There are so many facts and statistics around everything to do with business - how long your emails should be if you want them to be read, the best time to post on social media, what kinds of meetings work best for what topics, etc. It’s like we’ve taken all of the emotion out of business and make every decision based on pure facts. For some, that seems like a very good thing. Emotions and business do not belong in the same sentence. But what about our intuition (or awareness, perception, or insight)? Have we lost the art of letting that guide us through certain situations?
As a CEO, your job is to make decisions without having all the facts. If you waited until you had all the information, your company would quickly go under because your competition would have passed you. But rather than let that happen, you continue to move towards the unknown future. You use the facts that you have to make the best decision you can for your team and your company. How can you supplement the facts you do know to arrive at a conclusion? Use your intuition.
Many leaders – such as Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and Steve Jobs – trust their intuition to make important, and sometimes life-changing, business decisions. Those names just happen to be all men that I read in those pieces. Women tend to turn towards and trust their insight more than men, according to this article. But no matter what your gender, most people don’t talk about it. There is such a stigma around trusting your gut that a majority of executives and managers hide the fact that they use their intuition at all, and they certainly don’t talk about it during the decision-making process. Why not? Our awareness is really just a bunch of connections based on facts and past experiences. When we give our brains the chance to make correlations to things we already know but haven’t consciously connected the dots on, that’s intuition. When we’re trying to force ourselves to find an answer, our instincts are pushed out and we’re not using our full decision-making abilities. This means that our intuition is just as much fact as something we read in a Forbes or Inc.com article. It's based 100% on information unique and pertinent to us.
The thing about our hunches is that they can sometimes get confused with fear. If your body is telling you not to do something, where is the voice coming from? If it’s coming from your head, it’s probably fear. But if you feel it in your gut, then it’s likely your intuition. When your sixth sense talks to you, it's more of a feeling of knowing rather than thinking. The only way to get acquainted with your insights and really know what they sound like is to pay attention. Keep in mind that your intuition doesn’t just talk to you during the day. It can show up in dreams, as well.
If you’re wondering where your natural instincts have played a part in your life and how you can tune in and use them, reach out to me.