4 Intuitive Tips for Success

I have heard the term “uncertain times” used too frequently in the last few years. When were times certain? In business and life it is always essential to be pro-active, plastic, and prepared. We should never assume that things are certain, because this will only set us up for a great fall.

In business, and especially in an economic downturn, it is the intuitive company that thrives. Those actual out-of-the-box ideas thrive in unsettled times. It’s not worth waiting for miracles to happen, or things to get better. You must create the future on your own terms.

How to Rule the World from Your Couch was my answer to the companies that asked me for a linear guide to a non-linear process: intuition. Sun Tzu, the Chinese military sage said, “Every battle is won before it is ever fought” – and I couldn’t agree more. An integrated, intuitive process allows each of us to be a well-prepared, successful leader and innovator in whatever it is we do. I have seen that intuitive processes, which have their own language, like precognition (telling to future), telepathy (mind reading or message sending), are best used when integrated into daily tasks within a family, community or company.

I bet many of you would snicker if I said all successful people are intuitives and that all great endeavors go forward successfully only with a knowledge (conscious or unconscious) of the future. There are simply too many variables to make decisions correctly in a rapidly changing world without precognition. Unlike imagination or brainstorming, when invoking intuition one must pick a challenge or a question and allow your attention to guide you to the information, as opposed to creating the information.

Intuition is a set of skills that allows you to get the right answer in response to a question or situation and it doesn’t always come from the top. It is the flash of insight that is not based on traditional data or experience that leads us to correct assumptions and right action. Anyone who is successful on a consistent basis at anything is intuitive.

Whether you are a huge corporation or an individual, here are some simple starting points for getting your intuition to work:

1. Ask yourself, if the world/people in this meeting/the beautiful girl on the couch could hear what I am thinking, how would they respond?
2. What could I be thinking that is genuine for me that would get the response I desire? Try to make that shift.
3. Give someone a card in an envelope with a specific question on it and ask that person to follow their attention and report anything they think, feel, or notice. Ask them questions that do not reveal the question you asked or lead them to answer in a certain way. Take notes.
4. In the middle of a meeting gone wrong, pretend you can hop into the other person and experience what they are experiencing. Allow yourself to take a beat and find a way to present your goal in a way that satisfies what they want to experience.