Listening to our instinct

Life s challenges constantly stoke up a fire of emotions and thoughts. At times we feel in control and happy, and at other times we may feel vulnerable, alone or angry . How we respond to our state of mind and how we process our own inner thoughts is where the knowledge game is eventually won or lost.

In saying this, I am not suggesting you undertake some mind control training or rush off and see a psychiatrist , but I am suggesting that you develop the skill to tune into your mind and instinct more. Our job is not to fight a war against the gods and monsters of the mind but to take more liberties in how we can learn and respond to what our minds may be saying.

For me, it is here that the final test of winning the knowledge game needs to be undertaken and understood . We need to cast away those rogue thoughts and delusions that are causing us harm, even when on the surface the intentions may be very positive and enticing. Similarly we need to recognize the power of our intuition and gut feeling. At times our instinct is wrong but more often than not our inner wisdom is fairly close or there is a hidden issue that needs exploring.

Listening to our instincts requires us to understand that our minds are a blending of both conscious and subconscious activity. Scientific research has shown that we have a complex array of different neurological, hormonal and electromagnetic information. In each moment of time we are trying to interpret what is going on around us. Sometimes we may check into our inner dialogue or self-talk to help us, but most of the time our mind is clearly making decisions without consulting us.

As neuro- psychologist , Richard Gregory, explains most of our mental functioning is done without us ever being aware of it. He gives the following analogy:

Imagine consciousness is a beam of light, from a torch directed around the dark universe of the mind. We are the beam of light, we are an eye looking along the beam, and we see nothing outside. But there is a great deal around it and much that is never illuminated. All this is Mind. Present consciousness is what we see lit by the patch of light of the beam.

Further studies by Professor Benjamin Libet and Dr Patrick Haggard found that our subconscious always starts with a whole series of electrical activity before we respond or act consciously. On average this takes between a half to a quarter of a second to process.

So, in a real sense we are always living in the past and a great deal of our thinking, emotional juggling and judgements are made before we even get the urge to do something. All this mental activity in our mind is our personal attempt to deal with complexity and this helps us to think in a single and coherent way. So we should not see our conscious thinking and feeling as our whole mind, it clearly is not.

Professor Michael Gazzaniga proposes that our inner voice, what we sometimes label our conscious mind, comes only from the left side of our brain. This left side of our brain tries to make meaning and explanation from the various events and emotions we are experiencing. In fact, the left side of the brain looks for order and reason even when none exists. This leads to overgeneralization, mistakes and errors.

As Gazzaniga explains, the left side of our brain sings like Pavarotti while the right side is like a bird chirping in the background. He goes on to say that the feeling of being in control of our lives is just an illusion. The urge to do something does not come from conscious thought but starts with the electrical energy between the billions of neurons and pathways in our subconscious mind. The vast majority of what we are doing is never in our awareness. In fact, if you try to be aware of what you are doing you will fail. Your conscious mind does not have a hope of managing the complexity of such an activity. It is all being done for us without us thinking about it. The next time you are walking down the street try to manage the complexity of what you are doing. For people who have had to learn to walk again after an accident or illness , managing this using conscious thought is a difficult task.

Given these findings, it is not surprising that people have for thousands of years sought better ways to increase the awareness of their mind. Such an enquiry is vital if we wish to address the problems and complexities of life and find different connections and choices.

The same message applies to business. We can never hope to make total sense of our know-how as it often lies hidden and out of reach. The best we can do is to create a spirit of learning, which encourages risk-taking, deeper thinking and experimentation. Therefore, whatever happens to us in business we have an attitude that will carry us through.