In the wake of the Asian Tsunami disaster there have been numerous stories about how few animals died in the flood waters. It’s gotten me thinking about what they ‘knew’ or ‘sensed’ that caused them to run to higher ground and escape certain death, and then more generally to ponder what we humans ‘know’ and what stops us so frequently from acting on our hunches and instincts.

Aerial pictures of Sri Lanka's Yala National Park, show it was penetrated by surging floodwater. Yet there were no signs of any dead elephants, leopards, deer, jackals and crocodiles, the species that have given the conservation reserve worldwide fame. The pictures add to historic anecdotes about seismic waves, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, in which birds take flight, dogs howl and herd animals stampede to safety before catastrophe strikes. What do they know and how do they know it? It turns out that where vibrations, seismic shocks or sound waves are concerned, animals have capabilities which we do not. Elephants, for example, can pick up these sounds at very great distances—from many, many miles away. They are able to hear low-frequency noise that is below the level of human hearing—ground vibrations or an airborne noise-- and so they had an early warning about the approaching deadly wave. Elephants are not alone in spotting a threat through vibration. Rabbits and other four-footed creatures are able to sense early danger through the soil, and bats, which use a form of sonar, bouncing a sound signal off objects to locate their position, are believed to detect danger through the slight change in signal if an object vibrates. So what has all this got to do with the human condition? After all we don’t have sonar, or the ability to hear sounds miles away, right? I think what got me thinking was curiosity about why animals ‘pay attention’ and act on the information they receive and why we so often ignore information that comes to us unconventionally or unexpectedly. We receive information all the time that is neither analytic nor objectively provable, and even in the face of our strong hunches, many of us regard this information as irrelevant, distracting even useless. We operate on a kind of “prove it or lose it” basis in which we often overvalue data and undervalue intuition because our hunches can’t be substantiated, proven or convincingly argued. “One can’t believe in impossible things,” said Alice. “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” --Lewis Caroll

Intuition is the direct knowing of something without the conscious use of reasoning. It is a natural gift and we all have it. When we are operating synchronously with our mind and our gut, we navigate through our lives from our truest centers. Like the elephants, jackals and deer that were tuned into all of the frequencies available to them, we make better decisions when we incorporate our intuition into the picture. “People with high levels of personal mastery do not set out to integrate reason and intuition. Rather, they achieve it naturally—as a by-product of their commitment to use all the resources at their disposal. They cannot afford to choose between reason and intuition, or head and heart, any more than they would choose to walk on one leg or see with one eye”—Peter Senge Yet we undermine our intuition all the time. Maybe it seems too ‘new agey’, or we decide we’re not intuitive, or we don’t see the link between intuition and productivity and maybe most importantly, because intuition leads us into the unknown, it can be quite scary to pay attention to our intuitive hits. One of the many shortcomings of operating from fear is that it holds us trapped in the realm of the predictable. It’s tough to be open to startling new ideas that fly in the face of convention. Intuition gives us access into what might be so that we are not stuck forever with what is. So much creativity and invention come from letting go and getting curious about an idea that seems preposterous, from following an inkling, a hunch. When the steam locomotive was new, for example, a breakthrough in technology made it possible for the engine to exceed 30mph. With speed of 40mph in sight, a debate broke out—even in the medical literature of the time. One learned doctor said that it was common knowledge that the human body would explode at forty mph! If you’re curious to create a ripe environment for your intuition, the most important thing you can do is to create time each day when you slow down. Intuition cannot compete with the velocity of your thinking mind. It will be trumped every time by your analytic brain. I ask my clients to make daily time for quiet. Whether you can carve 10 minutes or an hour each day, go quiet. Turn off your phones, your pager, you email alerts, your kids, your staff, your boss… Once you are quiet and your mind is calm, here’s a great exercise: Pose a question to yourself of significance. Maybe it’s a goal or a problem or a challenge. Close your eyes and notice what images, thoughts, ideas, impressions and emotions flow through your mind. When you’re ready, jot down what you remember. You may have an immediate insight or it may come in time. You may get a piece of information and need to ask yourself another question. Use this practice to develop your intuitive muscle. Over time you’ll get better and better at noticing and valuing the full spectrum of information that can help you make the very best decisions for yourself.