Gut Check: Calibrating With Yourself

The Oxford English Dictionary defines intuition as “the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process”.

Intuition has been described by Isaac Asmiov as “the art, peculiar to the human mind, of working out the correct answer from data that is, in itself, incomplete or even, perhaps, misleading.”

How is your relationship with this aspect of yourself? Can you find your own way through a situation with incomplete data?

We’ve all had a gut feeling. Maybe it came in the form of danger. Wrong place, wrong time. Maybe it came in the form of romance as in: ‘That’s the woman I’m going to marry. I can just feel it.’

Intuition is a muscle that can be strengthened. It is an aspect of emotional intelligence and with study, attention and patience, can be grown and used to further aid your persuasion skills.

Following your hunches, gut feelings and intuitions is entirely acceptable to apply in business as well as life in general. They are a sign that your Gentle Giant, other than conscious mind is hard at work flawlessly guiding our lives as we’ve requested. (Check out my other articles for an idea of how to get in touch with your Gentle Giant.)

People experience intuition differently. I feel it in my stomach. It’s a queasy feeling that radiates sharply. Other people feel it in their chests, heart pumping faster. Others have a hardness at the back of their throats, like they can’t swallow. Paying attention to these subtle (and not so subtle) physical shifts can make all the difference in our self-calibration. These shifts in some cases can mean the difference in the measures we take to close a deal or get out of a sticky situation.

As a small disclaimer: Following hunches shouldn’t negate logic and reason, but act in concert with them. The ability to pay attention to hunches and intuition is sometimes relegated to new age followers and is often neglected or mocked in business situations. Think about military personnel or police officers (especially ones in the line of danger) who rely on these abilities to keep themselves safe. Or think about business mogul Lee Iacoca who once said, “The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.”

Think back to times when you had these feelings and didn’t heed the warning. What unpleasantness could you have avoided if you had (a broken heart, a stolen purse. . .)?

By checking in, centering, and gaining clarity, our persuasion is enhanced immeasurably in all aspects of life. A really great resource on intuition is Laura Day’s book, ‘Practical Intuition,’ which contains some amazing exercises to strengthen and stretch the “sixth sense” or really, what I like to think of as our relationship to and messages from our gentle giant.

 

About the Author:

Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.