Thinking Out Loud: What is Intuition?

One topic that has been on my mind lately is the topic of intuition. Just what is it? What does having it mean to the one with the intution? What does having it mean to others around you? Can you have it now, but not have it later? Is there such thing as good or bad intuition? Is it based on past and present experience, or is it judged on one event? Can you improve your intuition?

How is intuition related to things like psychic abilities, the sixth sense, premonition, insight, luck, and prediction? Is based on results that come from experience, and being able to assess (read) the situation and seeing the results after having performed the decided action as a whole?

Here's my currently answer so far. Intuition is something others can believe that you have. Once someone believes you have it, they will gain trust in your ability to make decisions on their behalf, even if they (the someone) doesn't fully understand the reasoning you made the decision with at the moment. The people that believe you have intuition believe that your intuition does come from experience along with the trust that they will be acting on the greater good if you leave it up to them. And also believes that there is an intangible factor at play, and that the person with intuition has some extra-ordinary power, whether it be an ability to predict the future, or accomplish near impossible feats. The person with the intuition also knows that the majority of his intuition come from past experiences. But a small part might be attributed to knowing he's holding the building blocks to a puzzle that he can solve, and acting on that belief without actually having put the pices together before the action.

In conclusion, intuition is the trust in one's abilities based on previous experiences. If you want to believe you have it, you will have to trust in your abilities to solve new problems having gained the building blocks from previous experiences to solve the problem at hand. If you want others to believe you have it, you need to demonstrate it, and the more times you do it, the stronger the belief you will establish. If you want to improve it, number one thing is experience. Experience and master the important building blocks to any problem you might need to face in the future. Demonstrate to yourself and others that you can solve new problems with the building blocks you have gained from your previous experiences.

leadership, communiation, trust, rapport in a nutshell

being the ceo of a company where I need to inspire people to work basically for free until we are profitable, learning the art of leadership has been one of my main focuses.

As John C Maxwell states, whatever someone says, leadership is influence. nothing more. nothing less.

Everyone looks to the leader for leadership. Whether you are not a leader at all, or the leader of the country, you need to acknowledge that the hierchy is there. of course, at the top of the branch, you might find God, the president, or a personal mentor. but if you are somewhere in the middle, you can make the climb up. it'll just take a lot of work.

there are two types of leaders. Positional leaders, and true leaders. Positional leader can be best described as someone with the title of leader, but without the trust and rapport from the followers. Furthermore, the positional leaders stay as positional leaders because they do not spend the time or see value in establishing trust and rapport with the followers. A positional leader might not sound like a bad position to be in, but if you break it down, they are a big liability. Positional leaders rub people the wrong way. He asks for a hand without the trust of his followers, and it can create tension and generally rub people the wrong way in any situation whether in a business or even at a party.

Anyone remember Lumberg in the movie Office Space? I can't think of a better example of a positional leader. It is clear, he has no intention of building trust and rapport with his staff, and when he asks for people to come in on the weekend. It is difficult for him to ask so he starts off like "ummm....yeah...". He's not in the position to ask for any help, and his staff is obviously not interested. But because he is in the position, people will come in, but don't expect them to be movtivated. If they do any work at all, they are doing it out of obligation, and they will only do the work they feel obligated to do.

This is why ceo's and officers in companies are paid so well. They all generally hold some good leadership qualities which translates to a lot of influence. imagine if your boss, that you have respect for, have a lot of trust in, and you know that he is looking out for you, asked you to work over the weekend. Would you do it? Of course. You probably would feel touched that he came to you personally and asked for help. You are going to give it 100%.

Rapport building 101 - Connect with people.

-Before anything, people need to buy into you, before they buy into your vision. This is one part you cannot immediately establish without a reputation. To to able to immediately establish this, this is where the time and energy you invested in networking and establishing your reputation pays off. If you do not have that, you need to spend the time to get across that you are genuinely a good person, can be trusted, and practice what they preach.

-Find some common ground. Find something you both share, whether it be a hometown or interest. So that you have a common ground to understand eachother below the verbal communication level. And if you had to make a decision, he would trust you to make a decision in not only his behalf, but a decision that is the best decision for the whole group.

-Pay attention to their interests and passions. This is generally what people talk about naturally. When they mention something they are passionate about, take notice, and when the opportunity arises, let them know you've listened by an action. One of John Maxwell's laws of leadership states, you must first touch people's hearts before you ask for a hand.

With some practice, you can establish rapport, and gain trust upon the first meeting. But like anything, takes some practice to be able to do it well.

The fastest way to lose trust and rapport from your followers
You can pretty much throw away all the work you put in gaining people's trust and inflence in a heartbeat if you exhibit a slip in character by:
-not practicing what you preach.
-overlooking the decision that is best for the group for personal gains.

if you do that, you'll need to spend a lot more time to gain trust back. exponentially more than you spend establishing the relationship in the first place.

applying your influence doesn't always have to be about the big stuff. it fully applies in any situation with any group of people. whether you are hosting a party, or out at the movies with a big group of people, everyone wants to accomplish the same goal. without a leader, you'll have to reach a group consensus, which is no easy task. with a true leader, he will lead the group and be able to communicate (with the aided help he has from the trust he's gained with the group) that the next action he proposes is the best action for the entire group. either the group will feel like he just read their minds and that you are looking out of their interests, or if they think the decision is something they wouldn't have chosen personally, they'll trust in his judgement and follow you wholeheartedly.

in conclusion, whether you'll be leading a group or not, you should always establish communication, trust, and rapport with just about anyone. establish it as quick as possible. stronger the better. always work on improving your relationship with them. so that if the time arises when you need to ask anyone for a hand (this situation will always arise) you'll already be in the position to do so.

it is true that some people are born with the ability to lead, but leadership is a skill, and every aspect of leadership can be learned. you may be born with leadership skills, but the best leaders are the best leaders because they've made it a practice to keep improving their leadership abilities.

new website up

major revisions to the company website. thanks to peter for the awesome content.

the site is better suited for 800 x 600 resolution. tons of more content. more professional feel. we have more than one product now, and the site reflects that (no longer single product feel) the site is search engine optimized as titles and headings are dynamically geneated through asp. lots of marketting on the website.

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." - Albert Einstein

As I was driving back from Rock Bottom, I saw a guy pretty much parked in front of a busy intersection. I thought it was just a stranded motorist, but upon closer inspection as I was driving away as the light turned green, the guy was passed out in the drivers seat, with his door wide open. I knew he needed assistance. But it was at a somewhat busy intersection, and for a second, I thought, someone must have already called 911, because it was so obvious he needed help, bad. And I hadn't even looked at what the cross street was. Then I realized, who cares if a hundred people called it in already. One more call, whether it be the first one, or the 101th, police weren't there yet, and no one else was helping him, and I realized it must be done. I made a quick U-turn, got the cross street, and called 911. Amazingly when I called, it from what I could tell from the operator, I was the first one calling in. Luckily for the guy, he had left himself exposed half a mile away from a the fire department, police station, (and even 2 hospitals). After I had to make another U-turn far down the road to get back to his side of the road to see if I can park anywhere, the police had arrived, with the firetruck about a quarter mile away, I knew I had done all I could. Whether it was shock, heartattack, stroke, or botched carjacking, if I hadn't called it in, he would have had to wait longer, maybe seconds...or maybe even minutes. Not sure what the outcome was, and its none of my business, but I drove with the certainty that the outcome for him couldn't have been any better. It was definitely a spiritual experience.

Good things come in 3's?

Today was one of those out the blue great days. Woke up, and saw a evaluation request. Then while talking to my sales guy, our first eval guy who i thought I could have done better in presenting him the product, and his evaluation kit was loaded with bugs finally emailed us.

I thought we let him slip through our fingers, but he emailed us today saying that he is most likely gonna go with us because he sees a great amount of value in our product. And we know how much the other products suck. I always said, if they are willing to evaluate, they are going to buy. I definitely don't like losing any prospects.

Then got another eval request from someone big. Small hint... They make airplanes...

Other than that, might take a little time, for another prospect, the sale is pretty much in the bag. The interesting thing is, he hasn't even evaluated yet. And may just buy it without an evaluation first because we showed him exactly what he was looking for.

My primary sales guy has been training 2 other guys today on our product, and these 2 guys are now pumped after I hit one out of the park when I demo'd the product to the new sales guys today. They are now eager to make some sales calls.

Sleep Phase Monitoring Alarm Clock

Just bout an axbo

http://www.digitalreviews.net/reviews/miscellaneous/axbo-sleep-phase-alarm-clock.html
Had to order from europe. Denmark? It was ~$283 shipped.

there are 2 other products.

SLEEPTRACKER. Almost half the price. No problem getting it in the US. Plentiful at Amazon.

Supposedly the axbo is better because the wrist band is more comfortable than a watch, and the alarm is better (and no worries about it being covered.) Not sure about underlying technology.

SleepSystem is unreleased, but it is the most promising because it actually uses brain waves (it seems) to determine your stage of sleep. most accurate. it was a hot topic as a cog sci major at UCSD. Good to see products finally exist. Unfortunately you can't get SleepSystem right now, and i need something now.

Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, The Family Edition

i was at frys and this 12 yr old kid was with his parents and he had GTA San Andreas. one of the customers pointed out to the parents that its a pretty violent game. so the parents told him to find another game. of course the kid started throwing a fit. i never really gave it much thought, but i guess most parents really don't care about even reading the ESRB ratings. and parents, including mine have a set belief that, video games (and cartoons) are strictly for kids. if i was a kid, i'd be the one trying to get my parents to buy me the game, betting on their ignorance. but if i was a parent, there's no way in hell that i'd allow it under my watch. its just as bad as the kid buying a porno. as bad, worse, or not as bad as buying a porno depending on what you think porno is to violence. we live in a funny society. we allow pretty extreme violence on tv, then all of a sudden a nipple makes an appearance, and the whole country holds a press conference about getting a control of media and their standards.