Photo credit: Subhro Vision
I did not always have access to the extra-sensory perceptions that now guide me. Yet my life ‘before’ was not as rational as I thought.
On the surface, before 2018, I was functioning in a rational way - and I actually ticked all the ‘rational’ boxes (strong quant skills; several recognised degrees; renowned employers; well-respected positions; and so on). Me, intuitive?
In reality, even though I did not admit it then, I usually made key decisions using my gut feeling. I did not always listen to my sixth sense, but it was there since I was a child. I also strongly felt people and places since my early years (and I was aware of this), but let us not digress.
How could I be intuitive and not know it - or rather not recognise it? It is quite simple: After making an intuitive decision, I had a tendency to list a posteriori logical reasons supporting my choice. This enabled me to easily explain my decisions to others - especially when those choices were surprising people around me! I got so used to justifying my intuitive choices with logical arguments that I even fooled myself! There is always a way to explain a decision that you have already made, isn’t there?
Some other senses invited themselves in my life much later, but intuition is part of my regular toolbox for as long as I can remember. I was not the kind of person listing the pluses and minuses of two potential jobs to pick one or the other...
My intuition actually led me from job to job and country to country (across continents!). My sixth sense also pushed me to combine simultaneously activities that had nothing to do with each other (at least seemingly). And so, on many occasions in my ‘previous’ professional life, I had to ‘make sense’ of my CV to my interviewers that (poor them indeed) could not find an ounce of cohesion in my resume. Ivy Exec career advisors always had something to say about how to reshuffle it all or ‘simplify’ my CV. To me, everything made sense (and I had no issue answering questions)!
Intuition is a mighty power - in each and every area of our lives, and in particular on our professional path. I usually followed my intuition throughout my career. Yet the times where I didn’t follow my sixth sense, I did kick myself...
One of those times I did not follow my intuition was when I joined Orange Labs UK as an Innovation Executive. My work contract had been signed and all arrangements had been made - I had even moved to London for the job (from abroad) ! And yet the weekend before starting working there, I told one of my close friends that I had a feeling it was not a good idea to join. I had no valid reason to back my feeling this time (on the face of it, the job looked perfect; an exec I know had even told me that many would dream to be offered this position). Unsurprisingly, my friend advised me to give them a chance (I had not even set a foot there yet)! And so I started working there. And guess what? It turns out that a few months into the job, the Lab started laying off a wave of developers; and a year after joining, the company closed down (EE, a UK joint venture between Orange and Deutsche Telekom, had been purchased by British Telecom). I had felt it in some way - but I did not act accordingly.
Most of the times where I did not follow my intuition, this was because I followed something else: what other people think (or might think!); my brain only; and/or my pride (my ego). In the R&D Lab case, all three applied!
I also have an example of not following my intuition career-wise when I was a young professional looking for my second internship, some 16 years ago! I completely lacked self confidence then. I had the option to work for the Polish consulate in Paris or for Philips Lighting in customer collection. I chose the latter, not because it appealed to me the most (I would have loved to work for the consulate, since I am French-Polish and was interested in political sciences), but because I thought it would look better on my resume. It served me as a great lesson: I thought about resigning in my first weeks at Philips (even though it was a fixed contract!). If it were not for my parents (who were discouraging me to resign so young in one of my first positions), I would have quit. It is extremely difficult for me to do something I really don’t like. I like a lot of things and I am truly curious, but calling / emailing (not to say harassing !) huge supermarkets to bother them with unpaid invoices or upcoming invoices was definitely not my thing (even though I did very well).
I just gave you two exemples of times where I did not follow my intuition. Why? It is so striking to see the relevance of intuition using counter-examples! Usually though, I followed what I felt to make key professional decisions.
I explained in detail how I ended up moving to Lebanon (in 2012) and working on diasporas and becoming a book author in this field, by following my bliss and intuitively seizing opportunities in an article entitled “Serendipity at work”.
Even in my first career steps, I usually followed my intuition. This was the case when a good friend and I set out (towards the end of 2007) to spend together part of our business school gap year (the first half of 2008) in Australia. I persisted in sending dozens and dozens of CVs to the other end of the world (I was working in Paris then). For months, I did not get a single interview (Our business school was not that renowned that far away; And recruiters probably thought we were not serious about moving to Oz from Europe). I had no network in Oceania, so I reached out to school alumni there. At some point, a bit discouraged after emailing so many CVs, I sent my resume to a couple of companies in Paris - for jobs I was very interested in (except, they were all but based in Australia)! Since it was so much easier to get a job in France, I got a (well-paid) offer from a large company based in Paris - in January 2008. I was annoyed. I was not feeling ‘it’. I really wanted to go to Australia ! It was a child dream to go there, and I strongly felt the time to spend a few months in Oz was now (during my gap year) or never! Yet time was flying and I had not found anything in Australia. Not even an interview invitation or a call (although some good souls had replied to my emails). This time though, I did not repeat the mistake I had done when I was 20 (going for the job that ‘looks good’ CV-wise). It was already January 2008 and still, I declined the Paris offer. The Directors that had extended the offer asked me why. I told them that I intended to go to Australia. They asked me if I had found a position there. I said the truth (i.e. No, not yet)! They probably thought I was crazy (although they encouraged me to contact them again after graduating). I was short of time, since I had to be back to school in Berlin by September 2008. In the same month (January 2008), an Australian manager based in Sydney whom my resume had been forwarded to reached out to me. And believe it or not, we quickly agreed on a project for me to be involved (I even had the choice!). I was super-excited about ‘my’ project (which was at the crossroads between environment and innovation). It is the only offer I got in Oz. Yet that Australian experience warrants a whole chapter. To sum up, within a few weeks everything was set up administratively and logistically, and several weeks later my friend and I moved to Sydney. I loved the job and the team, I was very well taken care of, and I learnt a lot. I got time to travel (road-trip) extensively (i.e. for a few months) in Australia and New Zealand, both before and after the project. And I could go on and on. In a nutshell, my Australian experience was as wonderful as I had imagined as a kid. It was totally worth following my gut feeling! I am grateful to my former manager (Dr Mark Rebentrost), who believed in me, gave me a chance to work with him and his team, and trusted me to manage a project despite my young age then. Thank you Mark!
Following your intuition is the hardest when it makes no sense at all - like in the Lab example I mentioned above. This is why it makes sense to take small ‘intuitive risks’ (risks where little is at stake when following our intuition). Seeing the results reinforces our confidence in our sixth sense. Not following our intuition and ending up in a nightmarish situation is also (but at what price?) a strong incentive to use our intuition next time! I learnt it early on in my career.
Today, my intuition is so strong, and I trust it so much, that I take what people would describe as huge risks using my intuition (and my other perceptions). Sometimes I know the ‘why’ behind the intuition, but often I just feel /perceive what to do without knowing the rationale. I only understand afterwards why it was serving me to make that step - or rather that leap of faith (I love that Indiana Jones scene, in the movie “The last crusade”).
How about you? Are you using your intuition to navigate your career? Are you following your intuition equally in your personal life and in the workplace?
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PS: If you are interested in reading more on intuition applied to relationships, this article about 'people-intuition' might be of interest to you: "(Hyper-)feeling people".
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