My intuition never fails me. It is I who fail when I do not listen to it.
—Hazrat Inayat Khan, Sufi mystic
Joe’s business was slowly failing and he knew it. The competition was ramping up. They were promising newer, faster, and easier ways to offer the home health medical device products that his family-owned company had provided for decades. He had asked for recommended courses of action from his sales, marketing, and accounting department heads. He sat down to read the completed reports on a Sunday morning over coffee.
When he read the sales and accounting proposals, he become more confused and uncertain. Sales had recommended an increase in staff. Accounting had strongly recommended a decrease in personnel with recommendations for layoffs. He got excited when he read the marketing department idea. They had suggested they begin promoting Joe and his business to the local media.
Joe will admit that he has a very healthy ego. The idea of being interviewed on television and written about in the media appealed to his vanity. He says, “I will show my competitors who the victor is!” He felt excited and determined that this was his intuition speaking. He hired a PR team who got him a number of good local media placements. The problem quickly became obvious. Instead of focusing on his business and its value proposition in the local market, he simply chose to rail against his competition.
It would have been more fruitful for Joe to sit with the various proposals from his team, asking something along the lines of “What should we do to successfully grow our business?”
Charlie had an issue that at first seemed similar to Joe’s. Despite a lot of outward success, his business seemed to be losing money month after month. He became convinced that one of his sales team, who he didn’t like, was stealing from him. Believing that this was a message from his intuition, he fired him. Unfortunately for the salesperson and for Charlie, this didn’t solve the problem. Charlie kept looking at people in his organization who he felt didn’t perform according to his standards or weren’t respectful to him. Several more employees were forced out due to his inaccurate intuition. Finally, the head of his accounting department came to him with hard evidence. Indeed, there was embezzling going on. It turned out to be Charlie’s much-adored office manager. She had created a separate account and was siphoning off more and more money each month.
Charlie made decisions that were often impulsive and thoughtless. He had an “off with their heads” mentality if he believed someone wasn’t living up to his standards. This, in part, was his definition of intuition. If it felt wrong, it was. No questions asked. It was a hard lesson for him to learn. He lost key people and didn’t recognize the embezzler because she was “so nice” according to him. Logic and research are often helpful partners in trusting your intuition.
“We’ve tried this before and it didn’t work” was Susan’s first response when she heard the suggestion from her marketing team. She was the CEO of a technology company and listening to the recommendations of several key staff who were hoping to make inroads with a current client. The client wanted the software her company produced to be customized for their large company.
Susan felt that saying no to this request was both logically prudent and a strong intuitive message. After all, a similar company had wanted customized advanced features a few years ago. It had taken a lot of employee time and other resources and hadn’t resulted in an increase in sales. She had a good relationship with the company making the current request and believed that the goodwill would be enough for this company to overlook the denial of customization. She was wrong. The client went to a competitor.
Successful intuitive decisions are in part made up from pattern recognition. “X happened before and Y was the result.” You may be tempted as Susan was to repeat the same equation and come to the same conclusion. However, if you try to squeeze a current situation into an old pattern, you might miss some of the complexity and change that’s taken place. What could Susan have done differently? She could have done more research as well as gained more insight into what had changed in the marketplace. She based her decision on some old history and decisions that were no longer current.
Martin is a client who called me excited about a new business opportunity. He’d been working as a leadership coach for a few years and, though moderately successful, he had dreams of a much larger income and more opportunities. He described a new wellness company that sold vitamins, supplements, and high-nutrition shakes. It was a multi-level-marketing concept and he was being invited to participate at a high level. He tried the products, felt he had some improvement in his energy, and was excited to buy in.
The founder of the wellness company was an incredibly charismatic guy who held a series of video conferences with those wanting to buy into the opportunity. The total initial investment was $5,000 worth of products, membership, and administrative costs. That sounded like a reasonable sum to Martin, who was persuaded that he could rapidly make that amount back within a month or so by following the founder’s persuasive model.
Martin was incredibly eager and enthusiastic to make this work, so much so that he invested more money to attend an in-person conference in order to meet the founder. There he heard a lot of hype and talk of easy money, and met gung-ho converts who were relatively new to the business. He also realized that many of the people who had made money were what he called “FOF”: friends of the founder, who had gotten in on the ground floor and made a lot of money off of the down-lines they had created. Disillusionment set in fairly quickly as Martin tried to sell the products to his friends and clients. He soon realized it required a certain kind of personality and a large group of wealthy, health-oriented acquaintances to succeed. He lost a few thousand dollars as well as his trust in his intuition.
In retrospect, Martin recognized that much of his decision to participate in this company was based on the charisma of the founder. He described feeling over-eager to the point of not listening to his wife’s and friends’ entreaties to stop and think through this decision. As a side note to this bad decision, he realized it wasn’t in keeping with this self-described life purpose to counsel and coach. It was a lesson learned. He still enjoys and benefits from the product, just not from selling it as a business endeavor!
All good decisions are a mix of logic, facts, some research, subconscious and conscious knowledge, as well as intuition. If you’re a lazy person, it’s all too easy to lean back in your office chair and simply state, “My gut says__________” and leave it at that.
You’ve got a deadline to meet and a big decision to make. Your mind is going in 10 different directions all at once. Multitasking is not your forte, but you haven’t got time to do any background research for this upcoming decision. You simply wing it and call it your intuition. You hope no one notices.
Research shows that if you can actually slow down and consider various possible outcomes, you’ll make a better decision. You can anticipate what might go wrong and make your choice with those variables in mind. Not doing so ends up in a bad decision.
You’re pretty sure of yourself. You’ve made good decisions in the past. What else is new? The answer could be a lot. Your industry may have made a dramatic change in a short period of time. You could have lost a key person in your organization who covered for you and your bad decisions. You may be using out-of-date data and assumptions. Simply trusting your gut based on the past won’t work here.
Most of us think that our ideas and our worldview is the best, if not the only one, that should prevail. However, in today’s world economy, there are many different cultures, beliefs, and philosophies, and they won’t all line up with you and your beliefs. It behooves you to get out and talk to people. Participate in other cultures, both work and social. Go to conferences and events where differing ideas are presented. You’ll find your intuition is stimulated, and more creative and varied ideas and opportunities will pour forth.
You may have made a good intuitive decision but the people around you need to understand it. Again, most decisions are not purely intuitive. You’ll need to back up some of those decisions and its rational implications with actionable items for your team. There’s nothing worse than a key player in a company who appears to make decisions on a whim. It leaves a very demoralized workforce.
Many people interviewed for this book are gut trusters. They come up with great ideas almost like magic. They quickly know things about people, situations, and future trends that others take a long time to research and investigate. However, almost all of them said they back up their hunches by following through to see if their insight is accurate. Once they have the idea, they call in their experts and test out their theories. Or, if they run a solo or small business, they test with a small sample of clients. That’s where you can see if that magic has wings!
When you’re making decisions about your business or any area in your life, you need at least a few trusted folks you can lean on. Ideally, these should be people who “get” you and what you’re trying to accomplish in life. They’re the ones who won’t immediately put down your idea because it’s “foolish,” “hasn’t been done before” or is judged plain “wrong” before you’ve explained it. You want good people who may be in business or not. They could be part of a networking group, a mastermind group, or a trusted friend or relative who doesn’t have an investment in the outcome of your decision beyond your happiness and success. Let your ideas fly with them. See what feels right and what doesn’t. Think of them as your “Intuitive Support Committee.” Those folks are worth their weight in gold.
Let’s face it: Business is about change and it’s often tumultuous. That may be the case, but your best decisions are not made when you or your company are in full-blown drama mode. If you’re in this place and trying to make an intuitive decision, step back. This doesn’t mean you need to take a week off or something similar. It means to schedule some downtime, stare out the window, daydream, do some deep breathing, or meditate. Whatever works for you is fine. That still, small voice is your guide. It must be listened to, valued, and followed. To find that voice, get out of the chaos. Be still and listen. Then follow the wisdom you receive.
Put Your Intuition to Work Tip
Be honest. Re-read the “Why Do People Make Bad Decisions?” section. Which one describes your chronic weakness in decision-making? The next time you’re tempted to wing it with, “My gut says _____,” pay close attention. Is your weakness showing?
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
—Albert Einstein
There are an infinite number of useful techniques you can use to tap into the wonderful wisdom of your intuition. I’ve described many in the book. We’re all different and have diverse ways of experiencing the gentle prompting of our inner guidance. My hope is that you’ve found several that will become tried and true for you.
I also hope you’ll befriend and nurture your intuition. Treat those random thoughts, gut feelings, instincts, dreams, images, and nudges as if they were gifts from a wise friend. Your intuition—your Inner Compass—always has your best interests at heart and will continuously point you in the direction of success and happiness.