A Resilient Intuition: When You Know You Know

Is balanced equality a thing? How do you measure all the intangibles that go into a relationship?

Lawyers attempt such quantifications and the hours add up with the arguments until there is nothing left to divide.

I have no interest in funding a lawyer. To know that you are going to need one implies a lack of trust. If you don’t trust that person, then why are you entering into a permanent relationship with them?

Exactly what do you expect? Does it envision a drastic change in behaviour from either of you? If it does, you may harbour illusions that prove themselves to be expensive and possibly worse.

That said, people do change, and you will not be in control of how or when. Life happens. Those events force re-evaluations of what is essential and what you are willing to risk. At the same time, your resources to be able to afford life alone often expand, sometimes suddenly, with retirement packages or inheritances. The same happens in reverse, with accidents, sudden endings, and situations you’d hoped to avoid happening to you.

For better or worse, life happens. Is this who you know you can lean on? While I know that he will convince me to part with my money in stupid ways, I know he won’t outright take my money. To me, that’s a new difference in my relationships that I would like to keep, for there has been a track record of those who have and it’s time to appreciate the work I’ve done to achieve this upgrade.

It’s fifty/fifty or nothing. No argument, and no room for any in the future. When you know that is what you need, you know what you need to do to get it and the next step becomes easy and obvious.

Trusting Experience

In no lawyers in trust, or rather, I trust that they are rather skilled in drawing out an economic and emotional argument that allows them to skim off the top, to propagate a system that makes it last for as long as they can.

While we both have different worries about how the future might pan out and what’s at risk if it does, in that, we agree – let’s not lose it all lawyers.

What about a paper we both sign and keep in our prospective lockboxes with a will to match? For what would that accomplish? A secret kept longer, a commitment postponed, a piece of proof the survivor can use against that day when the law comes running.

It’s also time to recognize that there’s still some improvement to be made, for what is the price of trust? I know what I can trust, and I trust what I know.

The question is, will it be enough, or will intuition storm in again to tell you that you know better than that.

You never know until you do it. One day, a lot of little steps add up to one giant leap. Don’t look down, but you can always look back.

When you look back, flags and patterns are easy to identify. Sometimes, they are easier to see in someone else, and you need to look in the mirror and see if you can see it in yourself. Look hard enough, and everything you see in someone else that bothers or annoys you is also visible in your own mirror. For how else would you recognize it?

The older you get, the more experiences contain the same thread, a certain something that you haven’t been able to master, decode, or learn. Yet.

Finding Insights

If you can spend as much time learning from experience as living it, you would greatly reduce the number of upheavals you experience.

In my world, people tell me everything I need to know with far greater humor than they can imagine, far more depth than they would ever know, and that life can sound scripted.

They are the sentances that stick with me, amongst all the noise. Insight, answers only I could provide.

You are the only one who can know the correct answer for many of life’s most critical decisions. If only for those questions, you need to be able to spot the red flags of bad choices. Where are we taught such vital information?

Thinking for a living, from deciding what to do to getting it done with a level of quality that you feel comfortable putting your name on, are things you must determine for yourself. You must decide what to do with your career, what standards to reflect with your actions, and how to relate to others.

Building a life requires deciding on interests and opportunities. Traditionally, a child navigates this world using feedback from parents, teachers, and society while conforming to external cues and ignoring internal ones through no fault of anyone. This old way of getting it right on the outside while physical and mental health deteriorates isn’t creating thriving adults by any measure.

Building a business requires making decisions about customers and services. Traditionally, a manager might rely on marketing to know customer and competitive information, translate it, and go through the chain of command. They see silos, levels, and job functions. This old command-and-control approach isn’t responsive enough, accurate enough, or precise enough.

Thinking Independently

At the onset of the pandemic, the population pleaded with their governments to give them the available information to understand the scope and needs as urgently as officials did. That could help to keep people at home. Governments listened, and the media started educating people about complex concepts. Citizens responded as thinking, responsible adults. Curves bent.

A new world is among us in many ways, and there is no going back. The new way of freedom and empowerment breaks the barriers of control and power. Responsibility and accountability are spreading as freely and powerfully as information.

Allowing people to act with agency can be scary for anyone invested in the outcome. It was terrifying for my dad when he had to let go of the back of my bike when I first learned to ride. It is scary for managers, business owners, and world leaders who don’t want to let go and think they can retain a hold.

Yet, it’s liberating for the parent who wants their kid to move out one day. It’s a relief for the leaders who realize that leadership isn’t about having all the answers, projecting dominance, and instilling fear. Managers discover that there are many concrete options and tools for setting boundaries and defining sandboxes.

Anyone who uses their knowledge for a living is a knowledge worker, but it isn’t a simple matter of profession. Everyone has an opportunity to engage, contribute, and innovate, but showing up, taking orders, direct and implied, and checking accountability at the door is also an option.

When you are “just doing your job,” it’s unlikely you are applying knowledge, whether you are an executive or a janitor.

Like marriage, knowledge work is problematic because it is invisible, personal, and misunderstood.

We misunderstand what we are good at and work too hard at being excellent at the wrong things. The only way to know your best talents and skills is to know what it feels like when you do them; that feedback is entirely personal.

The effort is invisible, and it’s only the result we can assess, and even then, only fleetingly and subjectively. When that’s the case, it’s vital everyone can decide for themselves how to direct their careers and contributions.

Some people say “taking decisions,” whereas I say “making decisions.” To me, the difference speaks to the amount of choice presented. When you decide, the implication is that the available options are known and defined. It is fixed.

When I say that you can make a decision, I mean to imply that there is always the option to create one that isn’t on the table. You can take from what is presented or make an innovative new choice that no one else might have known even existed. It might take counterintuitive wisdom to make decisions instead of merely taking them. It’s also counterintuitively wise to encourage that mindset in everyone.

Employees increasingly seek meaning, depth, and legacy where they spend much of their time—at work. We want wellness, not just a way to pay the bills.

As a society, we fight for democracy in our government but accept dictatorships at work. That status quo has to go and is already on its way out. This unrealized potential mutually benefits employees and employers, yet the movement is distilled into the buzzword ‘empowerment,’ which has come and gone.

Ultimately, it’s a meritocracy – a structure determined by merit. We are all in it together, so let’s all be responsible, informed, and accountable for our decisions and actions.

Trusting Merit

When the best rises to the top – whatever is the best, and however it is defined – I trust you, and you trust me, and then we can also trust we. That’s a counterintuitively wise way to organize an organization.

Knowing where your brain and bias will infect your ability to make a good decision is counterintuitive, but taking steps to prevent that is Practical Wisdom. What you can accomplish with a bit of proactivity will redefine your imagination.

What separates the knowledge worker is the ambition for improvement, whether it is a drive for excellence, a pursuit of laziness, or, counterintuitively, a combination of both.

In my corporate career, I trained supervisors, managers, and executives on some of the best continuous improvement practices. As I learned the hard way, the art of convincing people to change is accepting what you can redirect and what will never happen.

Competence changes, but character doesn’t, although actions are often mischaracterized. As I decide what to say to myself, think to myself, and keep to myself to get the results I hope to achieve while knowing how much health I am willing to sacrifice in the name of wealth, I am sure everyone is the same. We operate under an editing system to get the desired results, with varying degrees of awareness and results.

To me, insomnia was the chance to get a moment to myself when my day was spent in the constant company of others. Going blind was my body’s answer to my mind’s shaming over the way I’d let myself get suckered when I bought my first house. Shoving food in my face was anxiety’s answer to the words bubbling in my throat that I knew not to say.

Finding Challenge

Difficulties are there for a reason, and shortcuts are not solutions.

Many people report having a fear of public speaking. There was a time I would have said I was afraid or anxious. Then, I joined Toastmasters. This isn’t a testimonial recommendation for the organization. However, by my third speech, I was excitedly preparing for the next one and wishing I could take all available speaking spots without being considered greedy. Fear? What fear?

During my speech, there were faces pointed at me, patiently waiting for my words. No one would interrupt me for five whole minutes.

My gut flip-flopped in the excited anticipation of the attention, my heart raced at the eager potential for connecting with someone, and my brain was whole of information it had prepared for such an occasion. It was the most glorious time in my life. With that, I was infected with the hope that I might be heard, and I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

What an opportunity to change my mind about myself. Such is the nature of opportunity – when preparation meets timing. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, you don’t always know when it will happen, but you must show up and be ready, willing, and able every day.

Part one of counterintuitive wisdom is all about cost, quality, and speed because the principles of productivity apply to everyone. Second, it’s about people, processes, and technology because that’s how everyone gets things done. Finally, it’s about putting your strengths to work and knowing what and how to delegate. With these three supersets of skills, you can master your domain, work well with others, and become a rare and remarkable contributor, at work, in your relationships, and in your life.

Thinking Wisely

Counterintuitive wisdom is needed to break through when the solutions seem apparent, but reality is firmly unmoved. You need to make different decisions; some of the most important ones go unnoticed. You already have all the necessary intelligence; you need to notice other things. They start popping out at you as soon as you know what to see.

You can’t control the information or the decisions people will take from them; you can only control your actions. Knowing the landscape of empowerment and the options available to map and guide allows you to safely and securely provide the freedom and empowerment appropriate to you and yours.

What’s intuitive to achieve is counterintuitive to approach. What you think will get you there won’t, just as things you expect to fail will lead to assured success. You can control your actions and your actions alone. Such is the foundational principle of counterintuitive wisdom because losing sight of this fact leads to the manifestation of all you are trying to avoid.

You know far more than you think. When you know what you can trust, you can trust your intuition and hear the information that’s coming at you, loud and clear. You already know you know, so learn what’s holding you back.

The only one who has the capability to do that is you.

Don’t get caught in the details or lost in the grand plans. There’s always something you can do next, and some progress you can make in the right direction. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just has to be progress.

When you’ve procrastinated for twenty years, what’s another six months. On the other hand, if you didn’t have another twenty years, do you want to waste another six months? Your gut just told you the truth, as you had a visceral response to one of those ideas.

Now, listen to your intuition and don’t lose that link ever again.