Be Aware of Your Instincts

In my last post I continued the discussion on our intellectual nature, which I call “The Battleground”. I stated that it is central to how we live out our life in this physical world. What I mean is that we too often unquestionably rely upon the direction it provides us and it’s this unquestioning aspect of our three-part nature that I will discuss here.

We must understand that our intellectual nature in and of itself is error-prone. How many of us have made and followed through on a decision that was based solely on our intellect and contrary to what our instinct told us? And later we regretted that decision shaking our heads and saying, "I should have listened". How many of us know really smart individuals who continually mess up their lives by making dumb decisions? You know there really is a difference between book sense and common sense, don’t you? We just have to know when to apply which.

Our intellect is a valuable tool in specific areas such as: schoolwork or applying specialized knowledge to solve problems. But when it comes to solving life's problems the intellect by itself isn’t enough to get the job done. We need to team it with other aspects of our nature. Allow me to provide an example.

I owned a successful Information Technology company that was recognized by Inc. Magazine and included in their Inc. 500 list of the fastest growing privately held corporations in America. However one year I was having a really tough time and it was touch and go as to whether I could even stay in business. Luckily, we received a subcontract from a major corporation that would provide us enough revenues to pay our expenses but make very little if any profit.

In finalizing the paperwork for this subcontract a question was asked  "Who would pay the payroll and overhead expenses for individuals hired to accomplish the work?" Since I always figured that amount in my bid price I, like I had always done in the past, initially responded that my company would cover these costs. However, something inside me (an instinct) urged me to respond that I expected the prime contractor to cover that cost. So, I followed my gut and changed the answer from my company to theirs. To my surprise the contracting officer accepted this response My profit increased from something negligible to a very substantial amount. This gave me enough working capital to comfortably plan for the following year.

My point is that we should not be so set in our ways that we don't take a few moments to examine why we do what we do if we're not happy when we get where we go. In this case I teamed my intellectual nature with what I call awareness.

I will discuss the subject of awareness in my next post. Until then, here's hoping you live today and every day passionately and with purpose! Thank you and God bless.