March 9, 2025 • 20 mins
The Neuroscience of Intuition Explained
It’s not just a “gut feeling”, it’s science. In this episode, Friederike Fabritius explains the neuroscience behind intuition. Fabritius discusses why experts can make superior decisions with limited information and time, and how their subconscious brain contributes to this. She shares the importance of body awareness when it comes to intuition and decision-making, as well as the ways that this can be strengthened. Key points include understanding whether you are an expert, building mastery, keeping things simple, and how flipping a coin can reinforce your intuition.
00:00 Introduction to Intuition
00:35 Understanding the Subconscious Mind
02:14 Intuition in Everyday Life
05:32 The Role of Expertise and Mastery
09:14 Practical Tips for Harnessing Intuition
16:05 The Power of Simplicity
18:13 Conclusion and Key Takeaways
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello, and welcome to my podcast.
Today, I would like totalk about intuition.
Intuition has such a bad rap.
Imagine if you go to your supervisorand you say, Oh, let's expand to China
because, well, my gut feeling tells me so.
Probably people wouldthink you're just insane.
(00:28):
And I would like to make the casefor gut feelings and intuition today
from a neuroscience perspective.
So let's start by talkingabout what intuition really is.
In your brain, 95 percent of your brainactivity is actually subconscious.
That's how your brain saves energy.
Because doing all those calculationsconsciously costs us a lot of energy.
(00:53):
And that's why it's so much moreefficient for our brain to do
things with our subconscious.
So while our conscious mind has limits,our subconscious mind is pretty much
unlimited, and this means that you can doso much more, you're just not aware of it.
Whatever your brain can automate,your brain will automate, and
(01:14):
that just makes your life easier.
That's how it works.
We make 95 percent of our decisionsand everything we do with our
subconscious brain, and we use the5 percent of our rational mind to
justify our decisions after the fact.
So, it feels as if we takerational decisions, but in
(01:34):
reality, it's your subconsciousbrain that is running the show.
I don't think it's a problem.
I think it's genius.
So you might think like, Ohno, everything is subconscious.
It's good because we are bombardedwith so much information that actually
your conscious brain is only processingthis at the rate of 100 million to one.
(01:57):
So when you look at the informationthat's flowing in, your conscious
brain is only taking a fractionof that and processing that.
And that's a good thingbecause it's helping you to
stay focused on what matters.
Your brain does a lot of the heavy liftingfor you, it just makes your life easier.
And intuition is basically when yoursubconscious brain is calculating
(02:19):
something in the background, and thentelling you about the result, you get
a feeling like, uh, I don't know, Idon't feel good about that person.
You just have a feeling about things.
If you think about when you starteddriving a car, in the beginning you
do all of that with your prefrontalcortex, so it's a very rational process.
(02:41):
You have to think about stopping at thelight, pushing the brakes, all of that
stuff requires a lot of attention andit's very fatiguing at the beginning.
It's really energy consuming.
You feel exhausted after yourfirst driver's lesson because
it's been like very intense.
And you probably can't talk tosomebody while you're driving.
You can't listen to music.
(03:02):
You can't eat a sandwich.
Because all your conscious mindcan do is try to operate all these
different things, the stop signs,the gas, the brakes, the speed limit.
It's just a lot of stuff that yourconscious brain has to process.
And we do that in the beginningwith our prefrontal cortex.
(03:25):
Then after a while, after you hopefullypassed your driver's license and
spent some time driving, after someyears, you suddenly start driving
with a different part of your brain.
These are your basal ganglia.
The basal ganglia arenot talked about a lot.
They are the seat of your experience.
That's where the brainstores habitual processes.
(03:46):
So if you learn over timehow to drive, your brain will
say (03:51):
Okay, I've got this down.
I know how to do this.
So I don't need to engage myprefrontal cortex with that anymore.
And then your subconsciousbrain, your basal ganglia,
pretty much do all the driving.
And that's when you start listening topodcasts while you're driving, or you
think you can eat while you're driving,or you think you can listen to music.
(04:11):
Actually, that is unsafe.
It feels as if we can do a lotof other things while driving,
but in reality, accidents go up.
So while your subconscious brain doesmost of the driving, you still need a
little bit of that prefrontal cortexattention for unexpected things like the
person in front of you suddenly breaking.
(04:32):
At the beginning, when we accumulateknowledge, when we learn something
new, we need a lot of attention.
And that is done with yourprefrontal cortex just located here.
Over time, as you become moreexperienced, your brain will delegate
those things to the basal ganglia.
And then you can drivewithout paying much attention.
(04:54):
I'm sure you had that experience inthe past where you arrive at work
or at some place like the gym whereyou often go, and you don't even
remember how you got there becauseyour brain did everything on autopilot.
So, the subconscious brain is prettycool because it helps you to delegate,
it's like a built in personal assistantthat does stuff for you without you
(05:17):
having to waste precious brain powerand energy on actually doing it.
So we can say intuition is unlimitedwhile your prefrontal cortex is
pretty limited, that's why we do somuch with our subconscious brain.
But here's the thing (05:32):
when you have a gut feeling, when should you listen to it?
And when should you think, oh, it couldjust be a bias or a stereotype or just a
bad feeling that doesn't mean anything?
Here's, in my opinion,the important distinction.
Whether you should trust yourintuition depends on whether
(05:52):
you're an expert or not.
If you're an expert, you'll havelots of valuable information
in your basal ganglia.
Over time, so much practice, practice,practice, practice puts valuable
stuff into your basal ganglia.
And then when you get a gut feeling,like a message from your subconscious
brain, it's often pretty valid.
(06:15):
In fact, research shows that whenyou ask top athletes to review a
game and then they stop it and theyask them what would be the best
move here, the less they think, thebetter the result of their answer.
So when they think less, they'remore correct than when you
give them more time to think.
(06:35):
So experts actually outperform when theyhave less time and less information.
So the less you think, the better you get.
That's pretty cool.
That's even counterintuitive becauseif you think about it, we usually think
more information is always better,more time to think is always better.
(06:56):
But if you're an expert, limitedinformation, limited time, and
gut decisions actually helpyou to make superior decisions.
So that's really a key point.
If you're an expert, you'llmake very, very good and quick
gut decisions based on limitedinformation and under time pressure.
(07:19):
For example, there was a study where theyhad a look at typists and they showed
them a blank keyboard and they had to sayokay, this letter is in this position.
They were able to do that at about a rateof half of the time they were correct,
but they also misidentified 23% ofcases, and they omitted only about 20%.
(07:46):
So they did not do well.
The typists who could type 74 or morewords per minute, so they were very
experienced typists, they were notable to tell you on which position a
certain letter was on the keyboard.
They actually type withtheir subconscious brain.
So they don't know what their lettersare, but their subconscious brain knows.
(08:10):
And that's how theymanage to get that speed.
So it really matters whether you'rean expert or not, because experts
are so fast and accurate because theydon't need the prefrontal cortex.
When people learn an instrument or amath or whatever, in the beginning, that
part of the brain will grow, but whenyou become a true expert, that region
(08:32):
actually starts shrinking again and youcan solve the same task with less effort.
What you will see in true expertsis that they engage less of
the brain to solve the problem.
Pretty cool.
So what does that mean for you?
That means that when you havea gut feeling, you should ask
yourself, am I truly an expert?
(08:54):
In that case, go for your gut feeling.
Or am I a beginner in that topic?
Do I not have muchknowledge about that topic?
And in that case, I think youshould spend time studying,
learning more, gathering additionalfacts, doing a thorough analysis.
So it all depends on whetheryou're an expert or not.
(09:14):
I'd like to give you a coupleof tips on how you can really
best use your intuition.
So the first one is know ifyou're an expert or not, and
treat the situation differently,whether you're an expert or not.
If you're not an expert, maybetry to get some more information,
or consult experts on that topic.
(09:36):
This doesn't mean that you shouldblindly follow expert advice, what I'm
saying is if you have an expert thathas your best interests in mind, and
that is truly an expert, that couldbe a person you could consult, but I
would never blindly follow an expert.
So, first thing is, knowwhether you're an expert or not.
The second thing is, buildskills, build mastery.
(09:59):
I think in a world where AI can do a lotof things for you, and where you can use
Google Maps to navigate, and where youcan use ChatGPT to write you a social
media post, people forget to build skills.
If you don't build skills, there'snothing in your basal ganglia, and then
you don't ever get expert intuition.
(10:20):
So there is a case for mastery.
There is a case for true learning.
If you learn something, and if you havea lot in your memory and in your basal
ganglia, your thinking gets better.
So what this means is you get abetter brain, basically, and you
also gain access to expert intuition.
When I lived in Sweden, I remember I wentto the doctor and then the doctor was
(10:44):
looking all kinds of stuff up and I wasjust like, Whoa, what's that doctor doing?
I mean, it's good.
I like that you're looking up stuff ifyou're unsure what to do, but then I
asked, and they told me that in medicalschool, they don't have to study so much
by heart, because why study somethingby heart if you can just look it up?
That really scared me, because whatthis tells me is that these people are,
(11:08):
of course, smart and looking stuff up.
Kudos to you.
But there's no real expertintuition because if there's no real
experience and expertise in yourbasal ganglia, great, then you know
where to look it up, but your braindoesn't really operate properly.
I do think even in a world wherewe have AI and all kinds of digital
(11:29):
tools, you will have a real advantageif you really build mastery and
skills and really learn somethinginstead of just looking stuff up.
Another advice is if you want to beatan opponent, so let's say you're playing
tennis or you have a competitor, a verysimple trick to get them to perform
(11:51):
worse is by asking them for advice.
Because if you ask an expert how theyare doing certain things they probably
don't know and then by asking them toexplain how they do that thing they're
doing you're actually forcing themmore into a prefrontal cortex mode and
you're messing with their intuition.
So if you have an expert you don'tlike or a competitor or an opponent,
(12:15):
just by asking them to explain howthey do it, by complimenting them
maybe on their technique and thenasking more information about it,
you're going to mess up your opponent.
The more you ask experts to justify,the worse their performance gets.
The more an expert thinks about theirperformance, the worse they get.
(12:35):
I mean, of course, I don't want togive you unethical advice here, it's
more of a joke, but if you think aboutit, in companies, we ask people to
defend their decisions all the time.
You could never just go and say,oh, I had a hunch about something.
And what we're doing is we're makingpeople's brains perform worse.
Because if you have to constantlyjustify yourself, not only does
(12:57):
it take up time and energy anddecrease your motivation, what it
does is it messes up your intuition.
In companies, we have a lotof what Gerd Gigerenzer calls
defensive decision making.
People make gut decisions, butthen they do extensive testing,
consultants, all of that, to justifya gut decision after the fact.
(13:22):
And that is both time consuming,costly, and also a bit annoying.
So I do think we should go back to beinga bit more simple or to allow experts
to use their intuition because all thatdefensive decision making is just very,
very costly, time consuming and a waste.
(13:43):
I'm not saying you should blindlytrust experts, but sometimes people
are choosing a very complicatedprocess for something that could
have just been a back of the envelopecalculation of a couple of experts.
I also think you should treat beginnersdifferent than experts, so if you
have an expert, allow that person tomake quick, intuitive decisions, and
(14:05):
when you have a beginner, give thatperson in your team more time to think,
to learn, to actually build skills.
So you need to treat expertsand beginners differently.
And people don't do that.
They force everyone to makedecisions in a certain way.
And I think when you're dealingwith an expert, you need to
make room for expert intuition.
(14:27):
And when you have a beginner, you needto give them proper time to build skills
and to become masters in their field.
One simple way to really geta better expert intuition is
to train your body awareness.
Your body is constantly picking upsmall signals from your environment
and sending that to you in the form ofincreased heart rate, blood pressure,
(14:53):
maybe tension in the shoulders.
The people who have a good bodyawareness, they will pick up those
signals and translate them into intuitionand make decisions based on that.
Other people just ignore it.
So, if you do something such assports, yoga, mindfulness practice,
(15:14):
it will train a part of your brainthat's called the insula, which
collects information from your body.
And if you learn to really tuneinto those signals from your body,
you will improve your intuition.
So let's say a person gives you bad vibes,that could be because your brain increased
blood pressure, increased your heartbeat,and started you on a sweating process.
(15:40):
If you don't pick up on it, then youdon't know what to do it with it.
But if you do pick up on it, thenyou're like: oh I got a bad feeling.
So what could that be?
If you spend time understanding yourbody better like exercising, breath work,
meditation, that kind of stuff, you willbecome more intuitive in general because
you will have more access to those signalsyour body is sending to your brain.
(16:05):
Simple beats complicated.
Very often we think we need more facts,more information, more complicated tests.
And we're so scared to makesimple decisions, especially
if they involve intuition.
So I think we need to go backto simplicity because a lot of
the complicated things we see inorganizations, or just in the way people
(16:29):
do things, are due to the fact that we'reso scared of gut feelings and intuition,
and we try to set up a complicated,unbiased process, that in the end
does not really make anything better.
So in one study, for example,they gave guidance counselors tons
of information about students.
(16:50):
In person interview, they got anoverview about the interest s,
they had lots of facts about them.
Transcripts, test scores, applicationessays, personality and vocational
tests, in-person interviews, you name it.
And the other group, they just receivedthe GPA and a standardized test score.
(17:13):
The guidance counselors whoreceived tons of information, they
didn't make very good decisions.
They were not really able topredict academic success so well.
But the guidance counselors who justreceived the GPA and a standardized
test, they did pretty well.
So more is not always more.
Simple beats complicated, and I think thereason why that is is because it helps
(17:38):
you to hone into your expert intuition.
We don't have to makeeverything so complicated.
So a final advice if youhave to make a decision.
and you don't know whatto do, flip a coin.
When you flip a coin, and you pick it up,and you get a bad gut feeling, then you
know that you should do the other thing.
(17:59):
And if you flip the coin, and yourbody is like, Oh, that's a huge relief.
That tells you something about yourexpert intuition about your gut feeling.
So flipping a coin is a very simpleway to get access to your intuition.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Let me just quickly recap a coupleof key points and then I'm looking
(18:20):
forward to seeing you next week again.
So first point, most of yourbrain activity is subconscious.
So 95 percent of what your braindoes every day is subconscious.
The prefrontal cortex is limited whileyour subconsciousness is unlimited
and that's why it's so powerful.
Experts perform better when theythink less and beginners perform
(18:45):
better when they think more.
So I think that is a veryapplicable rule for real life.
If you're an expert, make good decisions.
If you're a beginner, spend sometime checking the facts, running some
analysis, gaining some information.
Try to build more skills and become amaster and an expert because otherwise
you will never get expert intuition.
(19:08):
Yeah, we can look stuff up on theinternet, but expert intuition is just so
powerful because it's quick and it givesyou real power to make good decisions.
So you shouldn't delegate thatto some AI tool or to some
book where you look stuff up.
If you want to beat your opponent,ask them how they are doing,
(19:29):
what they are doing, because itwill mess with their intuition.
Treat beginners differently than experts.
Spend some time honing your body awarenessand access to how your body feels.
Listen to your body and maybepractice some sports or breath
work or things like that.
It will improve your intuition.
And one thing that's really importantto me: simple beats complicated.
(19:53):
Cut out that defensive decision making.
Allow people to make more intuitivedecisions, but only if they're experts.
See you next week.
Thanks for listening.
Have a great day.
Hello, and welcome to my podcast.
Today, I would like totalk about intuition.
Intuition has such a bad rap.
Imagine if you go to your supervisorand you say, Oh, let's expand to China
because, well, my gut feeling tells me so.
Probably people wouldthink you're just insane.
(00:28):
And I would like to make the casefor gut feelings and intuition today
from a neuroscience perspective.
So let's start by talkingabout what intuition really is.
In your brain, 95 percent of your brainactivity is actually subconscious.
That's how your brain saves energy.
Because doing all those calculationsconsciously costs us a lot of energy.
(00:53):
And that's why it's so much moreefficient for our brain to do
things with our subconscious.
So while our conscious mind has limits,our subconscious mind is pretty much
unlimited, and this means that you can doso much more, you're just not aware of it.
Whatever your brain can automate,your brain will automate, and
(01:14):
that just makes your life easier.
That's how it works.
We make 95 percent of our decisionsand everything we do with our
subconscious brain, and we use the5 percent of our rational mind to
justify our decisions after the fact.
So, it feels as if we takerational decisions, but in
(01:34):
reality, it's your subconsciousbrain that is running the show.
I don't think it's a problem.
I think it's genius.
So you might think like, Ohno, everything is subconscious.
It's good because we are bombardedwith so much information that actually
your conscious brain is only processingthis at the rate of 100 million to one.
(01:57):
So when you look at the informationthat's flowing in, your conscious
brain is only taking a fractionof that and processing that.
And that's a good thingbecause it's helping you to
stay focused on what matters.
Your brain does a lot of the heavy liftingfor you, it just makes your life easier.
And intuition is basically when yoursubconscious brain is calculating
(02:19):
something in the background, and thentelling you about the result, you get
a feeling like, uh, I don't know, Idon't feel good about that person.
You just have a feeling about things.
If you think about when you starteddriving a car, in the beginning you
do all of that with your prefrontalcortex, so it's a very rational process.
(02:41):
You have to think about stopping at thelight, pushing the brakes, all of that
stuff requires a lot of attention andit's very fatiguing at the beginning.
It's really energy consuming.
You feel exhausted after yourfirst driver's lesson because
it's been like very intense.
And you probably can't talk tosomebody while you're driving.
You can't listen to music.
(03:02):
You can't eat a sandwich.
Because all your conscious mindcan do is try to operate all these
different things, the stop signs,the gas, the brakes, the speed limit.
It's just a lot of stuff that yourconscious brain has to process.
And we do that in the beginningwith our prefrontal cortex.
(03:25):
Then after a while, after you hopefullypassed your driver's license and
spent some time driving, after someyears, you suddenly start driving
with a different part of your brain.
These are your basal ganglia.
The basal ganglia arenot talked about a lot.
They are the seat of your experience.
That's where the brainstores habitual processes.
(03:46):
So if you learn over timehow to drive, your brain will
say (03:51):
Okay, I've got this down.
I know how to do this.
So I don't need to engage myprefrontal cortex with that anymore.
And then your subconsciousbrain, your basal ganglia,
pretty much do all the driving.
And that's when you start listening topodcasts while you're driving, or you
think you can eat while you're driving,or you think you can listen to music.
(04:11):
Actually, that is unsafe.
It feels as if we can do a lotof other things while driving,
but in reality, accidents go up.
So while your subconscious brain doesmost of the driving, you still need a
little bit of that prefrontal cortexattention for unexpected things like the
person in front of you suddenly breaking.
(04:32):
At the beginning, when we accumulateknowledge, when we learn something
new, we need a lot of attention.
And that is done with yourprefrontal cortex just located here.
Over time, as you become moreexperienced, your brain will delegate
those things to the basal ganglia.
And then you can drivewithout paying much attention.
(04:54):
I'm sure you had that experience inthe past where you arrive at work
or at some place like the gym whereyou often go, and you don't even
remember how you got there becauseyour brain did everything on autopilot.
So, the subconscious brain is prettycool because it helps you to delegate,
it's like a built in personal assistantthat does stuff for you without you
(05:17):
having to waste precious brain powerand energy on actually doing it.
So we can say intuition is unlimitedwhile your prefrontal cortex is
pretty limited, that's why we do somuch with our subconscious brain.
But here's the thing (05:32):
when you have a gut feeling, when should you listen to it?
And when should you think, oh, it couldjust be a bias or a stereotype or just a
bad feeling that doesn't mean anything?
Here's, in my opinion,the important distinction.
Whether you should trust yourintuition depends on whether
(05:52):
you're an expert or not.
If you're an expert, you'll havelots of valuable information
in your basal ganglia.
Over time, so much practice, practice,practice, practice puts valuable
stuff into your basal ganglia.
And then when you get a gut feeling,like a message from your subconscious
brain, it's often pretty valid.
(06:15):
In fact, research shows that whenyou ask top athletes to review a
game and then they stop it and theyask them what would be the best
move here, the less they think, thebetter the result of their answer.
So when they think less, they'remore correct than when you
give them more time to think.
(06:35):
So experts actually outperform when theyhave less time and less information.
So the less you think, the better you get.
That's pretty cool.
That's even counterintuitive becauseif you think about it, we usually think
more information is always better,more time to think is always better.
(06:56):
But if you're an expert, limitedinformation, limited time, and
gut decisions actually helpyou to make superior decisions.
So that's really a key point.
If you're an expert, you'llmake very, very good and quick
gut decisions based on limitedinformation and under time pressure.
(07:19):
For example, there was a study where theyhad a look at typists and they showed
them a blank keyboard and they had to sayokay, this letter is in this position.
They were able to do that at about a rateof half of the time they were correct,
but they also misidentified 23% ofcases, and they omitted only about 20%.
(07:46):
So they did not do well.
The typists who could type 74 or morewords per minute, so they were very
experienced typists, they were notable to tell you on which position a
certain letter was on the keyboard.
They actually type withtheir subconscious brain.
So they don't know what their lettersare, but their subconscious brain knows.
(08:10):
And that's how theymanage to get that speed.
So it really matters whether you'rean expert or not, because experts
are so fast and accurate because theydon't need the prefrontal cortex.
When people learn an instrument or amath or whatever, in the beginning, that
part of the brain will grow, but whenyou become a true expert, that region
(08:32):
actually starts shrinking again and youcan solve the same task with less effort.
What you will see in true expertsis that they engage less of
the brain to solve the problem.
Pretty cool.
So what does that mean for you?
That means that when you havea gut feeling, you should ask
yourself, am I truly an expert?
(08:54):
In that case, go for your gut feeling.
Or am I a beginner in that topic?
Do I not have muchknowledge about that topic?
And in that case, I think youshould spend time studying,
learning more, gathering additionalfacts, doing a thorough analysis.
So it all depends on whetheryou're an expert or not.
(09:14):
I'd like to give you a coupleof tips on how you can really
best use your intuition.
So the first one is know ifyou're an expert or not, and
treat the situation differently,whether you're an expert or not.
If you're not an expert, maybetry to get some more information,
or consult experts on that topic.
(09:36):
This doesn't mean that you shouldblindly follow expert advice, what I'm
saying is if you have an expert thathas your best interests in mind, and
that is truly an expert, that couldbe a person you could consult, but I
would never blindly follow an expert.
So, first thing is, knowwhether you're an expert or not.
The second thing is, buildskills, build mastery.
(09:59):
I think in a world where AI can do a lotof things for you, and where you can use
Google Maps to navigate, and where youcan use ChatGPT to write you a social
media post, people forget to build skills.
If you don't build skills, there'snothing in your basal ganglia, and then
you don't ever get expert intuition.
(10:20):
So there is a case for mastery.
There is a case for true learning.
If you learn something, and if you havea lot in your memory and in your basal
ganglia, your thinking gets better.
So what this means is you get abetter brain, basically, and you
also gain access to expert intuition.
When I lived in Sweden, I remember I wentto the doctor and then the doctor was
(10:44):
looking all kinds of stuff up and I wasjust like, Whoa, what's that doctor doing?
I mean, it's good.
I like that you're looking up stuff ifyou're unsure what to do, but then I
asked, and they told me that in medicalschool, they don't have to study so much
by heart, because why study somethingby heart if you can just look it up?
That really scared me, because whatthis tells me is that these people are,
(11:08):
of course, smart and looking stuff up.
Kudos to you.
But there's no real expertintuition because if there's no real
experience and expertise in yourbasal ganglia, great, then you know
where to look it up, but your braindoesn't really operate properly.
I do think even in a world wherewe have AI and all kinds of digital
(11:29):
tools, you will have a real advantageif you really build mastery and
skills and really learn somethinginstead of just looking stuff up.
Another advice is if you want to beatan opponent, so let's say you're playing
tennis or you have a competitor, a verysimple trick to get them to perform
(11:51):
worse is by asking them for advice.
Because if you ask an expert how theyare doing certain things they probably
don't know and then by asking them toexplain how they do that thing they're
doing you're actually forcing themmore into a prefrontal cortex mode and
you're messing with their intuition.
So if you have an expert you don'tlike or a competitor or an opponent,
(12:15):
just by asking them to explain howthey do it, by complimenting them
maybe on their technique and thenasking more information about it,
you're going to mess up your opponent.
The more you ask experts to justify,the worse their performance gets.
The more an expert thinks about theirperformance, the worse they get.
(12:35):
I mean, of course, I don't want togive you unethical advice here, it's
more of a joke, but if you think aboutit, in companies, we ask people to
defend their decisions all the time.
You could never just go and say,oh, I had a hunch about something.
And what we're doing is we're makingpeople's brains perform worse.
Because if you have to constantlyjustify yourself, not only does
(12:57):
it take up time and energy anddecrease your motivation, what it
does is it messes up your intuition.
In companies, we have a lotof what Gerd Gigerenzer calls
defensive decision making.
People make gut decisions, butthen they do extensive testing,
consultants, all of that, to justifya gut decision after the fact.
(13:22):
And that is both time consuming,costly, and also a bit annoying.
So I do think we should go back to beinga bit more simple or to allow experts
to use their intuition because all thatdefensive decision making is just very,
very costly, time consuming and a waste.
(13:43):
I'm not saying you should blindlytrust experts, but sometimes people
are choosing a very complicatedprocess for something that could
have just been a back of the envelopecalculation of a couple of experts.
I also think you should treat beginnersdifferent than experts, so if you
have an expert, allow that person tomake quick, intuitive decisions, and
(14:05):
when you have a beginner, give thatperson in your team more time to think,
to learn, to actually build skills.
So you need to treat expertsand beginners differently.
And people don't do that.
They force everyone to makedecisions in a certain way.
And I think when you're dealingwith an expert, you need to
make room for expert intuition.
(14:27):
And when you have a beginner, you needto give them proper time to build skills
and to become masters in their field.
One simple way to really geta better expert intuition is
to train your body awareness.
Your body is constantly picking upsmall signals from your environment
and sending that to you in the form ofincreased heart rate, blood pressure,
(14:53):
maybe tension in the shoulders.
The people who have a good bodyawareness, they will pick up those
signals and translate them into intuitionand make decisions based on that.
Other people just ignore it.
So, if you do something such assports, yoga, mindfulness practice,
(15:14):
it will train a part of your brainthat's called the insula, which
collects information from your body.
And if you learn to really tuneinto those signals from your body,
you will improve your intuition.
So let's say a person gives you bad vibes,that could be because your brain increased
blood pressure, increased your heartbeat,and started you on a sweating process.
(15:40):
If you don't pick up on it, then youdon't know what to do it with it.
But if you do pick up on it, thenyou're like: oh I got a bad feeling.
So what could that be?
If you spend time understanding yourbody better like exercising, breath work,
meditation, that kind of stuff, you willbecome more intuitive in general because
you will have more access to those signalsyour body is sending to your brain.
(16:05):
Simple beats complicated.
Very often we think we need more facts,more information, more complicated tests.
And we're so scared to makesimple decisions, especially
if they involve intuition.
So I think we need to go backto simplicity because a lot of
the complicated things we see inorganizations, or just in the way people
(16:29):
do things, are due to the fact that we'reso scared of gut feelings and intuition,
and we try to set up a complicated,unbiased process, that in the end
does not really make anything better.
So in one study, for example,they gave guidance counselors tons
of information about students.
(16:50):
In person interview, they got anoverview about the interest s,
they had lots of facts about them.
Transcripts, test scores, applicationessays, personality and vocational
tests, in-person interviews, you name it.
And the other group, they just receivedthe GPA and a standardized test score.
(17:13):
The guidance counselors whoreceived tons of information, they
didn't make very good decisions.
They were not really able topredict academic success so well.
But the guidance counselors who justreceived the GPA and a standardized
test, they did pretty well.
So more is not always more.
Simple beats complicated, and I think thereason why that is is because it helps
(17:38):
you to hone into your expert intuition.
We don't have to makeeverything so complicated.
So a final advice if youhave to make a decision.
and you don't know whatto do, flip a coin.
When you flip a coin, and you pick it up,and you get a bad gut feeling, then you
know that you should do the other thing.
(17:59):
And if you flip the coin, and yourbody is like, Oh, that's a huge relief.
That tells you something about yourexpert intuition about your gut feeling.
So flipping a coin is a very simpleway to get access to your intuition.
I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
Let me just quickly recap a coupleof key points and then I'm looking
(18:20):
forward to seeing you next week again.
So first point, most of yourbrain activity is subconscious.
So 95 percent of what your braindoes every day is subconscious.
The prefrontal cortex is limited whileyour subconsciousness is unlimited
and that's why it's so powerful.
Experts perform better when theythink less and beginners perform
(18:45):
better when they think more.
So I think that is a veryapplicable rule for real life.
If you're an expert, make good decisions.
If you're a beginner, spend sometime checking the facts, running some
analysis, gaining some information.
Try to build more skills and become amaster and an expert because otherwise
you will never get expert intuition.
(19:08):
Yeah, we can look stuff up on theinternet, but expert intuition is just so
powerful because it's quick and it givesyou real power to make good decisions.
So you shouldn't delegate thatto some AI tool or to some
book where you look stuff up.
If you want to beat your opponent,ask them how they are doing,
(19:29):
what they are doing, because itwill mess with their intuition.
Treat beginners differently than experts.
Spend some time honing your body awarenessand access to how your body feels.
Listen to your body and maybepractice some sports or breath
work or things like that.
It will improve your intuition.
And one thing that's really importantto me: simple beats complicated.
(19:53):
Cut out that defensive decision making.
Allow people to make more intuitivedecisions, but only if they're experts.
See you next week.
Thanks for listening.
Have a great day.
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