Did you know we have three different types of intuition?
“Darn, I wish I’d trusted my gut.” I won’t even try to count the times I’ve said that. Eventually, most of us learn that trusting our gut makes sense—which is a non sequitur, because making sense is not intuitive.
Making sense is systematic and sequential, and intuition is the opposite. It’s a feeling. Everyone has intuition, but what distinguishes intuitive people is that they listen to, rather than ignore, the guidance of their gut feelings.
Intuition is housed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain. This area stores information regarding past rewards, as well as punishments. It’s implicated in the processing of risk and fear. It also plays a role in the inhibition of emotional responses and in the process of decision-making.
Simply put, it’s the part of the brain that remembers when you have been burned by certain decisions in the past, and makes you fear making the same mistake twice.
That’s important for salespeople. Your conscious mind might think it makes sense to take on a client you know isn’t right for the business, or to cold call for prospects, or to do any number of things that haven’t worked out in the past, but your ventromedial prefrontal cortex knows better.
The big question is: How, when, and where can we use intuition to make the wisest decisions?
In her post, “Everyone has 3 types of intuition. Here’s how to use them to make better decisions,” Stephanie Vozza describes the three types of intuition (Directional, Social, and Informational) and how to slow down and listen to our gut feelings.
Here’s a snippet of her post:
Everyone has 3 types of intuition. Here’s how to use them to make better decisions
By Stephanie VozzaYou’ve probably had a gut feeling about something in the past. Maybe you acted on it and maybe you didn’t. If you spend more time practicing or trusting those inner feelings, however, they can give you an edge in business, says Rick Snyder, intuitive leadership consultant and author of Decisive Intuition: Use Your Gut Instincts to Make Smart Business Decisions.
“Intuition is our deeper intelligence that is able to read the room or the marketplace, make decisions from a wiser resource, and extract data faster than the conscious mind can analyze,” he says. “We make better decisions when we integrate intuition with critical thinking.”
Intuition is often thought of a gut feeling, but Snyder says there are three distinct dimensions.
Read the rest of the article on FastCompany.com.
