Should you Trust your Intuition?

April 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

 

Women have an edge when it comes to reading people. With thousands of years of development you need to understand that we are accessing something amazing. Dr. Helen E. Fisher, anthropologist and author of First Sex says that our brain circuitry evolved so we could size up people and situations that threatened our survival and being able to tune in allowed women to save their babies.

Don’t turn your backs on this marvelous gift instead of harnessing the power.

At the very least –listen to the hunches and couple it with logic to double check your belly brain.

Intuition is one more tool for making choices.

Here’s when you can trust the reliability:

1) When you have experience in something your instincts will be sharper. For example, you grew up driving in extreme weather conditions so even though you might live in Florida or California you need to honor your instincts to stay home when it pours.

2) When your body talks to you. If you feel exhausted, get a horrible headache or experience pain when you are around a prospective customer than something is “off” and wrong, this may not be a great fit. (If you are skeptical do research to see if you can find someone who knows them and get a sense on them.)

3) When you are going to invest beaucoup bucks or time notice your feeling and check it. If you are going to spend thousands investing in a program that promises the world and it feels wrong you need to sleep on it. If you are going to spend lots of time on a project—check to see if it feels right. Use your logic and check on it —see if there are lots of bad reviews.

Intuition isn’t 100% reliable. But it’s a valid tool for making choices and a very cool GPS. I am using it more to follow my joy. If someone feels good and it feels right I trust it and proceed.  Here’s the caveat—when it feels really right it’s rarely wrong.

Case in point: My friend created a live website on spec for a company, her partner urged her to do the minimum amount of work because she only had 24 hours to complete it. She ignored his advice because she had strong chemistry with the prospect and she felt it was important to strut her stuff. Ultimately the deal worked out to be a $30K+ deal that went well beyond website development and she was able to sell them a bigger package. She told me she just knew it would work out like that. Thank goodness she honored her intuition.

Filed Under: women entrepreneur, women sellers, women’s intuition Tagged With:

You Matter

June 2, 2011 By 2 Comments

 

There are days when we wake up and want to chuck the small business life. We want to bag on our dreams, and, frankly, if we suffer from WOP (watching other people) and thinking we are behind or it will never happen or why not us, we can find plenty of reasons to just quit. And that’s when the noise amplifies and you’ve got every good reason why your thing won’t hit it. The wild thing is that you could have had a 5 day run when you said your affirmations, business was percolating, you worked out, did yoga and ate your greens. But out of the blue the mind virus of doom visits.

This week I am a going lean on my post. I wrote this poem when I was trying to convince myself to carry on about 7 years ago. It’s from my book Your Corporate Recovery, and I still like it. I hope it speaks to your soul; consider it a message from my higher self to yours. Share it with someone who has a great idea but who doubts herself so we can have a spontaneous group awakening and healing. Let it go viral. I believe in you!

You Matter
Every note has been played before;
it’s how the musician arranges notes that matter.
Every cooking ingredient has been used before;
it’s how you mix it that matters.
Every word has been used before;
it’s the way that you say it that matters.
Every garment has been made before, there’ve been shirts and dresses and pants before;
it’s the stitching and how you assemble them that matter.
Every play has been done before — there have been tragedies and comedies;
it’s the new setting or characters that matters.
Inspirational books have been written before on every topic;
it’s the author’s personal sharing and slant on the experience that matters.
Every muscle has been used in sports before; there’s been skiing and skating before.
It’s how you uniquely combine them that matters.
There’s always room for you, for your way of doing it,
and YES your attempt at something new is what matters!
There has never been anyone like you before and never will there be anyone exactly like you again. The contributions you make, your words, your smile, the essence of who you are uniquely touch people. It’s no accident that you’re here, no insignificance; you’re here to contribute, and you’ll find what it is if you keep looking and talking. Even if it feels like you can’t or if you think what you have to say is too small to matter, it’s not. You’ll never know which random act will alter your path and life forever. All you have to do is take action and put one foot in front of the other and believe in your strength.
You can do it.

Filed Under: female empowerment, inspiration, motivation, self love, small business woman, women entrepreneur Tagged With: , ,

Customers are Gifts

April 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

What’s it like to do business with you? Ever ask? How often do you imagine what it’s like to be in your customers’ shoes? Not often I bet. Instead, and we’ve all done it, we complain about them. Their indecision, repetitive questions, and struggles frustrate us. When we try to help and they don’t return calls, our patience wears thin. If we are tired or wired we might even feel justified and unloved. If it’s a really bad day, we vent with friends and talk about how hard business is.

This is all normal. Human interactions are complicated. How can we bless customers and their imperfections when we aren’t feeling it? What gets in the way is our fantasy about the perfect client. They should be easy, never doubt you, pay early, always be on time, be super grateful and tell all their friends about you. But it’s not like that all the time.

Last night as I sat at Maria’s Kitchen getting to know a super-successful businesswoman who has a number of employees, she brought it all home. Her reps and designers gripe when the customers are impatient, need an overnight turn-around, turn in material that is sized wrong and needs tweaking. While it’s frustrating, she reminds them to be grateful for the annoyances. If they didn’t have those needs, they’d do business with an on-line company with no customer service. Those customers pay their salaries.

I am not suggesting that you endure abuse. I am saying that you are needed. You are a midwife of change. It’s your job to listen deeply and take people from indecision and fear and make it simple and easy for them to get through it. That’s what you are paid to do. Besides that, customers can be a great personal growth class. Stalk yourself and notice how you act with customers and would be clients. Do you go cold when they get needy? Are you compassionate and understanding? You must be able to go into the eye of the storm with people and lead them through chaos to calm. Customers are great mirrors and teachers. The irritants provide the greatest lessons and the hardest to satisfy teach you to disqualify and disconnect faster or love them a bunch more. And when the rare easy one comes along, I call it grace!

Filed Under: customer service, trust, women entrepreneur, women entrepreneurs Tagged With: ,
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