What is Intuition?

I just had an interview by phone with a young CEO for a company in St. George. They were looking for a contract sales trainer to travel the world part-time.

The call didn't go well. He decided in about 10 minutes I didn't have the 'intuitive abilities' to handle the position. Of course, he was completely wrong - as he didn't realize that it took me all of 10 seconds to realize I didn't want to work with this arrogant child.

What is intuition? A gut feeling? Or the quick assessment of information given?

What I heard immediately? Arrogance. Impatience. Self-entitlement. His tone of voice was aggressive and petulant. He wanted to make it clear he was boss.

Personally, I have no desire to work for someone else, unless it is a PERFECT situation. I knew immediately this was not it, and went into an interview mode designed to end the call quickly.

Midway through the call, he suggested I was too rigid in my approach to training. Hmmm - my clients don't seem to think so.

At the end of the call, he suggested I didn't have the intuitive powers to be successful with his company.

Ahh...he couldn't be further from the truth!

When your intuition hits, do you follow it, or ignore it hoping it will go away? I have found time after time, whether in business or personal relationships, that ignoring my gut feelings is a mistake.

It's easy to do though. We get blinded by money, power, lust, prestige - and we tell our intuition to go take a hike.

There's a reason intuition is called a gut feeling. It's the stomach trying to defend itself from a kick in the near future.

America Overrules Idol Judges

So much for throwing the competition. If that was David Cooks goal, America strongly voiced their opinion by making him an overwhelming (12 million votes) winner of season 7's American Idol.

It will be interesting to hear his first album, and track his success vs. David Archuletta, and the previous Idol winners. Will David be able to put his own imprint on the tracks, or will it be another over-produced, milquetoast debut for the Idol winner?

Logic v. Intuition

I have been, for 39 years and 11 months, a cynic. I have pooh-poohed positive affirmations. I have said 'yeah right' to any idea that seemed Pollyanna, Get Rich Quick, or remotely Positive Mental Attitude related.

Mind you, I haven't doen this INTENTIONALLY. I have, in fact, a huge library of books by Napoleon Hills, Norman Vincent Peale, Anthony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Stephen Covey, Jack Canfield, and dozens of other authors.

And YES, I've read them. But in the back of my mind, I've always said "yeah - right - whatever", even as I tell others that these are effective strategies. I know intuitively that these are right, but my MIND battles the heart. I've been taught this is the right way. Logic over Intuition. Spock over Kirk. Even though I KNOW and have empirical evidence that if I just BELIEVE, these strategies will work. This is why I can teach them with such conviction.

My internal critic, as Julia Cameron tells me, is a naysayer. The one who tells me its not possible for ME. It is for everyone else, but not ME.

And there are always plenty of Naysayers in my life, from family to friends to ex-employers to those folks that give books one-star reviews on Amazon (see the earlier post).

I am committed to Killing my Naysayer (just the internal one - not those people around me, whom I will simply learn to manage better).

What part of you do you need to 'kill' to get it out of your way? Can you release your internal Capt. Kirk (who always beats Spock at Three Dimensional Chess with intuition over logic)? Finding your New Foot Smell depends on it!