Intuitive intelligence is the missing link in helping your company culture stay ahead of today’s challenges and better anticipate the ones to come. It’s an entrepreneur’s best friend. It’s revolutionary because most of us have been conditioned out of our innate intelligence as we over-rely on metrics and outside opinions. By doing the work to reconnect with this incredible resource, we have access to more data and can make more well-informed decisions, as we include all of ourselves in the decision-making process.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, big data, and the digital age, intuition is needed now more than ever to balance humanity and emotional intelligence with vast swathes of data so that we can make good decisions. The future isn’t a pure projection of the past. Data doesn’t always anticipate anomalies or major shifts in culture, technology, the environment, and so forth. The inability of data to anticipate changes, coupled with the fact that institutions condition us not to trust intuition but instead focus on critical thinking and data, has caused an imbalance in business leadership, decision-making, and innovation. At a time when adaptive leadership is more important than ever, intuition is the most important skill that we need to develop as leaders and as human beings.
Yet the critical question is HOW do we develop intuitive intelligence for leaders and teams to make better, faster decisions? The following is a six-step process that will help you connect with your intuitive intelligence for superior decision-making, based on excerpts from my book, Decisive Intuition.
Receptivity
The first step for getting in touch with your intuitive nature is all about learning how to be receptive to your environment and beginning to open your senses to the conversation that’s already happening around you and inside of you. Having an open mindset allows you to be more available during the day to pay attention to all of the inner signals and cues that you are receiving when speaking with customers, participating in team meetings, or on a sales call.
So often we ignore all of the nonverbal communication and messaging that we receive from our environment. In becoming more present and receptive to all of the data around us, we begin to let our intuition find us.
Slow Down
Intuition can only be found in the present moment. When you slow down your thoughts and turn away from outside distraction, you begin to notice the quiet voice of your intuition that’s speaking to you right now.
Intuition operates at a different octave than our typical thoughts and requires slowing down to tap into the inner wisdom that’s awaiting us. Take a technology break, get outside, and find a way to slow down from your typical work routine so that you can access your inner compass.
Befriend Your Inner Critic
Once you slow down and have eliminated your outer distractions, you will now have to contend with the inner ones. When you slow down, you’ll often hear the voice of your inner critic chime in and get louder, which distracts you from the voice of your intuition. Learning how to separate the voice of your critic from the voice of your intuition is paramount.
The voice of your critic is like a broken record that is all-too-familiar and is usually comparing us to others and telling us why we fall short in a given circumstance. It also comes with an emotional charge of fear, anxiety, or restlessness. The voice of intuition is usually non-dramatic, and doesn’t come with a lot of narrative. It’s often quiet, very clear, and matter-of-fact. This distinction will help you track your deeper intelligence from the inner saboteur.
Listen to Your Body
After you distill the voice of your intuition, you can then drop in deeper to listen to what your inner signals and cues are telling you throughout your body and subconscious mind. This is where your intuition lives. The more you practice slowing down and listening, within, you will begin to tap into your full-body wisdom, which is where you receive all of your information in real-time. The mind processes and makes sense of our experience secondarily. The more you are embodied and learn how to tune-in, the more data you are exposed to, to make better decisions from.
Ask for Guidance
Now that you have decoded your intuitive language, you can depend on the relationship with your inner guidance system by asking a question that needs addressing in the business, and actually get a response.
Practice by using a recent dilemma or challenge that you are facing. Whether you are going back and forth on a hiring decision, strategic move, or the timing of a product launch, ask your question and even bring up the various options in your mind’s eye. Then wait and sit in the silence as you listen for how your body responds. Do you notice any sensations, emotions, openings or closings, words, images, sounds or something in your dream state? Depending on your intuitive language, you will get a response from your subconscious when you start to develop this relationship over time.
Lastly, practice taking action based on your inner guidance. This is where impactful change happens as you are connected to a deeper purpose and serving, not only yourself in a deeper way, but those around you. Bringing your feelings into action is the birthplace of true creativity, possibility, and innovation.
Taking action from our intuitive intelligence is what separates true entrepreneurs and change agents from the pack. As with any skill, practice taking action with smaller decisions and witness the outcomes. After some fine-tuning and deepening of trust, practice taking action from your intuition on the key decisions in your business and beyond.
Conclusion
Opening up to your intuitive intelligence aligns you with a more fulfilling, purposeful, and profitable outcome for all. Instead of trying to fight against the marketplace and life and using your willpower to power through any obstacle, you learn how to move with the flow and align your decisions for the greatest good of all. Making decisions from your intuitive center allows you to lead from a powerful place that incorporates innovation with action for game-changing results.
Reprinted with permission from Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC, Decisive Intuition by Rick Snyder is available wherever books are sold or from the publisher at 1-800-423-7087 or orders@rwwbooks.com.
