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00:00:05.759Have you ever met someone and within 30 seconds thought, I like you, or I don't trust you?
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00:00:10.080Only to discover six months later that you were absolutely right.
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00:00:12.720Today we're talking about intuition.
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00:00:14.880Is it a hidden superpower?
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00:00:23.440Complete nonsense, or simply your brain doing a staggering amount of work behind the scenes while you're busy pretending to be rational.
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00:00:32.880Hello and welcome to Straight Up Talk with Sharon and Pete.
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00:00:33.679I am Sharon.
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00:00:35.039And I'm Pete Johnson.
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00:00:39.280Okay, definition first of all of intuition.
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00:00:46.320Um, psychologists describe intuition as rapid unconscious pattern recognition.
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00:00:51.439Your brain is processing vastly more information than you're consciously aware of.
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00:01:04.640Things like facial microexpressions, voice tone, body posture, smell, even, eye contact, speech patterns, similarities to people you've met before, environmental clues.
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00:01:11.200Before your conscious brain catches up, you get a feeling I trust this person, something's off.
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00:01:14.400I should say, yes, I need to get out of here.
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00:01:16.480Peter, over to you.
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00:01:20.480Because you often say trust your gut instinct.
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00:01:22.079Trust your gut instinct, yeah.
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00:01:22.400Yeah.
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00:01:23.200So talk to me.
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00:01:45.280Yeah, I mean, you know, when when we were discussing this uh a while ago, um my take was that uh, you know, you're sitting in a bar, sitting in a pub, and uh you know, you're just enjoying the company, having a chat with someone, and then someone else comes and sits at the table.
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00:02:06.239Or you might be on a train, on a train journey, or a bus journey, and someone just pitches up and sits there and they start conversation, and you know, you you within kind of five seconds, I reckon you know whether you're gonna enjoy this conversation or you're just gonna get um walk away, you know, go to another bar or go go and sit in another carriage on the train.
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00:02:06.480Yeah.
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00:02:10.639And it's it's amazing to me like how how many times I've been right.
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00:02:24.159And uh I don't know I don't know what w you know what I can I don't know the uh process of that, but you know, it's it's happened to me a lot and uh most most of the time, I'd say 95% of the time I've been right.
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00:02:34.240Well, one thing that you said to me when we're having this this conversation is is that you s you said that I've got high emotional intelligence, but I wouldn't make a detective.
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00:02:35.199You wouldn't, no.
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00:02:37.759So why wouldn't I make a detective?
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00:02:39.120Well, because you miss things.
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00:02:43.599You you don't pick yeah that like there's certain things you don't see or like what?
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00:02:50.560Like if we're um uh say like I've I've changed something, I've changed some furniture round in the house.
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00:02:59.039I've moved some furniture or I've even taken something out, I've taken an old sofa out and put it on the bonfire, and uh it'll be two days before you know it's gone.
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00:02:59.680Right.
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00:03:03.520But that's that's that's got nothing to do with intuition though, has it?
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00:03:04.080No, no.
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00:03:04.479No.
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00:03:09.840So But highly intuitive people are quite often observant.
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00:03:12.319I'm observant about people.
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00:03:12.719Yeah.
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00:03:14.719So I think that's the difference, right?
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00:03:15.039Yeah.
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00:03:18.080I'm not highly observant about whether you've moved a sofa.
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00:03:18.719Right.
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00:03:22.960I'm observant and I'm I'm very good at reading the room.
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00:03:27.439So I have very high emotion perception, and you're the same way.
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00:03:29.840You're very good at reading people.
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00:03:33.599And some people um everyone can do it.
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00:03:39.840I think part of the challenge is that we pick up these signals and we don't really know where they're coming from.
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00:03:41.360Yeah, you don't know where you get it from, yeah.
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00:03:49.280We're exposed to so many billion points of data, but our brains can only process so much.
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00:03:56.639So there's a subconscious thing that that happens, it's like uh the book Blink, one of my favourite books by Malcolm Gladwell.
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00:03:57.840Malcolm Gladwell, yeah.
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00:04:15.039Um and I talk about this as well when I'm doing some training with with with managers, with hiring managers, say, have you ever you're doing an interview with someone and you get this gut instinct about the person, yeah, and you think, oh, this person is is gonna be just great.
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00:04:23.519So what happens is even before you've consciously become aware of that, subconsciously you already are.
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00:04:35.439So what tends to happen is that you'll start to ask questions that are going to get more favorable responses from that person that's going to confirm what you believe.
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00:04:53.439So by the end of the interview, when you're consciously aware, I really like this person, you you have subconsciously um led it down the path by asking particular questions so that then you recruit that person, then three months later, you're like, Who is this person?
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00:04:54.000Yeah.
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00:04:59.199Because a lot of people are good at at acting when they go when they go for interviews.
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00:05:03.839So sometimes our gut instinct can be spectacularly wrong.
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00:05:14.639Um, because I work with a lot of hiring managers and a lot of HR people, and the reason that that they use assessments in recruitment is to help put objectivity into it.
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00:05:15.120Right, yeah.
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00:05:18.720Because gut instinct is incredibly subjective.
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00:05:23.279Has there ever been a time when your gut instinct has been wrong?
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00:05:38.240Oh no, you you didn't ask me this earlier, and I I I honestly can't think of a time where um I mean I I've I've uh sometimes I've thought this person is a complete jerk and then they've kind of won me over.
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00:05:40.240I mean I've employed a few people like that.
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00:05:42.000You know why would you employ them if you're not?
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00:05:48.560Well, because when you're really busy and you're only the that someone's only going to be around for the summer, you know You just need bodies.
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00:05:53.279Yeah, you just need bodies, you just need guys who are prepared to get stuck in and do do some work.
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00:06:02.639So you think to yourself, oh, this guy's alright, so and so, and then they turn out to be okay, and you think, well, you know, but honestly, most of the time, 95% of the time.
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00:06:14.560And I think another thing is what we subconsciously do is we hire people uh similar to ourselves, similar backgrounds, similar, you know, social standing, you know.
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00:06:26.399And and so when whenever I do you know, I love doing big group sessions and I do disc sessions on behavior, and I always ask the question is there's some people that you like more than others, put your hand up, yeah.
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00:06:28.480Are there some people that drive you nuts?
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00:06:29.040Yeah, yeah.
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00:06:32.160And I say, what is it about the people that you really like?
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00:06:33.439Who do they remind you of?
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00:06:35.040And then people go, Oh yeah.
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00:06:42.560Yeah, we like people who remind us as our of ourselves because they're we know that it's comfortable.
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00:06:50.399So because you and I are very similar in parts of our behavioural profile, we're both very direct, assertive, etc.
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00:06:55.040How we do things though is is different, as we've talked about before.
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00:07:08.000Um so sorry, I've completely lost where I was going with that, but anyway, the point is that we make rap it actually, it's in as little as a tenth of a second where we where we actually make up our our minds.
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00:07:09.360A tenth of a second.
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00:07:20.079It is, but and it comes from an evolutionary perspective because most of the time the reason why humans are so successful is well because we're murderous.
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00:07:26.160Make quick decisions, we make well we we yeah, we kill anything that gets in our way, basically.
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00:07:30.000But very first time, think about you've got two tribes.
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00:07:37.279You got one tribe of of people who are like us, and yeah, you've got another tribe of people who are really nice and they've got no gut instinct.
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00:07:39.439Along comes a sabre-toothed tiger.
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00:07:40.800Yeah, who gets eaten.
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00:07:46.319So yeah, those those people who've got no instinct go, oh look, hello, look, a nice pussycat, and wow, they get eaten.
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00:07:49.680Whereas we have this, okay, this is this is not right.
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00:07:50.480Danger danger.
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00:07:51.600Danger danger.
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00:08:10.319So it's it's more about survival, and and that's that's why as well we can sort of infer things about people when we say things like, Well, you know, this person seems a bit kind or they seem arrogant, or we might say something like, I don't really know why, but I just don't trust this person.
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00:08:12.240And I think that's true a lot of the time.
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00:08:21.759You can't put your finger on it specifically, yeah, but it it's you you're aware of something that's just quite off of kilter.
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00:08:36.320And I believe, this is my belief, this is not backed up anywhere, that when humans actually learn to speak to communicate this way, we lost our ability to interpret the unspoken signs, the body language.
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00:08:46.720You know, sometimes there's a lack of congruency between what somebody says and what they do, and there's all these things about how FBIs can spot liars, etc.
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00:08:49.600And you know, if you touch your nose, then that means you're lying.
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00:08:50.480Signals, yeah.
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00:08:56.480All these signals, but there are things as that you can pick up instinct around.
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00:09:03.600Do you remember one of my favourite ones when when we first met was if you want to know where somebody's interest is, look where their feet are.
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00:09:04.720Look where their feet are pointing.
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00:09:12.559Where their feet are pointing, which is because we can spend so much time trying to manage the upper part of our body, we forget about the lower part.
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00:09:19.120And it was when you and I first met, and I I was ke you were looking at me, and I thought, I I think he might quite like me.
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00:09:21.200And I looked under the table and your feet were pointing.
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00:09:23.759I was short-sighted, I was looking at the girl behind you.
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00:09:26.960If she was behind me, you wouldn't have seen her either.
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00:09:28.159You mean in front of me?
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00:09:29.519Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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00:09:37.759So it it's it's interesting that we do have these senses, and we can tell if somebody's not being truthful with us.
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00:09:40.879We can't always say why, but we have this this good.
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00:09:54.080I got a few examples from the market when I was doing the market still, and uh you're selling clothes, and straight away you like you get you get various people coming up to you, and some of them ask a million questions, you know they're not gonna buy anything.
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00:09:54.480Right.
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00:09:58.720You just instinctively know they're not they're just not gonna buy this.
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00:10:01.600Oh, have you got this in this size, and have you got it in this colour?
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00:10:03.200Uh, were you here last week?
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00:10:05.120And oh, will you be here next week?
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00:10:10.240And all these questions, you know, you they they're just I don't know what it is, they just want to chat, maybe, I don't know.
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00:10:27.440But and then there's some people that come up and straight away you can tell but just by looking at them within a couple of seconds, they seem more interested and they're just looking through stuff quietly, and then they pick something out and say, Oh, I'll take this, and you just it it's it's weird, but you just know.
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00:10:32.320Well, be and interesting you say that, but it's because it's a repeated pattern.
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00:10:37.919Yeah, as we get older, we experience more of the things over and over.
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00:10:43.519So you're experien okay, my pattern detector tells me that when the person does this, this, and this and this.
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00:10:44.960This person just wants to chat.
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00:10:46.879They just want to chat, they're not gonna buy anything.
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00:10:49.919Whereas I've observed we do it when we're driving.
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00:10:50.559We do.
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00:10:56.879Because we've got loads of experience with driving, and very often we say, Okay, I knew that guy was gonna do it.
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00:11:08.159Of course, the other side of that is the amount of times we may think someone's going to do something and they don't do it, we forget that we only count the times when it was right.
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00:11:15.519So we we we are more assured of our gut instincts than often is actually the realities.
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00:11:25.279So intuition isn't always telling you about the person in front of you, sometimes it's telling you about people you've met before, which is what happens with you.
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00:11:43.039So it people who behaviour, yeah, people who tend to have str stronger intuitive accuracy are often highly observant, as you've said, emotionally intelligent, experienced in a domain, good at reading people, which you are, comfortable trusting their instincts, which of course we both are.
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00:11:46.480So police detectives, I think that's why you said to me that's why I wouldn't make it.
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00:11:47.039That's right.
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00:11:52.159But I don't notice things, I notice people.
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00:11:52.799Yeah.
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00:12:00.639I'm always observing people, I'm always thinking uh and watching how they are reacting and interacting with me.
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00:12:07.039I'm very quick to pick up if I perceive that somebody's I've said something um they don't really like.
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00:12:08.320Yeah.
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00:12:22.399Which and I was oblivious to those kinds of things years ago, but I've paid more attention into how I'm landing on other people because I wanna so my instincts now kick in a lot a lot sooner.
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00:12:37.759But another thing actually about gut instinct is I've realized with myself if I say think I'm gonna get an email from um a big client, I automatically assume it's gonna be negative.
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00:12:41.679Bad news, bad news, and that's that's just me, it's how I'm wired.
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00:12:49.600So I've I've learned to ignore those instincts because they're seldom correct, because we don't know what we don't know until we know it.
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00:12:50.799Love that expression.
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00:12:52.720I know, I made that one up.
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00:12:53.679I love that one too.
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00:12:55.519Copyright Sharon Jones.
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00:12:58.559So we we don't know it until we know it.
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00:13:08.720So and I actually have been uh with the people I've been coaching recently saying that to them when they talk about delegating work, they don't know what the other person doesn't know.
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00:13:10.879You don't know what they don't know till they know it.
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00:13:26.000Yeah, um, going a little bit off topic there, but also I checked it out that research shows that people who are highly intuitive and not necessarily more accurate, they may be more confident in their uh in their ability to be intuitive.
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00:13:38.320So, and the other thing is your unconscious brain processes approximately 11 million bits of information per second, which is 11 million bits of information per second.
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00:13:41.679Yeah, yep, that's that I did that, I Googled that.
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00:13:47.120So but our conscious brain can't possibly keep up with all of it.
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00:13:51.120So we're we're constantly trying to figure out what's important.
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00:13:59.440But I think paying attention to um experience is something that's been helpful for for you and me.
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00:14:02.720As you're growing up and you're learning, you don't know these things.
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00:14:08.799As we get older, we tend to think of them more as instinct, but it's because it's spot in these.
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00:14:11.519Trust your judgment, life and past experience.
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00:14:27.279Yeah, and and I think as as you say, quite often it's true, but I always um catch myself now trying to reverse uh hold judgment because the people who you met when you met them may be different now.
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00:14:38.080So brutally honest takeaway of the of the week is that your unconscious brain has already reached a conclusion before your conscious brain knows why.
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00:14:42.399So that gives us the experience of I don't know how I know, I just know.
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00:14:43.200I just know it.
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00:14:46.399When your intuition speaks, should you always listen?
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00:14:53.279Maybe the better question is is your intuition warning you about the present or reminding you about the past?
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00:14:55.039Peter, your thoughts.
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00:15:01.840Short and sweet again, just trust your past experiences and uh for your future judgment, and uh you won't go too far wrong.
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00:15:03.840Go with your gut feeling again.
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00:15:08.080All right, and bored of saying that, but it's it works uh for so many different things.
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00:15:10.159You're not getting bored of saying that, you say it all the time.
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00:15:10.799I love it.
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00:15:11.519You gotta love it.
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00:15:13.360All right, well, that's good night for me.
00:15:13.519 -->
00:15:14.720And it's good night for me.
00:15:14.960 -->
00:15:15.519Good night.
00:15:15.679 -->
00:15:16.559Good night.
