I was the advance agent on the protective detail of a member of Ronald Reagan’s cabinet. The motorcade pulled into the Old Executive Office Building in Washington, D.C., and our agents escorted this official to a meeting with the President. As one of two agents responsible for the advance, the route of travel and protecting the motorcade upon its departure, it was my job to make sure our vehicle was in place and ready when the motorcade emerged.
Something inside me told me the agent driving the motorcade was going to depart from the building and take the wrong route. I requested the agent posted with me station another motorcade vehicle on the only other route the motorcade could take, in case the route of travel changed without notice. My co-worker thought I was being ridiculous and simply overreacting. The feeling I had was very strong. I again requested the agent post a second follow vehicle on the other route and he did so.
Sure enough, the motorcade emerged from the building and the agent driving took the wrong route without advising the advance team. We had the other car waiting, which picked up the motorcade and fell in as the follow car as if nothing was out of the ordinary. How did I know this? There was no conscious reason why I felt so strongly this was going to happen.
Years later, as I studied psychology and the subconscious mind relating to intuition, I realized my subconscious mind had fed me information from past assignments with the agent who was driving. No offense to him, of course, but there had been several times when he had not stuck to the predetermined motorcade or foot movements. That information had been processed by my subconscious mind and sent to my conscious mind as an alarm.
An identical incident occurred again with a high-risk official I was assigned to as a Team Leader for a movement in Washington. We placed a follow car at a location the senior Ops officers had not thought of. I just knew something was going to go wrong and it did, quickly and potentially disastrous. It was only because of the position of the follow car that we were able to stay with the official in a protective status during a very high threat operation.
This brings me to the discussion of a fascinating aspect of reading human behavior; intuition. For years intuition has been viewed as some sort of mystical force that only exists in the minds of the superstitious. Recent scientific studies have proven this is not the case. Intuition is a real and identifiable function of the human mind. It is the surfacing of a subconscious memory we misinterpret as a “feeling.”
Intuition is a thought process that takes place at lightning speed in the subconscious mind. It is not mystical at all. It’s really a huge, complex neurological database of information released in a flash when triggered by some sort of stimuli. Intuition is a natural function of our subconscious mind. Indeed, our subconscious mind controls over 90% of all we do during our daily activities. The conscious mind houses our morality, judgment, logical reasoning, subjectivity and awareness of self. The subconscious mind is a brain function that moves so fast our conscious mind cannot comprehend it.
During interaction between two or more human beings, there is a perpetual state of two-way communication, during which each party “leaks” behavioral information—such as emotion, attitude, amount of eye contact, body posture, tone of voice, speech patterns, etc. This information is rapidly fed into the subconscious mind, where it is stored for later use in the form of intuition.
How Intuition Works
Intuition is often called a “hunch,” especially by law enforcement officers. Studies show this “hunch” is incredibly accurate. It is actually a rapid, millisecond processing of the surrounding environment, people and activities. These mental stimuli are compared and evaluated based on the huge stored database of past experiences. If something is wrong to the subconscious mind based on this stored information, an alarm is triggered and sent to the conscious mind. This is why veteran police officers are experts at spotting malevolent intent in individuals or potential danger in environmental surroundings. The more experience an officer has, the more data is stored in the subconscious. This subconscious thought is processed in a flash. Feelings based on intuition many times seem stronger than the immediate information before us. Those feelings are usually right. In this way, intuition assists in predicting human behavior. For example, a mother who has spent years with a child will know immediately if the child is lying to her.
The subconscious mind is essentially a huge amount of data stored on a “server” deep in the nervous system that processes the information with incredible speed, and in a very accurate fashion this “server” gathers information, stores it and retrieves it for use by the conscious mind.
Our subconscious mind will sound an alarm if we observe certain types of behavior; voice, posture, eye contact, appearance, tone of voice or body movements that have been associated with danger sometime in our past, going all the way back to early childhood. Honing your behavioral observation skills will improve this database housed deep within your subconscious mind.
Another personal example of intuition relates to the time I spent in ?????????, Bosnia, just after the Serbs unleashed their attack on ??????????????. I spent a lot of time closely working with the Bosnian government and several government and police personnel. They had been through an incredible amount of severe, long-term suffering. Back in the states, on several occasions I ran across an individual I had never seen before, but immediately knew he was from Bosnia. I could tell by the look in the person’s eyes he had been there during what amounted to a holocaust. This happened in Detroit, Michigan, at a Domino’s Pizza, and at a shopping center in Herndon, Virginia.
This was beyond my conscious thinking. I just knew it, strongly. When I asked them where they were from, sure enough I was right. In reality, my subconscious mind, full of data regarding the mannerisms, stance and especially the kind of sadness I had seen in people’s eyes so many times during my time in ??????????????, had retrieved that data and sent it to my conscious mind. I didn’t know quite how I could recognize these people, especially the ones that had suffered through the war, but I did and I verified it by asking them, with my co-worker standing there with me. It’s quite amazing how the subconscious mind works.
A note of caution: be aware of your intuition, what it is and test it for accuracy. Intuition, like any other thought process, should be analyzed to make sure it is completely correct. Sometimes faulty information may have been fed into your subconscious memory. So, don’t overlook your intuition, listen to what it is saying and verify its accuracy. Identify exactly what the “hunch” is and make sure it is bias free.
So, again, if you have a hunch about a person’s voice quality, facial expressions, body movements, demeanor and/or the surrounding environment, pay close attention to it. If you have a strong sensing something is wrong, don’t react too quickly; just be ready in case your intuition is right, which it is many times.
Experienced intelligence officers, counterintelligence officers and police officers are constantly receiving feedback from an individual’s behavior, speech and voice. As any polygraph examiner will tell you, there are times when you know during the interview the Subject is lying and this is confirmed by the polygraph instrument and subsequent admissions made by the individual. There are times you will pick up deception in a conversation with a person without even thinking about what is going on consciously. There is a subconscious trigger.
Have you ever heard the phrase “a woman’s intuition?” That’s probably because it is true more often in women than in men. In our culture, women are given more freedom to access the database stored in their subconscious mind, which emerges as a feeling or emotion. Historically, women have practiced this from the time they were little. Men have been taught to “stuff it.” It’s amazing that, even in this context, intuition kicks into gear with men when they are approaching a dangerous situation.
My mother, Caroline Shipp, is one of the most classic cases of intuition I have ever seen. She will know when one of us is sick and will give us a call. When we were teenagers, we couldn’t get away with anything. If we were out carousing with our buddies doing things we were not supposed to do, she would know about it. It was uncanny. For example, in 2009 she called to ask if my brother was OK after he had just come out of neck surgery he had not told her about. My brothers and I joke about this regularly. Mom has really developed the ability to intuitively read situations, and she caught us several times up to no good while we were growing up.
In summary, listen to your “gut feeling,” especially in potentially dangerous situations. If you are a woman and have been asked out on a date or approached by a man who causes a sense something is wrong - don’t do it! If you are with your family and are driving or walking through a neighborhood and you sense something is wrong, don’t go there. If you are in a business deal and you sense your contact is deceiving you, listen to your intuition. Practice listening to this lightning fast retrieval of data, learn how to analyze it for accuracy and how to appropriately act on it. It could save your life.