If wisdom is the insertion of a specific virtue at the moment of need, then ingenuity is the insertion of clever solutions at the moment of challenge.

If wisdom is the insertion of a specific virtue at the moment of need, then ingenuity is the insertion of clever solutions at the moment of challenge.

There are many behaviors and qualities needed to live a well-lived life. But for me, wisdom and ingenuity are uber qualities that enable meaning, change and purpose. See how you might incorporate them into your day, your work, and your life.