Your Intuition Wants To Kill You
Saturday, 4:14pm
Reno, NV
“He’s not the messiah. He’s a very naughty boy…” (Terry Jones, Monty Python’s “Life Of Brian”)
Howdy…
Quick post here… but it’s important.
I’m relaying something here that I just shared in the Simple Writing System mentoring program. (The entire program is sizzling with action, by the way. Mucho fun… and this is yet another “taste” of the kind of stuff we’re getting into.)
It’s about using and abusing “intuition” when there’s money on the line.
I had a little saying I’d rely on, back when I was a freelancer: “It’s a mess to guess.”
I used that saying as a reminder not to go off half-cocked when trying to persuade prospects to part with money.
In the SWS training, I mention that most people’s intuition is just dead wrong. It was amended, during discussion, to “untrained intuition is almost always dead wrong.”
There’s a difference, you see, between good intuition and bad intuition.
And it’s worth learning about.
Here’s the slightly-edited rant I just delivered:
My own discovery of how dangerous intuition could be — in the wrong hands, used the wrong way — was mostly through experience.
When I talk about intuition now, I’m talking about my own long trek through the School Of Hard Knocks, seen through the eyes of a guy who has studied psychology both formally, and via “street level” salesmanship.
When most folks talk about intuition, however, they are really talking about “wishful thinking“. They aren’t trained to really access the quasi-unconscious state where info is objectively processed and run through what we’ve learned in our life’s experience… which is what “intuition” actually is.
In poker, for example (and by the way, academic psych loves to use playing cards and games to test this stuff), you can have all the “feeling” you want about another player’s hand.
If you’re just looking for a “fold” or “raise” feeling, you may get it…
… but if you don’t test results, or go deeper into WHY you felt the way you felt…
… you won’t learn whether your intuition in these cases is any good or not.
Again: Most non-wishful-thinking “intuition” is really experience, memory, and current facts melted down into an educated guess… tested over and over again in the crucible of real life.
For some professionals (once they’re adept) the process can happen so quickly… and be so accurate… that there’s little need to stop to double-check the process, or move beyond that familiar feeling they get when they have a “hunch” they can act on.
They’re trained to know when that hunch has legs… and when it’s just bullshit bubbling up from inchoate desire.
So here is my Grizzled Veteran Advice: All rookies should not rely on intuition…
… until they’ve proven that those feelings actually are worth relying on. That takes time.
To train yourself, study the process in your head as it happens… take notes… keep score…
… and see if you can’t improve whatever parts of that process that seem to be faulty. (For example, if you keep trying to twist reality to fit political, religious or other ideological thinking, you’re going to have murderously-bad intuition. It’s got to be reality-based… which is really, really hard to do when you’re shackled with preconceived notions of how the world “should” be.)
The biggest part of waking up and “knowing thyself”, as Aristotle suggested to us… is to abandon your prejudices, certainty, and unexamined habits.
All top writers go through this gauntlet… it’s how they GET good.
Your intuition, left wild and untamed, can get you hurt.
Once trained, vetted and tempered, you will possess a powerful tool for moving through life like a ninja pro.
Trust me on this: The examined life is the only one worth living.
Love to hear your comments, below.
Stay frosty,
John
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Excellent stuff John. Much appreciated as always!
Thanks, Kyle.
How come you’re always among the first to know when I’ve posted, anyway? I think you got here before my Tweet even went out…
I got it on your Facebook and you’re one of only two people whom I drop everything to read/watch when you publish something.
Funny follow up – not sure if this directly relates to this blog, but in a way, I think it does. Just after reading, while sick, laying in bed focusing on everything going wrong in my life and making it worse than it really is, it just occurs to me “Wait. What’s truly happening in this situation or that? In what ways could my gut reaction be wrong? What can I do now?” And sure enough, I get to the real root of the problems and start coming up with solutions.
Good advice for all of us there, Kyle.
We all tend to “awfulize”, especially when tired or worn-out. Part of having a philosophy of life is knowing when to apply it.
Even trained intuition will occasionally slop over into whiny self-pity when you’re frazzled…
Of course it’s good advice – I learned it from you and Gary! =P
Nice one John..
Intuition is a very powerful tool indeed.
There is one very simple way to tell whether it is intuition or.. PROJECTION that is giving you that sense of “knowing”.
If there is an emotional charge, positive or negative, associated with the “knowing” then it is a likely projection of fear or desire.
What we tend to fear or desire we tend to look for situations and proof to back these up. If you’ve ever had a situation that you’ve tried to convince yourself is intuition, you know what i’m talking about..
Intuition is neutral in the moment of knowing.
I have never come across bad or untrained intuition.. simply confusion about the classification of a feeling as intuition or projection.
When knowing thyself, you become more aware of the filters you are using to see your world.
So next time you interpret your intuition as telling you something, that later turns out to be different.. notice what the projection is that you are making and you will discover far more about yourself and how you make decisions – and how to use that information to make better decisions in the future.
In TOC conflict is caused by an assumption, uncover and dissolve the assumption and you dissolve the conflict. When you notice the conflict in what you thought would happen and what you projected would happen, notice the assumptions being made and any links to desire or fear.
Be aware, that if you have repressed the desire or fear, the link will be harder to see, and you will most likely be all the more adamant that it is intuition, but if there is any disparity between what you thought was true and what is true – the link is there. And as john says, keep track of these, take notes and you will start to see a pattern..
And.. I’m just making all this up.
Don’t believe me, test it for yourself 🙂
Cheers!
kat
Excellent point, Kat. “Projection” is a psych term, meaning that you’re unconsciously pushing your own biases and fears onto someone else. The unaware person doing this will not question his totally bullshit-based beliefs.
Not to get too heavy, but this is also the top tactic of any group looking to solidify a majority, by demonizing a minority. The Nazi’s did it to the Jews, racists do it to ethnic groups, political wingnuts do it to their opponents.
As long as people stay half-asleep, the bad guys get away with it.
I’d have to say that a good chunk of what I teach rests on the fundamental recommendation that people “wake up”. Good luck to me on that task, too. Uphill battle…
Kat,
I love your point. I think that intuition is neutral too. And I think that I’m an expert when it comes to honing into mine. I think that women are more attuned to intuition. But it’s just my opinion.
Awesome John.
Intuitions great, and yeah it works better when it’s trained.
I like it when you say things that are similar to what I think…
…to be fair I think I may have picked up a few things from you – That’s what my intuitions telling me anyway.
~Chris
Glad to help, Chris.
MMM, I agree. But you certainly shouldn’t even ignore your tuition either – even if it’s considered “untrained.” I’ve found it should always be explored, because sometimes your experience stems from a place that only on the surface looks irrelevant and unrelated.
ha ha, you can’t ignore tuition – they won’t let you. I meant INtuition. 🙂
I was gonna say…
“They’re trained to know when that hunch has legs… and when it’s just bullshit bubbling up from inchoate desire.”
I had to look up inchoate. Anyone else?
The training or maybe experience is the real key here. There are no shortcuts… damn it.
As always, great stuff John.
David
You gotta read more sci-fi, dude. “Inchoate” was one of Asimov’s favorite words… and I believe Stephen King uses it a lot, too…
A great saying that one of our quality VPs at Ford, Dave, used to have posted in his wall is:
“In God We Trust – All Others Bring Data”.
Kind of a humorous way of saying you’ve gotta prove everything you’re saying or else it’s just bs, “show me the numbers” was another favorite.
I never forgot it… so that’s why split testing and constant gathering data to validate products, copy and offers is so critical, vs intuition, which is in many cases the “autopilot” use of a lot of data points gained from years of experience, which is useful too. Solid advice.
-k
Good point, Ken. Not just results, but data to back it up is always the way to go.
Still, I bet you’ve got your intuition wired on “hot”, at this point in your career…
Or, do you actively ignore it?
Good question; I tend to still be much more data driven, doing a lot of competitive research (compete.com), and studying what top guys (like you) do in their approach to the marketing and connecting with audiences. I suppose it’s from my trading background, I’m wrong half the time using intuition/best guesses in trading even with thousands of trades under my belt, it’s all about looking at the data and cutting losses as small as possible so everything adds up green when it’s all said and done. I think intuition comes into play best when discounting/deciding what not to do, based on experience, and still validating the “go ahead” decisions with data and market tests for conversions… like your point about experiences being the crucible within which to forge success, it’s tough to get it right, so I throw darts and markets to see what sticks, small at first, then scale up once I have a winning message to market match, with line extensions and more.. always starting small, then building up derivative products, jvs and more products once the initial product proves itself. Starting small w/webinars, downloadable cheap stuff, then expanding into multi dvd systems once the concept proves itself with sales, not before.
Testing small, incrementally, lots of data-driven feelers in the market (intuition/experience comes into play when deciding what to mini-launch), then expanding from there. My brain still melts from all this stuff, it doesn’t get any easier. But it’s hugely fun and profitable, so worth it. Like learning all your stuff, I use it daily in my emails/sites, pulls in great numbers, so big thanks.
-k
I’m with Kyle: I head over asap when I get your email. And I read all the comments too.
My current pre-conceived notion is that the “long tail” works. This is based on 15 years of being on the web, and watching older, yet still high-quality content burble up. I can’t help but wonder: do past results with search engines have any bearing on what’s coming next? So the last 15 years worked one way… that’s no guarantee the next 15 years will work the same way. Or even that next year will work that way.
Good luck getting people to wake up. I have a hard enough time keeping myself “awake,” and I’d like to think I know better.
It’s a constant battle for all sentient beings striving to rise above the slumbering herd…
fascinating how you writing this post coincides directly with an experience where I had to call bullshit on my mind calling it worse that it was.
asking why and putting everything in context usually helps get me moving in the right direction.
our growth is in direct proportion to our willingness to let control go of what is (considering change is already constant)
thanks for posting john.
be well
matt
P.S. SWS coaching is indeed sizzling.
Glad you’re enjoying the Simple Writing System program, Matt…
I’ve actually a month’s worth of content for this blog sitting just in the Student Lounge area of the membership site… the joint is a heckuva lot more active than any real-life campus I’ve ever been on…
I think it’s true that untrained intuition can be a dangerous thing. But I also think it’s true that you need to really listen to your intuition (untrained or not) because I’ve noticed that if you don’t pay any attention to it it will eventually shut up and just… go away. And that’s not good for anyone. Having said all that, though, you’ve just got to crunch the numbers. Otherwise, you’ll never know what’s working and what’s not. Then, too, when you have the numbers, you can start comparing your intuition to your results. And you might just have an aha! moment or two and discover that what you *thought* your intuition was telling you wasn’t what it was actually trying to say at all. Then you can learn to read those “feelings” you get a little more closely so you can begin to pick up on the unspoken “language” of your intuition. That way it’s all good and you just keep getting better and better. (Anyway, that’s what *I* like to think!)
Hi Venus. Thanks for the comment.
And I’m not picking on you… but I gotta get this out there: Women have a harder time admitting their intuition sucks, than men do. I think it’s cultural, though, and NOT because of some strange gender-based wiring in our brains.
When I was growing up, there was even a thing called “a woman’s intuition”… which, as I continued to grow up and become a grizzled old guy, I realized is complete and utter bullshit.
No one has the inside track to intuition. Almost everyone wishes they had great intuition… and most never stop to try and gauge how good theirs is. They just blunder onward, making bad calls and forgetting about it.
So I’m disagreeing with you here. You DO need to stop listening to your intuition… if it’s been wrong a lot.
It won’t “go away”. It’s not a muscle that atrophies — it’s neurons firing off in your cerebral cortex, trying to connect all these disparate elements of cognition (like experience, incoming data, memory, biases, prejudices, conflicting input from friends, past advice, social mores, etc).
We’re not talking about your intuition about a friend’s agenda, or how good a movie might be, or what your cat wants for dinner.
We’re talking about applying intuition to business decisions. Where money’s on the line.
It’s not hard to train your intuition. It’s even easier when you use it a lot… because, once you start keeping score, you’ll quickly have a lot of hard data to help you with your reality check on how good it really is (or isn’t).
I mean, really… didn’t your intuition tell you I was gonna jump back in here and argue with you?
Just kidding…
Thanks again for your comment. We need to hear everyone’s input… and I’m not “right” just because it’s my blog. (Though I do generally get the last word in.) I am VERY open to other views (though, I will debate the point…)
Somewhere along this line of comments the phrase “wake up” was posted. Amen. Too many people go through the motions of life, having no clue of how they got what they got. Tuning into your surroundings, your gut, using that organ housed in the skull at the top of your nervous system, is critical to following that path of insight. I have practiced many years with my intuition. It’s actaully quite funny now to look back on my decision in life that were based outside of my intuitive command. Thanks for sharing your insights John. You always make me think…which is awesome.
Interesting post. How did you know my intuition is trying to kill me?
Sometimes ‘it’ feels right because you want it (wishful thinking, as you say), not because your intuition is telling you it is. Sometimes ‘it’ feels right because your experience is telling you. That’s not intuition, either. Intuition is knowing something that you have no apparent way of knowing. You don’t need to be trained for this, but it can help. I think that we actually get trained out of this, and get trained to live in our heads. The trick is to become clear and to recognize the difference between the voices of intuition, reason, and desire. And, even the best psychics get it wrong sometimes. A person whose intuition is always right is like a gambler who always wins.
Having said that, I think that intuition is an essential part of our being. I also agree with Kat’s point about neutrality.
Hi John
You are so cool.
You taught me one most important thing about business and this is it: TELL STORIES.
As an obsessed writer of fiction who likes to stay in my little world of Gothic Fantasy, I was so afraid I would dilute my creativity if I learned how to write for business. When you talked about the power of story-telling, you liberated me!
Thank you.
Also, a British friend of mine wants to know what “Stay Frosty” means.
Cheers,
Arlene
I really had to think about this one, but you’re right. In a previous life when I had to play negotiation games, and I always had a knack for knowing their next move and beating them at their own game. I had achieved a bit of notoriety for being able to melt such a strong adversary – but it was only because I had been on the inisde for a few years first. It came from knowledge.
And you pick on women’s intuition, but it comes from knowledge too. My ex always lamented because I would always catch him in his lies. My daughter freaks because I’ll know exactly what she’s going to do before she does. But, in some areas, my intuition does suck – and it’s because I don’t know enough about the subject to analyze it correctly.
But, besides knowledge, the other thing that separates intuition from wishful thinking is plain old common sense. That seems to be sorely lacking these days….
John this was fantastic. I often enjoy the fact that most people continue to try to push against life because they want to see life as it is in their head instead of how life actually is.
Once we examine what life is and how life works it seems like we synchronistically flow right through it.
This was a great post!
That’s not much of a surprise since I enjoy all your posts but this really struck a chord with me.
Thanks John!
“abandon your prejudices, certainty, and unexamined habits”
Oh my gawd, that is good!
Right now I’m watching the movie “Songcatcher” – a musicologist discovering amazing musical talents and songs in the Appalachian backwoods in the late 19th century. They don’t know what they have, are entrenched in their habits and view of life, and are selling off their lands to the coal companies for a dollar an acre…
– easy to judge them, right? But aren’t we just as blind, can’t see the forest for the trees? Example: WHO bought lots of domain names way-back-when???
–
– I bought ONE and it changed my life. Of course I should have bought and bought and bought and invested everything I had into it, but no, in my mind I was in the backwoods just as much as the people in the Songcatcher movie
–
– “abandon your prejudices, certainty, and unexamined habits”
–
– Amen, I’ll get to work – thanks John!!
Hey Carlton (and everyone else),
I’ve got a question. How do you know when your intuition is good or not … on things like hooks?
For example, I was watching “The pursuit of happiness” and this hook jumped into my head:
“How A Broke And Homeless (But Savvy) San-Francisco Salesman Stumbles Upon The Fundamental But Over-looked Street Level Persuasion Secrets And Manages To Gather $129,799 In Just 78 Days By Selling On A Commission Only Scheme …”
(or whatever, it was brokering).
The incongruence and juxtaposition is here … but something just looks … wrong.
I’m not trying to get a free consultancy, but I don’t know if I should trust my instincts here or not. It’s not an working headline, just a thinking exercise.
Thanks,
Razvan
I say, always pay attention to your ‘instincts’. The real question is, what is your intuition trying to tell you? It’s not always what it seems. You need to learn the language of your self. This takes practice in self-communication. A hook indicates that there’s something to examine further. Why is it bothering you so much? Your unconscious filters out most of your environment. For some reason, it’s choosing to fixate on this thing. I know this is a fluffy answer, but this is a blog comment….
btw, a hook is not intuition. Intuition is neutral (no energetic or emotional charge). That hook is an emotional response – still to be examined, in my opinion.
John,
Thanks for your insights… and you’re right, of course, when you say that “women’s intuition” doesn’t exactly exist — especially as applied to business. But, I will insist on the idea that if you don’t listen to your intuition it will stop talking to you. No, it’s not a like a muscle or anything like that, but it is your mind (the part that you are not currently aware of) that is alerting to you the fact that “something of interest is going on here.” The trick is learning to pay attention to what it’s saying and how it’s saying it — to not get in the way of the flow — and to acknowledge when it’s happening. I guess that might be what you mean by “keeping score.” Now, of course, when you get an intuition about something you’ve still got to check it out with facts. I mean something “is what it is” (to quote a mentor of mine) and no amount of “wishing” will change it. Intuition is clearly a “learned” art. And, yes, some of us do learn it at our mother’s knee. Some folks think that has something to do with the corpus collosum (sp?) being thicker in women’s brains thus allowing for quicker processing between the left and the right parts of the brains. Well, maybe not quicker, but less compartmentalization and the easier flow of information back and forth. Me, yes, I’m pretty intuitive. But I’ve trained myself to be. And I’m pretty much aware when I’m doing “wish fulfillment” and when I’m not. By the way, John, how specifically did you learn to develop your own intuition? Because it’s obviously very, very good.
Thanks for the “reminder” to dig deep. Your on my calender of timely thoughts and now I’m looking at life in a deeper way. Going through my books of the old masters again and this touches a similar thread…
[…] Your Intuition Wants To Kill You… […]
Great discussion!
Intuition is absolutely real and very useful but you are right…you need to know how to interpret it. As Kat pointed out strong emotion of any kind usually throws intuition way off the mark.
Thanks,
Susan
Well as usual the best stuff just got better. But if the gecko or that ridiculous Flo are any example, then we’re all screwed. I thought that testing would have gotten them a one-way ticket out of my living room. Apparently my intuition is wrong, or else insurance companies just have too much money to waste on those campaigns. Either way, your advice rings true regardless of the Larry Tate / Darrin Stevens trends that seem to be on media.
Thanks John. In-tuition — the teacher within. I like your division into ‘bad’ v ‘trained.’ Clarity of mind can really bring through past lessons and experiences in a rush, to compare with present data. Geoff.
Dear John,
What a delightful rumpus you can start. Thanks for setting other minds in motion with your words.
I wish to add a thought about using all that great intuitive juice in different contexts. Even for those of us who consider intuition our natural habitat, there is always another fence to jump over, another meadow where we are ignorant about which new plants to eat and where to dance.
So vetted and trained intuitives are also perpetual beginners — observers who live in that creative tension between the keen and the clueless.
Yes, yes! to waking up and knowing thyself. That is the paradox of ever-changing groundedness which allows the novel to take meaningful form, and the familiar to dance in new meadows with new data partners…
…without killing off the observer, or our so-many chances for success.
Peace, and thanks,
Laraine
GREAT! Important discussion! But something’s missing. You mention poker players and the ability to make hunches over time based on experience that includes things like trial and error, motivation of pleasure or pain (win or lose!), and sensory experience (picking up another player’s micro-movements or “tell”). This is similar to methods, techniques, training and experienced learning necessary for a tracker or hunter to be successful(unless someone sets up a blind and sits and waits for some dumb animal to walk by.) These are all logical processes that take place OVER TIME. True intuition happens all at once and means “direct and unmediated knowledge.” It is immediate and compresses tons of info-energy bits (gentle reminder that math & science tell us we’re living within 11 dimensions) into a flash of comprehension. Since we’re talking psych, James Hillman says intuition is both “thoughtless (not reasoned out) and not a feeling state (non-emotional)…it is a quick, clear and full apprehension. Intuitions occur to people without any known process of cognition or reflective thinking.” That’s all to say that our poker player and tracker have honed their instinct (no pain yes!; survival even better!), trial and error (pattern recognition), and sensory hyper-vigilence (constantly scan and pay LOTS of attention to everything in your environment for every tinsy clue) to make an educated conclusion…okay, guess. I agree with you 100% that education and being a grown-up are the best teachers when it comes to decision making. But please don’t mistake personal responsibility & development (ie, catching & copping to our shadow projection) with intuition. We can go all the way back to Plotinus who clarified this question, saying there are three degrees of knowledge. Opinion (based on the instrument of the senses and oh, so changeable); Science (using instruments of analysis, deduction, repetition);and Illumination (whose instrument is intuition). We’ll make faster, clearer, better decisions when we stop confusing sequential logic with intuition and value both ways of knowing. You can imagine that being president of the International Association of Intuitive Entrepreneurs means I have lots more to say about this topic but enough for now. Again, thanks, John, for opening a much needed and complex discussion.
.
If you were a tree, what kind would you be?
An Inchoate tree perhaps?
.
Great post! My intuition is telling me I have what it takes to be a great copywriter, but reality keeps sneaking in reminding me that “life” gets in the way & does all it can to discourage me. I’m going with my intuition on this one. I think if there’s a way to check your intuition, & I think their usually is, that’s what you need to do before trusting it blindly.
Intuition or “school of hard knocks” – or is it a combination of those, with keen observation added to the mix?
I was an indepedent contractor with a company that died a slow and painful death. Helped build the thing to $140 Million in sales in 2001, and watched it decline over 7 long years until the owners shut the doors in 2008. (The thing about being an INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR is that you can have little impact on the direction the company is rolling.)
Frustrating as it was to lose my comfortable risidual income, observing a company’s death is fascinating and many great lessons can be learned.
I’m telling you this because I went to work for a media company a little more than a year ago. It’s one of those that kills lots of trees everyday and arrives at your doorstep in the mornings, if you’re a subscriber.
I feel like I’m stuck in the movie “Groundhog’s Day.” The company is going through the same exact sequence as the previous company that died. You know the stages – denial, anger (usually heads roll in this stage), bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
From my perspective, this medium has spent the last few years in denial. Sure – they’re making attempts to shift their product – shift advertisers to the online product, etc. – but none of the changes are coming about quickly or aggressively.
About six months ago, I sat down with a coworker (over a nice bottle of merlot) – and I made a list of predictions. It included staffing cuts, managers who would be eliminated, and the kind of message we’d start to hear from management.
Every single prediction came true.
Last week I made a few new ones that I dare not share publicly.
The challenge is that corporate managers who are in the thick of it, aren’t usually open to suggestions. Perhaps they’re busy trusting their intuition. Go figure.
For me, I don’t plan to start a new branch of the psychic network anytime soon. But I believe a combination of street smarts, past experience, and observation is highly valuable. Let the numbers do their talking. And then, perhaps a bit of….intuition.
But what about the problem with ready aim, ready aim, ready aim. Too much self evaluation and I never do anything.
Max
This post outlines my exact thoughts on the subject.
Intuition is only useful for the well trained individual (who has seen a particular situation many times).
Using intuition when starting out is like reading instructions from a blank piece of paper… it’s just not going to help.
enjoyed the post as usual John.
regards
Simon
Thanks John,
You always have great stuff to say and I’ve taken all your pointers to heart. It did bother me, however that your “The only life worth living..” statement wasn’t given it’s proper acknowlegement as the original quote is “The unexamined life is not worth living” by Socrates.
Look forward to hearing more from you since you’re my writing “guru”. Everyone else is a little “half-baked”.
Thanks again,
Patricia
Of course it’s Socrates. I keep saying it’s Aristotle, incorrectly. Can’t seem to dislodge that mistake from my cranium.
And yes, there is a slight rhetorical difference to the way the quote is traditionally presented. But the sentiment is the same…
Thanks for writing, and keeping me on my toes…
Hi John
Great advice. Until one can differentiate between what their experience tells them and getting caught up in the general hype, it is better to rely on doing proper due diligence before committing to anything that is going to cost money.
John,
I agree & disagree with you.
I believe most people do NOT have intuition developed anyway.
No they do NOT…
They just think they do…
Their are two types of intuition,
1) Real Intuition
2) Fake Intuition
Real intuition comes from experience but… what you didn’t mention was real intuition can also come from practicing deep meditation…
Where you ignore all your conscious desires & you get away from your ego.
When you meditate very deeply- you are entering your subconscious mind- where all thoughts by you, by other people & other creature is available t you.
You can have any information you desire as long as it is for the good humanity.
You missed a point… Most people have egotistical intuition- which is not really intuition but it is really based upon wild feelings & uncontrolled thoughts in their brain.
Anybody can develop real intuition… Experience definitely helps a lot.. but it DEPENDS…. on the whether your experience is “quality”…
Experience sometimes can not do anything for you…
Their is only so much experience that one can have…Experience does give you valuable insights but it is foolish to think you may have all the insights.
My advice if you want to develop intuition:
1) Meditate- Go deep in into delta brainwaves. When you mediate you WILL develop legitimate intuition because all your ego’s bs will not get through. This is all about the subconscious mind.
2) Get synthetic experience- basically you learn from people who are MASTERS. Observe them. Follow all the insights they learned from trial & error. Don’t make the foolish mistake of trying to become “experienced” first… No… Learn from all the people from valuable quality experience and then try to become “experienced”. Heck you can even learn something from a complete idiot, as long as you learn to listen.
I believe John, really meant that people don’t really have intuition. Instead what they DO have is a very big ego that blocks their intuition. The feelings they get are from their own creation.
Intuition. It’s inherent and unavoidable.
It’s well bred in some through real experience, and poorly programmed into others by the hearsay and biases of others. It weighs into all our decisions, but the really skilled decision makers know when to use it.
Rather than letting intuition decide the direction, and then run around finding evidence to support it (anyone can do that), great decision makers assemble relevant facts first, play through multiple scenarios with those facts, and finally, at the appropriate time, allow their intuition to have it’s say on which scenario seems to feel the best.
Letting your intuition have the first say becomes the fly in the ointment. The exception to this is of course, in emergencies. For ER staff, and firefighters, intuition rules.
Thanks for the interesting post, my first time reading your stuff, John, I think I’ll be back.