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INTUITION An entrepreneurs biggest asset

Written by: Mike Handcock

Article Overview: I don’t know how many times I have heard Roger Hamilton the chairman of XL say “Why is it that some people find themselves flying for 4 hours to another country just because they know they should be there?” The answer is intuition. We have all heard of the female ‘6th sense’. This is the energy that all successful entrepreneurs use to decide when something is right or wrong. Whether you call it ‘gut feel’, ‘karma’, ‘spirit’ or just plain old luck, we all have it to varying degrees.

INTUITION An entrepreneurs biggest asset

I don’t know how many times I have heard Roger Hamilton the chairman of XL say “Why is it that some people find themselves flying for 4 hours to another country just because they know they should be there?” The answer is intuition. We have all heard of the female ‘6th sense’. This is the energy that all successful entrepreneurs use to decide when something is right or wrong. Whether you call it ‘gut feel’, ‘karma’, ‘spirit’ or just plain old luck, we all have it to varying degrees.

Gill Dal Din found herself having the same thought on a flight from Auckland to Singapore in September 2004. “Why am I going?” came to mind for Gill. From attending the Wealth Dynamics weekend that weekend Gill purchased a share or the now successful Wealth Dynamics NZ, and has recently purchased a share of the USA business. Gill had thought prior to that flight how she would love to have a global business, but never thought more about it. Within eighteen months it has been achieved.

Like many of the people reading this column, I was brought up in a traditional corporate role where I was told to shelve that gut feeling and work on the numbers, the research, the markets and the spreadsheets. The fact is that most billionaires never did that, they simply acted on intuition and the rest followed. What did Richard Branson or Tony Fernandez really know about the airline business before buying an airline? What in their previous life could have given them the ability to assess the business truly on spreadsheets without any intuition?

If it feels wrong, it probably is. Those of us that have been divorced during our lives think back to that first meeting with our estranged spouse. Did we really think, yes this is the one? I am going to live happily ever after. Every time I have lost money I seem to have followed the same pattern. ‘Looks good on paper, so it must be good. Don’t necessarily feel great about it but it is good on paper so I must invest in it.’

So the question is: How does one develop intuition after having fought it for all these years? For me the answer is coaching, mentoring, reading, study and trusting your judgement, be it in small decisions at first. Please don’t read this article and buy an airline tomorrow. For that I hold no responsibility. But if you happen to be looking for a car park, trust your heart and drive to where it says there will be one, and no negative self talk or the process won’t work. This amazes me when I meet a friend for lunch who is a highly successful millionaire. His Porsche is always parked in front of the restaurant. I asked him once if he pays off the bell boys, but no…he says he just visualises it on the way to the restaurant and there is always a space when he gets there. He said he actually plans his timing because he intuitively knows when it will be vacant.

Reading books such as ‘Ask and it will be given’ or ‘Wink and grow rich’ are fabulous for developing intuition. Sign up with a professional coach, even if you are a coach and visualise and meditate daily. You will find your intuition develops quickly and you will be primed for greater success.

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  Cultivating Intuition
  Your Intuition is Speaking. Are You Listening?
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  Intuition – Your Inner Guide

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