September 17, 2025 • 53 mins
In this episode of The Evolving Leader, co-hosts Scott Allender and Emma Sinclair sit down with Icelandic author, sustainability leader and entrepreneur Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir to explore how intuition can guide leaders through times of uncertainty and noise. Drawing from her book INSÆI: Icelandic Wisdom for Turbulent Times and her acclaimed documentary InnSæi: The Power of Intuition, Hrund shares how reconnecting with our inner compass helps us balance rational analysis with intuitive insight, creativity and emotional intelligence. From her own experience of burnout to lessons on presence, journaling, and attention, she reveals how leaders can cultivate deeper self-awareness and resilience.
This conversation goes beyond abstract theory, showing how intuition plays a vital role in decision-making, relationships, and leadership culture. Hrund explains how being present allows us to listen more fully, connect with others, and sense opportunities we might otherwise miss. If you are navigating complexity, seeking clarity in uncertainty, or wanting to integrate wisdom and creativity into your leadership practice, this episode offers practical tools and profound inspiration.
Further references
“Listen to Your Intuition — It Can Help You Navigate the Future”
“How to tap into your intuition: a live meditation with Hrund Gunnsteinsdóttir”
Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)
Social:
Instagram @evolvingleader
LinkedIn The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter @Evolving_Leader
Bluesky @evolvingleader.bsky.social
YouTube @evolvingleader
The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jean Gomes (00:04):
That we live in interesting times is a huge
understatement of the overwhelmthat many of us are feeling
today as leaders, we face a setof unprecedented challenges that
don't just require extraordinarylevels of work and innovation,
but also that we should bedigging deep within ourselves to
gain moral clarity. How do werespond in the best ways for
(00:26):
ourselves, those we love andthose we lead? Typically, these
questions of self, when pursuedwith resolve, open up a vast
unexplored inner territory ofresources and opportunities to
be more fulfilled and capable asa leader, and many of us choose
the path of least resistance,instead relying on intelligence
(00:47):
to figure things out and puttingin relentless hard work to
justify our worth that we'reliving on the surface and
failing to search insideourselves to find answers, isn't
new, but It takes on a newmeaning for every generation
across the ages. The consistentadvice of philosophers to self
(01:08):
help gurus is that we need tolive a life true to ourselves,
to know who you are and what youtruly want, and then have the
courage to act on thatknowledge. Every person has to
figure this out for themselves.
Self knowledge cannot be imbibedor enlightenment cannot be
received. It's craft work thatour leaders urgently need to do
if they are to assume fullaccountability for their
(01:30):
privileged positions, but alsoto lead fulfilling and
meaningful lives. In this show,we talk to run guns, teens,
daughter, an Icelandicsustainability leader and
thinker who brings togetherideas and people across sectors
and disciplines to inspirecreative mindsets and
constructive solutions. In hernew book in Sara she explores
(01:52):
how to harness the best inhumanity by broadening our sense
of intelligence, finding abalance between the intuitive,
rational, creative andanalytical. Tune in to an
important conversation on theevolving leader.
Scott Allender (02:08):
Hi folks.
Welcome to the evolving leader,the show born from the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable and more human
leadership to confront theworld's biggest challenges. I'm
Scott Allender and I'm AaronSinclair, and today we have an
incredible show. We're joined byHurd gundader hrund is an
Icelandic thought leader,author, an award winning serial
entrepreneur advisor and publicspeaker. And she is the author
(02:32):
of an incredible book inside eIcelandic wisdom for turbulent
times, and co director andscript writer of the companion
film insai, the power ofintuition. Rund brings a unique
perspective of how we lead,live, innovate and make better
choices in times of uncertainty,transition and noise and Lord
(02:55):
knows, we have a lot of noise inthe world today. Rund, welcome
to the evolving leader.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (03:04):
Thank you so much. It's a great
pleasure to be with you both.
Scott Allender (03:08):
Well, it's our pleasure. We're delighted to
talk to you, and if we can, Ijust want to dive right in and
talk about intuition. Can westart with your definition of
intuition?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (03:20):
Yes.
Intuition. So when I started todive into what intuition is, I
realised that there are severalways that we define intuition
and have to find intuition. Soreading the literature,
depending on disciplines andschools of thoughts and also
cultures. So everything fromIntuition being an irrational
(03:41):
impulse that we shouldn't relyon to being something vuvu That
hasn't been backed by science.
And then in between all ofthese, I would also find, like
rigorous research and, you know,practice based stories of what
intuition is and how it shows upin in different lives, from
(04:01):
sports to arts, you know,business, all these in science
and all these different things.
And so what I choose to do now,when we when we talk about this,
is to, I want to share with youa definition by neuroscientist
Joel Pearson, which recentlypublished a book on intuition,
and he's been doing some wellrecent research on intuition.
(04:23):
And the way I like hisdefinition, so it's intuition is
the productive use ofunconscious information to make
better decisions and actions. Sothat, I think is a very useful
definition. But after I had kindof collected all these different
definitions from around theworld, and just really, you
(04:48):
know, I've been practising,researching and working aligned
with intuition for over 20years, I kind of just went back
to my Icelandic root. About tovisit the language around
intuition from there, which isinsight, which is the title of
my new book. And it just like, Ireally, it's like seeing the
(05:11):
word for the first time. And so,just to give a little bit of
context, because this isimportant, and the listeners
will also be familiar with otherlanguages than maybe English, so
maybe there is also someinteresting stuff coming from
there, but in Icelandic. Sothere's very few of us living in
Iceland, so we're less than400,000 let's just put that out
there. And so we are veryprotective of our language.
(05:33):
There is so much in our storywritten in our language. And
every time there is a newdevelopment and we adjust our
language to it, there'ssomething new invention or
whatever, we don't just take theEnglish word and put an
Icelandic accent to it, in away. So it's Icelandic is very
transparent. So we think aboutlike, what does this thing mean?
(05:54):
How does it function? What doesit do? And then we find the
Icelandic word that can describeit. So it Icelandic is
relatively transparent as alanguage. So the man who
translated intuition intoIcelandic last century chose
created the word in say, whichliterally means to see within,
(06:15):
or the sea within. So the waythat I've, I've worked with this
word, and we particularly did itthrough the documentary film in
say, was to open it up with athree fold meaning, which has
throughout the years, thisbecome this kind of lens and a
framework to help us understandwhat intuition is, how to hone
(06:38):
it and how to lead from withinor be from within. So in say is
composed of two words in and sayin means inside or into. Say
means the sea or to see. So thethree fold definition is
intuition in, say is the seawithin, and that refers to our
(06:59):
ever flowing, constantly moving,unconscious mind, which works
super fast and much faster thanour conscious mind. It's a world
within that's ever flowing. It'sa world that makes connections,
surprising connecting dots. It'sthe world of imagination. It's a
world beyond words, and it'sfrom there that our hits come to
(07:22):
the surface, our intuitive hitscome to the surface. And then
secondly, inside means to seewithin, and that refers to
knowing yourself well enough tobe able to put yourself in other
people's shoes, to be able tohone and harness your intuition.
Because we all have intuition,but it's up to us to hone it.
And so with that comes thisincredibly important part of
(07:45):
this whole world of intuition,knowing how to discern intuition
from biases, fears, wishfulthinking, which also teaches us
when we can rely on it and whennot. And then, thirdly, insane
means to see from the insideout, and that refers to our
ability to navigate the ocean oflife, but also uncertainty that
(08:08):
we are leading in in the worldtoday with a strong inner
compass, and that this we can,we can go into that a little bit
more later, but, but that hasalso to do with for the leaders
listening, you know, a stronginner compass professionally has
to do with accumulatedexperience, knowledge and
(08:28):
expertise, which also gives usdomain, strong intuition in a
certain domain. Do you know nowwhy I gave you the other
definition in the beginning?
Because, like, the Icelandicword is such a long narrative
around it. It's very poetic. Sothat's why I also share Joel
(08:52):
Pearson's definition, becauseit's more succinct.
Emma Sinclair (08:56):
I think it's, I think it's great. And I've, I've
had the pleasure of actuallyspending some time immersed in
in your book, actually. Andthis, this idea of this, perhaps
capturing in a slightlydifferent way, this, this kind
of world within that you canunlock when you consciously
choose to unlock. It is how Ikind of started to interpret
(09:18):
that and thinking about that.
How do you go about doing thatand and why is that important?
And I think what I loved, and Iwonder if you could perhaps
bring this to life for thelisteners, is you know why, and
when did that become importantfor you in your experience, and
how that might enable others torecognise why that might become
important for them to recognisethat's something within them
(09:42):
too.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (09:45):
Yeah, thank you for that question. So
for me, it all started with, youknow, I was, I was in a very
demanding job. I was leading oneof the UN agencies after the war
in Kosovo. I. Um, it was veryintense in the beginning of the
century. I was in my late 20s,and I just came to Kosovo. I
(10:08):
wanted to give the work all Ihad. I looked at the destruction
around me and and, you know, thepain and sadness and people that
I was working with, and I was inmy in the agency that I worked
for, we worked with local peopleall the time, so I was always
immersed in that, in thatcontext, and just wanted to give
(10:29):
it all I had. And I was tooyoung to know how to set my own
boundaries. So I would say,because we mentioned domain
specific specificity earlier,like my intuition was pretty
good at work, but personally, itwas horrible. So I just thought
it was a machine I could workforever and I didn't have to
(10:49):
attend to anything that had todo with sleep, food, my own
health. I also went on to workfor the UN in Geneva. I got a
permanent position with the UN.
This had been my dream job rightafter Kosovo, I really wanted to
work for the UN for the rest ofmy life. I came to the palette
de Nacion in Geneva, and I justfelt like walking into this
(11:11):
heavy bureaucracy hierarchy. Andjust I felt my agency and fuel
was just being suffocated by bythe system around system around
system around system. And I'vehad felt very disconnected from
people on the planet, and Ibecame increasingly disconnected
from myself. And within a periodof four years, I also went
(11:34):
through some really difficulttimes personally, which has to
do with your emotionallandscape, and I just hit a
wall. I I didn't know the wordburnout at the time. So this is
like, 23 years ago, 22 or threeyears ago, and I just hit a
wall, I crashed. And I like, youknow, I would look in the mirror
(11:58):
and and to think like there isno sparkling my eye anymore,
like, how do I get it back? Youknow, the stuff like that. I was
diagnosed with three slippeddiscs, and the doctor said to
me, I don't think you have toprepare that you might not ever
be able to work full time again.
And I was devastated. I washeartbroken. I was I couldn't
(12:20):
tie my own shoelaces because ofmy my back and just losing hope,
and I had to go like throughthat process of healing, and my
only way out of this was to turnwithin. So this is when I, when
I start to think about intuitionseriously, and it, it came to me
(12:41):
both through kind of thesewhispers that we get, but also
there was a person who kind ofcame into my life, and this was
wiser and older and started totalk to me about intuition
taught me how to sleep again,and being the nerd I am, I dived
into Everything I could read andlearn and watch and practice
(13:03):
around intuition. And this iskind of what brought me back to
me, but also in a different way,sort of shifted the centre of
gravity within me, because I wasa typical person who was very
ambitious. I was thinking aboutthe career ladder for a while. I
was very concerned that therewas a gap in my CV because of
all this, like that was a majorconcern of mine, which really
(13:25):
doesn't matter today. And so,but, but so finding my way back
meant that the way I look atcareer, how I show up in the
world, how I navigate is hasreally been informed by that.
And you asked, how do you alignwith your intuition was, was
that also part of your question?
So how do you become moreconscious of it? So the first
thing, both for me and what Iwhat research shows and what I
(13:49):
always advise people, is thefirst step is always to become
more self aware. So to just bemore aware of of yourself, how
you navigate, how you think, howyou feel, how you sense the
environment, how you interpretthings to become more connected
with yourself, and the way thatI did that at this time. And if
(14:10):
we can pack like maybe a coupleof years into the context here,
then to sum it up, what I what Idid. I spent a lot of time
outside. I walked a lot. I wasfortunate enough to to live by
the sea, at this time inIceland, during my main process
of healing, I started to write alot. So this is when I wrote a
(14:34):
play. I started to developentrepreneurial projects, I
wrote poems and short stories.
So creative activity was, is, isvery healing. And I also learned
to use journaling as a techniqueto become more aligned with my
(14:56):
intuition. And you know, thething is, with the. With the
world that we live in today.
It's so noisy, like we mentionedearlier, it's so loud. And I
know I'm not saying anything newto people, but I just want to
kind of bring it into into thisconversation. There's there's
billion dollar businesses, veryambitious and very happy to
(15:17):
hijack our attention as much asthey can. And so attention is
our key to our intuition. And soone of the things that we need
to really understand withintuition is that we pay
attention with our whole body,not just the the eyes or ears or
the and the brain is neverdivorced from the rest of the
(15:39):
body. So chills down your spine,not in your stomach, goose
bumps, all these things this isthese are signals, like sensory
data that we are picking up. Andso our attention is a hugely
scarce resource. And we haveknown this for decades, for
example, in the field ofeconomics. And today it's it's
(15:59):
an even more scarce resource. Sowhat I would always want to
bring up is how important it isfor us to become the stewards of
our own attention, to comeeccentric, to become eccentric
about what it is that we take inwith our whole body. And I do
want to say that we can never be100% aware, because we would
(16:22):
lose our mind. There's likemillions of data coming in every
half an hour. But you know thatwe can do better, most of us,
and and I can do better, even ifI do this for a living. I can
always do better every day,because I get height, my
attention gets high, getshijacked all the time.
Scott Allender (16:40):
I love this word in SAE, by the way, and every
way that you've defined it, andI love everything that you're
saying. And I have just so manyquestions. I guess we'll hone in
on this one, because you talkedabout connecting to your
intuition by healing. So myquestion is, do you think that
we are naturally very intuitiveand more in contact with it as
(17:02):
younger people, and then itactually get noise, the all the
noise and all the distractionsand all the attention hijacking,
we then lose it. And part of thejourney back toward it is paying
attention to what you payattention to, but also figuring
out places that you kind of needto heal. That's what I'm hearing
from you.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (17:20):
Yeah, I think this is a, this is a
really nice way of approachingit. So, yes, I think we are, you
know, so when we think aboutintuition, so I'd like to bring
in here this thing that thisthing, which I found radical at
some point, like intuition, isfundamental to our intelligence.
(17:41):
It's not just one piece of it.
So it's fundamental. So the sameintuition that can keep us sane
and aligned and in harmony, likein flow, is the is the same
intuition that that our greatestminds, Nobel laureates, used to
come up with the greatestdiscoveries, you know? So it's
the it comes from the from thesame source. When we shut out
(18:02):
our intuition, that's when we weare super stressed, and we are
always doing the output. We'realways like, delivering, showing
up there. We leave no space forthe unexpected. We leave no
space for being as opposed todoing, we leave no space for
receiving as the boat, asopposed to planning and being
(18:24):
deliberate. So it's that so inmy book, I write about the two
rhythms. So it's like honing andharnessing learning to train
these two rhythms to be inbalance is what brings up
intuition working in all itsdifferent forms and ways that it
can work, but, but we cut, it'slike limping, you know, if you
don't do the other rhythm, thenyou're just going to limp. So
(18:47):
you can also be like somebody,if we imagine somebody who is
who just doesn't plan anything,isn't deliberate about anything.
So that's kind of whoo flowingaround. But we want it to be in
balance, right? So it's it'sthat. And when you mention, when
we are younger and healing, thisis like so closely related to to
(19:08):
being aligned with yourintuition. And when we say
healing, it's like our bodieshave an incredible power to
heal, and so does our mind, youknow, in collaboration with the
body. And I think even for thoseof us here and those listening,
you know, when we work reallyhard and we just need to let
(19:31):
things sink or sit or take apause, then it's it's great to
go to meet friends and have alaugh or whatever we do just to
have fun, and that's asimportant as it is for people in
sports to rest before a game.
You know, it's it needs to gotogether. Playfulness is super
(19:52):
important, because there issomething about lightness and
ease that comes with things thatwe do with. Our intuition. Do
you guys know that feeling? Youknow it's just like, it's it's
ease, it's like, I, we, we, itdoesn't always have to be so
hard and labourers. It's somethings come with ease. But then,
(20:13):
having said this, I have to alsosay that there is so much that
happens before the ease ofknowing and doing, and that's
what I want us to remember, thatit's not just something
intuition is not just somethingthat comes out of nowhere. You
know, it's something that we'vebeen brewing and taking in with
our sensory data and body andmind and and do we process it
(20:36):
well or not, and stuff likethat. So it's all an ecosystem
of thinking and being
Emma Sinclair (20:46):
you were talking there in a something that I
really took away was this, thissense of enable, like, yeah, and
how you enable intuition, and Ithink, and I can, I guess, I can
only talk for myself. And Iwonder if others have
experienced the same is that youknow when you're in a constant
sense of always on likeeverything's happening, and it
(21:08):
always feels like it's happeningpotentially to you. How? How do
you help individuals who arepossibly over indexing on that
always on, to just and, youknow, work harder just for that
moment in time that enables themto create that flow state, to
(21:32):
enable them to gain the benefitof intuition. It's a hard
question, because, I guess youwere saying at the that
beginning point, you have towork hard to find intuition, and
once you can gain it, and youcan sort of build it, it starts
to flow the other way for you,those two rhythms start to
balance each other out. But Ijust wonder how you make that
first starting point torecognise its benefits.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (21:55):
Yeah, so yes, it's a big question, but
it's a very good question. Andwhen you say work hard. I'm glad
you brought that up, because Ido think that let's imagine
somebody who is reallydisconnected with their
intuition, and they're listeningand thinking like, how do we
even start to listen? And I wantto say it's not hard, it's not a
lot of work, it's more givespace, spaciousness in your mind
(22:24):
and in your day to be withyourself, to start with that you
know, don't be like, always,always doing and executing and
like, you know, don't burn yourcandle from both ends. And then
I like And then sometimes, whenI work with people, you know,
(22:44):
every individual is a universein it, in their own so that's
how I look at it. So it's verypersonalised. Then people have
to find their own words aboutthings and really own their
intuition, because they we canonly be the experts in our own
intuition, right? But, but I Ireally so people can meditate,
they can go for a walk, they canlie down. Some people just need
(23:06):
to sleep for two weeks. Itdepends on the state of the
person right, whenever they canfor two weeks. Some people
meditate, some people draw, somepeople do sports, different
things. But what I alwaysrecommend people do, and the
people that I work with is tostart journaling. What happens
(23:27):
when we start journaling? Andthere are different ways of
journaling, but just to focus onthe word journaling, you have a
pencil or a pen in your handthat already activates your
whole system differently than ifyou don't have a pencil or a pen
in your hand, and then you writesomething on a piece of paper.
So we have this expression inIcelandic, applying your hand to
(23:49):
your hat. Doesn't make any sensein English, but it's almost like
if you imagine you put thecirculation system of your soul
and mind and brain into motion,you start writing, and you start
writing in a stream ofconsciousness, so that you can
see on a piece of paper all thethoughts and things that are
swirling around in your head,1000s of thoughts per hour or,
(24:11):
you know, or day. I can'tremember exactly in this very
moment, the research that Ireferred to in my book, 6000
something words. We can'tpossibly grasp all of these, but
they are swirling around in ourhead. They're taking up a lot of
space. So when we journal themand we put them on a piece of
paper, and we look at the pages,we start to realise, like, Wow,
(24:32):
do I really spend so much timethinking about this. And then
you read the text, and you see asentence, there is a judgement,
there is something there. Andyou wonder, this isn't even my
voice. Whose voice is it? Andthen you realise it may be
something from way back that'salways coming at you, stopping
you in your steps, orundermining your your agency,
(24:53):
like you want to do something.
And then there's this voice inyour head that says, No,
probably somebody else hasdefinitely done it, or you. You
have other things to do, or youcan't give yourself, you know,
all these different things. Andthen you also notice that you
have these recurring thoughts,ideas that are very constructive
for you. So maybe you want tofocus more on them, on them and
letting other things go. Whathappens also is that you start
(25:16):
to notice that you start tonotice that sometimes your
intuition comes through in thetext. Sometimes you think
something is intuition, and it'sactually not so. For example,
you're writing about somethingthat basically sheds light on
the fact that you were verygrumpy and tired on that day,
and your judgement was It wascute because of that, or you
(25:38):
were very stressed and anxious,or you were totally falling in
love, and just everything was soRoy rosy that you couldn't see
clearly. And so you begin to seethese rhythms that we have, and
just to really understand whenyou can rely on your intuition
and when not. And so it is thisreally important to know that
(26:01):
your fears are different fromother people's fears, and they
show up in a in a certaincontext. And so slowly but
surely, you start to recognisewhen it is that your intuition
has been strong about something,you start to recognise the
thoughts that are affect likethoughts that are come from fear
and are stopping you and you maynot even need them anymore. You
(26:25):
know all these different things,and it's, it's, it's, it's a lot
of it is a lot of selfreflection. It's like a
metacognition. You are observingyour own thought processes. You
are becoming more self aware.
You during this process, a lotof people and including myself,
(26:48):
you start to realise thatactually there are certain
people around me that I lovevery much, but I need to take a
break from being around them fora while. While I clear my head
about something, or there arecertain circumstances that don't
work well for me when I need totake a good decision,
Emma Sinclair (27:06):
is it possible just to help someone who's
perhaps never started journalingbefore? Just you know you're,
you know, great pointers tostart well, because it's not
necessarily easy just to pick upa like pen and and begin to
journal. What's the what's agood guide for a starting point
(27:29):
for somebody?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (27:31):
So keep a journal at hand, if you can.
So have a journal with you,which means for some people not
not to buy a big one, or not tohave a big one. So just keep a
journal tent and scribble. Youknow, that's that's a nice thing
to do to scribble, but the butthe practice is the following.
And I take this from JuliaCameron, the queen of
journaling. Every morning whenyou wake up, if you can take a
(27:58):
site, even if it's just two tofive minutes and you start
journaling in a stream ofconsciousness, if you don't know
what to write, you just write. Idon't know what to write. I
don't know what to write. I haveno idea why I'm doing this. Why
am I doing this? Who told me todo whatever comes out? Do this
for a few days. You may resist.
You may not like it, but thenslowly and gradually. And this
(28:19):
happens, trust me, you willstart to write thoughts. I
dreamt this. I love the coffee.
Yesterday, she said this to me.
It doesn't have to make anysense. It's not yours to judge.
Just allow it to come down onthe piece of paper. The first
thing that happens is that yourmind gets lighter. You're just
creating more space in yourmind. And I think for a lot of
(28:42):
people, that's really valuable,right? And then just trust that
this is just your journal.
Nobody's gonna read it, youknow? It's just for you. And
then I always say, if, if youcan't do it in the morning, then
just do it in the evening. Ifyou can't do it in the evening,
do it for five minutes at twoo'clock. If you can do it
(29:05):
whenever, like every day, if youpossibly can, if you skip a day,
then just continue the dayafter, you will reach a point
where you really feel why thisis good. And the reason why you
will remember that it's good foryou is because you're journaling
about
Scott Allender (29:19):
it from a leadership perspective, I'm want
to stay with this idea of beingable to reflect and understand
when to trust intuition andmaybe when not. And you even
touched on at the very openingsome of your opening remarks
about becoming conscious ofthings that might be bias in us
(29:42):
and these kinds of things. So,you know, because I've, I've met
leaders that I think you couldalmost argue, almost rely over,
rely on a sort of intuitiveapproach to things, and then
almost look for data to validatethis sort of intuition, and in
fall into the. Trap ofconfirmation bias, right? And
that's not what we're saying.
And then, of course, you've gotother groups of people who
(30:04):
probably are way too rationaland don't want to rely on
intuition or emotion or payingattention to their physical well
being or any of those kinds ofthings. So you've got,
obviously, in a bunch of peoplein between. So I'd love to get
your sort of thoughts, becausethe journaling is a super
helpful strategy. But are thereother things that our leaders
(30:24):
should be thinking about interms of honing intuition and
being able to pull apart wherethey might be biassed or making
assumptions and they need tosort of then test and validate
intuition?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (30:40):
Yeah, this is a, this is a great
question. So there is, I wroteabout this recently in my
newsletter about management andintuition. I think that's a
that's a nice place to startthis, answering this question.
So it's, I think it's importantthat we when we look at
(31:02):
intuition, we have the scienceto some extent around intuition,
but we all know that it's notlike a long story of science or
intimate of intuition. And Iwant to say like, I don't think
that science can explaineverything. I also want us to
remember that consciousness,brain and intuition, we don't
really know very much about anyof these things, so let's just
(31:23):
keep that humility, but researchon management and intuition. So
intuition becomes superimportant in uncertainty. So
when we have known knowns,statistics and analysis work
super well when we haveuncertainty, intuition based on
expertise, knowledge andexperience becomes super
(31:45):
important. The more that we areaware of our intuition in that
context, the stronger ourintuition becomes, and we can
start to talk about mastery. Soif you are a leader, a manager,
and you have a team, and youwant to start to cultivate
intuition in decisions andactions in your team and
(32:06):
yourself. Then the the advicethat researchers and
practitioners would give,including me, is to train
yourself with your team to pickup signals the sensing part of
intuition. This is somethingthat a lot of management trained
(32:26):
people are very reluctant to do,you know. So like sensing, what
do we mean by that? So it's likesensing what's on the horizon,
you know, what's happening inthe area. So this could even be
like you're working in one veryspecific area. Deliberately look
outside that area to collectdata about trends and changes in
the environment around us. Weall work with stakeholders. We
(32:48):
all work with certain contexts,like market or environment, you
know, explore that fromdifferent angles. You know,
that's one of the ways to sensewhat's happening. What a lot of
managers are doing today is alsojust to give space for
mindfulness meditation askingquestions that are like, give
(33:10):
permission to ask questions in away that you haven't quite
formulated your questionbecause, like we talked about
earlier, when we get theseintuitive hints, They often come
to the surface, and we can'tquite put it into words. This is
something we feel in ourfingertips. You know, it's like,
I always think about theantenna. We all have an antenna,
and it's quite it's trying toget the signals correct, but
(33:32):
it's not there yet. So sometimesit takes days, weeks, years, to
put intuition into words. Sogive space for that, because
very often this is like, verypragmatic. Very often in the
workplace, we sit in meetingsand we are, like competing to
say something before the meetingis over. It's not helping us
speak from a place of intuition.
We need to be super trained tobe able to do that. And then we
(33:54):
also have cases in researchersfrom for example, you have a
board taking difficultdecisions, there's a senior
member on the board, seniormeaning having lots of
experience, having having trieddifferent things, so experience,
expertise and knowledge aboutcertain situations. And that
person says there's somethinghere that really doesn't sit
(34:16):
right with me. I think we needto reconsider this decision. And
the Chair of the Board says wedon't have any time to
reconsider, you know, and thisdismisses it, and let's, let's
go on with the show. And oftenthis turns out to be a mistake,
you know. So there is, there isreal value in in how we sense
context and environment. So weare going to want to cultivate
(34:40):
that element. And then there arealso advices from researchers
and and lots of good studiesthat have shown results to the
benefit of intuitive judgement,which is doing exercises. You
know, some offices have set uplike places, spaces to to. Draw
to do something with our hands,like craft creativity, just let
(35:01):
the mind flow and rest thelogical mind. Because when we
reach a state of flow, which isoften called the highest form of
attention that humans can offer,I love that. I think it's Johan
Hari who faced it that way. Whenwe are in a state of flow is
when we are doing something thatwe are super curious and
(35:24):
interested in. We are beingchallenged in a healthy way.
It's not overwhelming, but weare doing something that
challenges us a little bit. Butwhat also happens is that the
part of our thinking which isthis fault finding rational,
logical mind, whatever we callit, steps aside and we are in a
flow. We are in our zone. Weforget time and space, and we
(35:48):
become very productive andperform in ways that we may not
have thought possible before.
Emma Sinclair (35:56):
Can I take that a little further as well and think
about this from the you talkedabout? The environments we
create to enable that intuition,insight to to build and I was
just wondering, from yourexperience and maybe any of the
research, how you can use thisto build better relationships,
(36:19):
or think about building betterrelationships. How does
intuition work together inpartnerships?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (36:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. So you
mean just relationship in thebig in the big convening of
Emma Sinclair (36:31):
relationships, or it could be in teams, or it
could, it could be in culture,yeah.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (36:37):
So one way to approach this is to say
that when we are disconnected,we're absent in ourselves. It's
very hard for us to makeconnections with other people in
the world around us. So that'slike the starting point. When
people who are aligned withtheir intuition, they tend to be
(36:59):
present, more present. We can'talways be 100% present, but they
tend to be present like they arepresent in front of you,
speaking to you, and you feelthat they are listening to you.
You feel seen. That's an examplewhen people are aligned with
their intuition, because when weare present, we become more
aligned with our intuition. Webecome better listeners. And
(37:22):
presence gives us this, thisability to have a broader view
of things. So we are not sotunnel viewed. We are not just
waiting to speak as opposed tolistening. So we become better
listeners. We become more ableto engage. We also become more
able to read the whole being infront of us, you know, it's not
(37:44):
just the word they say. It's howthey say it, you know, it's not
just the brilliance of somethingthat they've just said in a
sentence. It's also just like,where are they coming from? You
know, you just read the signalsof the whole being in front of
you in a different way. Andthat's very much intuition. So
it's both reading the physicallanguage, the energy, you know,
(38:07):
we co regulate as a species. Sofrom a perspective of
neuroscience, we co regulate,you know, like we are in the
same room, and I can be totallyabsent, very stressed. You will
feel it if we spent hourstogether. Our heart starts to
our hearts can start to be tothe same rhythm. Our breathing
can also start to be moreshallow. If our breathing
(38:30):
becomes more shallow, then we westart to think differently,
because we have less oxygen andwe produce more cortisol, which
is the stress hormone, and allthese things. So we are co
regulating in this way. So it'simportant that when people are
aligned and they are present,then they are more able to bring
out a better version of theother persons as well. So it
(38:52):
really matters, if we aredisconnected from ourselves,
it's hard to buildrelationships, and we all know
this from so in my coaching, Ijust Just this week, I've had a
few sessions where people areexplaining they are at work. And
this is going to be very common,also for the listeners and the
and the leaders, people aresharing stories of they are
(39:14):
trying to they want to be seenat work. Their boss isn't
listening. They are standingthere but but they can tell that
their eyes are moving. They'relooking at something else.
They're just always waiting togo somewhere else. That's an
example of someone who is notaligned with their intuition and
and is becomes a worse listenerin the process. And also, you
(39:38):
know, because you sayrelationships. So this also
comes up a lot parents, theywill say, I have a I have a very
good intuition about my mychildren, but I don't know if I
have good intuition aboutanything else. So domain
specific intuition at work, youcan build that up. And sometimes
(39:58):
it's about turning on the switchand. Really seeing how you're
navigating with intuition. Butthe reason why we have good
intuition about our children isbecause we observe them. So
observe you're speaking topeople. You're observing a
context and environment. Thisalso enables you to build up a
stronger intuition aboutsomething. You start to notice
(40:20):
when something's off. You startto notice when things could be
done better. You start to askreally, like, good questions,
like, and that's another thingabout intuition and
relationships. You know,building a culture around
intuition and more intuitivesensing is also about asking
good questions. We don't alwayshave to have the answers, right?
Sara Deschamps (40:44):
Welcome back to the evolving leader podcast. As
always, if you enjoy what youhear, then please share the
podcast across your network andalso leave us a rating and a
review. Now let's get back tothe conversation.
Emma Sinclair (40:58):
I took a took a sentence, if you don't mind your
book, and it led to a question,because you have a wonderful
phrase in here that says, ourbrains wire to the world around
us, and it matters if weexperience it remotely, and
whether it's abstract anddisconnected ways, or if we
immerse ourselves in the worldand live within it. And it just
(41:22):
got me questioning on the backof what you've just said there,
like, how do we how do weexperience really great
intuition, or build that reallygreat intuition with the world
that is getting slowly, fast,very quickly, more and more
digital, the AI and the and thechanges that are happening there
(41:43):
too. How? How can we? How can webecome that sort of, that human
anchor in a world that'sbecoming so, so technical,
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (41:53):
yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a
really great question. Sothere's something about being
connected with the real world,with a living world. That's one
thing, you know, the the anxiousgeneration, Jonathan Haidt in
the States, and then smartphonefree childhood in the UK. I
think it's called, you know, allthe conversation around that is
(42:14):
about, you know, we are beingoverprotective over our kids
when it comes to the real world,you know, the fresh air and the
natural world and the pavementand the neighbourhood, but we
are too little protective overthem in the virtual world. So
it's that distinction so beingmindful of just being part of
(42:38):
the living world and theinformation that we take in and
consume. If we think about if wego back to the attention, and we
pay attention with our wholebody, when we consume
information like virtual,digital information all the
time, and they are fragmented,we start to experience things as
(42:58):
being we forget the context ofthings. And I think that the
biggest mentor always is nature.
And it's not just because I'mfrom Iceland, you know, we have
because it's a very like richnatural land, you know. But, but
it's also research shows justhow nature opens up our energies
and and and can reduce anxietyand stress. Can fuel our ability
(43:22):
to connect with others and haveconversations and like walking,
taking a meeting, walking andtalking with somebody. It's,
it's great, like people aredoing it more and more, I hear
that around me. So there's,there's this thing about being
connected with the world. Andcan I take, take a story of some
of a leader, just to give thismore kind of a professional
(43:44):
context, holistic professionalcontext. So in my book, I
interview many, a few greatpeople. One of them is Andrei
Sallah. He is an ocean explorerwith the National Geographic and
David Attenborough, just prepremiered their documentary
ocean, which is very much aboutenrik Salas work in the world.
(44:08):
So Enric Sala grew up in Spain.
He was very passionate about theocean. He was very inspired by
ocean explorers like JacquesCousteau, and he wanted this to
dedicate his life and work tothe ocean. So he goes on to
study, and then he goes touniversity, and then he becomes
(44:29):
a university professor in marinebiology. He's a university
professor in Spain for sevenyears, until he wakes up one day
thinking, listen, I'm justwriting the obituary of the
ocean. I'm so disconnected fromit, and the ocean is withering
away, and it feels like I'mdoing nothing about it. So he
(44:49):
decides to leave his position asa professor at the University,
and he decides that he wants tospend most of his time immersed
in the ocean. And. Deepen hisintuition about what's wrong
with it and how to bring itback. So that is literally what
enrik Sara has been doing. So hein the last years, he's been
(45:12):
sailing and around the world'soceans, diving in the oceans
with scientists, filmmakers andanalysts to document the state
of the ocean to share footagefrom it, and they have created
these, I think, 27 protectiveareas in the ocean that equal
the size that is twice of twicethe size of India, in order to
(45:34):
bring the ocean back. And whatEnric says when he's explaining
this, he's like, I'm ascientist, but I need to immerse
myself in the ocean with thiswhole body and being in order to
build this intuition aboutwhat's wrong with it. And so
what that implies is, are somany things, so picking up
information, really sensing, butalso rationally understanding
(45:58):
what's happening, and being likea living part of the context
that you are dealing with. Themore that we are locked away
from the real world around us,the less I think we are able to
really understand how everythingis interconnected. So my
background is largely insustainability and and peace
(46:19):
building and stuff like that.
And it's, it's like, it is veryscary to think about that we
need to really do a lot ofresearch and spend a lot of
money to prove that if we, as wehave today, crossed six out of
nine planetary boundaries, whichmeans the earth is losing its
(46:42):
ability to renew its energy. Ifwe need to have like 1000s of
conferences and write lots ofresearch to say why that's
serious, I think it's anindication that we have lost
this innate ability tounderstand that. That the
natural world is aninterconnected web of ecosystem,
(47:05):
and so are we as humans, becausewe co regulate as a species. We
can die from loneliness. Youknow, I can also co regulate
anxiety.
Scott Allender (47:16):
Do you think sometimes it's more than an
inability to understand but anunwillingness to see because
perhaps even, I think most, mostof us, least I hope, would
intuitively understand what'shappening to the planet. But
some choose to say that's toohard to look at, because that
would be I'd have to confront alot of things I wouldn't want to
(47:36):
confront in myself and my ownbehaviour, and maybe my lack of
action. And are, do you find it,even in other areas, perhaps,
that there's a willful, like,distant dissonance between
intuition and understandingmeaning that, that I want to see
the world a certain way I have,like, this ideological frame
that I want to hold to, and so Ialmost actively put away access
(48:00):
to my intuition. Would that befair to say, have you seen that?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (48:03):
Yes, I think that's, that's very spot
on. And I think that's thereality. And I think it's, I
think it's both clear andunclear, you know, so I think
it's something that so, so ifyou just look at the knowledge
that we have, so we have thescientific knowledge, we have
the expertise and we have theresources, but we're still not
(48:24):
exactly going in the rightdirection, right so that tells
us a lot about how you know, andmany of our leading scientists,
and people like DavidAttenborough, like, I'm such a
fan of his, like, they wouldsay, like, I thought that when
we would publish the scientificStudies and Results and people
would know, then everythingwould change. But that is not
what happens. So it's so truewhat you're saying, and I think
(48:47):
also just to so for my work,what I find like so incredibly
important is to emphasise thatwe're talking about well honed
and harnessed intuition, becausewe easily confuse intuition with
biases or or just an opinionthat we want to have because
it's more comfortable for us.
It's so important that we unlockwhat this means, because we and
(49:09):
in the light of AI and and andeverything that's changing so
much in our our in the worldthat we live in, and how we
accumulate knowledge, how welearn and how we how we work, I
think it's just super importantthat we start to think about,
how can we actually I think thatwe are biassed against our own
(49:32):
intelligence sometimes. So howcan we build confidence again,
or build confidence in our ownintelligence and judgement, and
for me, a big key to that wouldbe to really understand what we
mean by being aligned with awell honed intuition. Because,
you know, when I started tospeak openly about intuition
(49:57):
like it. Is only in the In veryrecent years where we're, you
know, a scientist said this awhile ago. She said there has
been an ice age in the world ofscience when it comes to
spiritualism and intuition, butnow that ice is throwing and I
(50:17):
love that expression. So it'sit's a culture of ice. It's not
like scientists don't followtheir intuition or or are
spiritual. In this case, as hewas coming from. It's more that
the the permission to talk aboutthings, is changing a little
bit. So for me, intuition is theway I approach it. And this is
(50:40):
not what everybody would say,but the way I approach it is to
say, like people, can we thinkabout intuition and how we can
align with it and hone itintellectually, emotionally and
spiritually? Because I don'tthink that. Think that we are
just scientific. I don't thinkthat we are just, do you know
(51:02):
what I mean? So I'm also justkind of taking it a step
further, that just to bring thatinto the picture. I think we've
been very afraid to talk alongthese lines for for too long,
and I think it's just to thedetriment of our ability to
thrive as humans and and inthriving ecosystems,
Scott Allender (51:24):
what's perhaps a final call to action or
challenge you would leave ourlisteners with today?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (51:33):
Oh, that's great. So maybe, maybe
just for those who are not usedto trying to trying to hone
their intuition, I would leavepeople with two questions. And
if you feel like it's buy ajournal or take out your old
(51:53):
journal that you have, I won'tgive up on that point. Write
down the following two questionsand answer them, maybe just
once, maybe once a week,depending on how you feel. When
was the last time you didn'tlisten to your intuition? Where
did you feel it and whathappened as a result? I'm quite
(52:16):
sure everybody has their ownstory of that, and that will
already expose lots of things.
The second question is, when wasthe last time you did listen to
your intuition? Where did youfeel it? How did you feel it,
and what happened as a result?
Scott Allender (52:34):
That's great.
I'm going to be answering thosequestions. Good. Good. Arjun,
thank you so much for sharingsome of your wisdom with us. I
feel inspired by thisconversation, and I've got a lot
of takeaways, and so I it's theconversation I needed to have
today. So thank you for joiningus.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (52:56):
Thank you for having me. I'm honoured.
It's been great speaking withboth of you,
Scott Allender (53:01):
alright, folks, until next time, remember the
world is evolving. Are you? You?
That we live in interesting times is a huge
understatement of the overwhelmthat many of us are feeling
today as leaders, we face a setof unprecedented challenges that
don't just require extraordinarylevels of work and innovation,
but also that we should bedigging deep within ourselves to
gain moral clarity. How do werespond in the best ways for
(00:26):
ourselves, those we love andthose we lead? Typically, these
questions of self, when pursuedwith resolve, open up a vast
unexplored inner territory ofresources and opportunities to
be more fulfilled and capable asa leader, and many of us choose
the path of least resistance,instead relying on intelligence
(00:47):
to figure things out and puttingin relentless hard work to
justify our worth that we'reliving on the surface and
failing to search insideourselves to find answers, isn't
new, but It takes on a newmeaning for every generation
across the ages. The consistentadvice of philosophers to self
(01:08):
help gurus is that we need tolive a life true to ourselves,
to know who you are and what youtruly want, and then have the
courage to act on thatknowledge. Every person has to
figure this out for themselves.
Self knowledge cannot be imbibedor enlightenment cannot be
received. It's craft work thatour leaders urgently need to do
if they are to assume fullaccountability for their
(01:30):
privileged positions, but alsoto lead fulfilling and
meaningful lives. In this show,we talk to run guns, teens,
daughter, an Icelandicsustainability leader and
thinker who brings togetherideas and people across sectors
and disciplines to inspirecreative mindsets and
constructive solutions. In hernew book in Sara she explores
(01:52):
how to harness the best inhumanity by broadening our sense
of intelligence, finding abalance between the intuitive,
rational, creative andanalytical. Tune in to an
important conversation on theevolving leader.
Scott Allender (02:08):
Hi folks.
Welcome to the evolving leader,the show born from the belief
that we need deeper, moreaccountable and more human
leadership to confront theworld's biggest challenges. I'm
Scott Allender and I'm AaronSinclair, and today we have an
incredible show. We're joined byHurd gundader hrund is an
Icelandic thought leader,author, an award winning serial
entrepreneur advisor and publicspeaker. And she is the author
(02:32):
of an incredible book inside eIcelandic wisdom for turbulent
times, and co director andscript writer of the companion
film insai, the power ofintuition. Rund brings a unique
perspective of how we lead,live, innovate and make better
choices in times of uncertainty,transition and noise and Lord
(02:55):
knows, we have a lot of noise inthe world today. Rund, welcome
to the evolving leader.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (03:04):
Thank you so much. It's a great
pleasure to be with you both.
Scott Allender (03:08):
Well, it's our pleasure. We're delighted to
talk to you, and if we can, Ijust want to dive right in and
talk about intuition. Can westart with your definition of
intuition?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (03:20):
Yes.
Intuition. So when I started todive into what intuition is, I
realised that there are severalways that we define intuition
and have to find intuition. Soreading the literature,
depending on disciplines andschools of thoughts and also
cultures. So everything fromIntuition being an irrational
(03:41):
impulse that we shouldn't relyon to being something vuvu That
hasn't been backed by science.
And then in between all ofthese, I would also find, like
rigorous research and, you know,practice based stories of what
intuition is and how it shows upin in different lives, from
(04:01):
sports to arts, you know,business, all these in science
and all these different things.
And so what I choose to do now,when we when we talk about this,
is to, I want to share with youa definition by neuroscientist
Joel Pearson, which recentlypublished a book on intuition,
and he's been doing some wellrecent research on intuition.
(04:23):
And the way I like hisdefinition, so it's intuition is
the productive use ofunconscious information to make
better decisions and actions. Sothat, I think is a very useful
definition. But after I had kindof collected all these different
definitions from around theworld, and just really, you
(04:48):
know, I've been practising,researching and working aligned
with intuition for over 20years, I kind of just went back
to my Icelandic root. About tovisit the language around
intuition from there, which isinsight, which is the title of
my new book. And it just like, Ireally, it's like seeing the
(05:11):
word for the first time. And so,just to give a little bit of
context, because this isimportant, and the listeners
will also be familiar with otherlanguages than maybe English, so
maybe there is also someinteresting stuff coming from
there, but in Icelandic. Sothere's very few of us living in
Iceland, so we're less than400,000 let's just put that out
there. And so we are veryprotective of our language.
(05:33):
There is so much in our storywritten in our language. And
every time there is a newdevelopment and we adjust our
language to it, there'ssomething new invention or
whatever, we don't just take theEnglish word and put an
Icelandic accent to it, in away. So it's Icelandic is very
transparent. So we think aboutlike, what does this thing mean?
(05:54):
How does it function? What doesit do? And then we find the
Icelandic word that can describeit. So it Icelandic is
relatively transparent as alanguage. So the man who
translated intuition intoIcelandic last century chose
created the word in say, whichliterally means to see within,
(06:15):
or the sea within. So the waythat I've, I've worked with this
word, and we particularly did itthrough the documentary film in
say, was to open it up with athree fold meaning, which has
throughout the years, thisbecome this kind of lens and a
framework to help us understandwhat intuition is, how to hone
(06:38):
it and how to lead from withinor be from within. So in say is
composed of two words in and sayin means inside or into. Say
means the sea or to see. So thethree fold definition is
intuition in, say is the seawithin, and that refers to our
(06:59):
ever flowing, constantly moving,unconscious mind, which works
super fast and much faster thanour conscious mind. It's a world
within that's ever flowing. It'sa world that makes connections,
surprising connecting dots. It'sthe world of imagination. It's a
world beyond words, and it'sfrom there that our hits come to
(07:22):
the surface, our intuitive hitscome to the surface. And then
secondly, inside means to seewithin, and that refers to
knowing yourself well enough tobe able to put yourself in other
people's shoes, to be able tohone and harness your intuition.
Because we all have intuition,but it's up to us to hone it.
And so with that comes thisincredibly important part of
(07:45):
this whole world of intuition,knowing how to discern intuition
from biases, fears, wishfulthinking, which also teaches us
when we can rely on it and whennot. And then, thirdly, insane
means to see from the insideout, and that refers to our
ability to navigate the ocean oflife, but also uncertainty that
(08:08):
we are leading in in the worldtoday with a strong inner
compass, and that this we can,we can go into that a little bit
more later, but, but that hasalso to do with for the leaders
listening, you know, a stronginner compass professionally has
to do with accumulatedexperience, knowledge and
(08:28):
expertise, which also gives usdomain, strong intuition in a
certain domain. Do you know nowwhy I gave you the other
definition in the beginning?
Because, like, the Icelandicword is such a long narrative
around it. It's very poetic. Sothat's why I also share Joel
(08:52):
Pearson's definition, becauseit's more succinct.
Emma Sinclair (08:56):
I think it's, I think it's great. And I've, I've
had the pleasure of actuallyspending some time immersed in
in your book, actually. Andthis, this idea of this, perhaps
capturing in a slightlydifferent way, this, this kind
of world within that you canunlock when you consciously
choose to unlock. It is how Ikind of started to interpret
(09:18):
that and thinking about that.
How do you go about doing thatand and why is that important?
And I think what I loved, and Iwonder if you could perhaps
bring this to life for thelisteners, is you know why, and
when did that become importantfor you in your experience, and
how that might enable others torecognise why that might become
important for them to recognisethat's something within them
(09:42):
too.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (09:45):
Yeah, thank you for that question. So
for me, it all started with, youknow, I was, I was in a very
demanding job. I was leading oneof the UN agencies after the war
in Kosovo. I. Um, it was veryintense in the beginning of the
century. I was in my late 20s,and I just came to Kosovo. I
(10:08):
wanted to give the work all Ihad. I looked at the destruction
around me and and, you know, thepain and sadness and people that
I was working with, and I was inmy in the agency that I worked
for, we worked with local peopleall the time, so I was always
immersed in that, in thatcontext, and just wanted to give
(10:29):
it all I had. And I was tooyoung to know how to set my own
boundaries. So I would say,because we mentioned domain
specific specificity earlier,like my intuition was pretty
good at work, but personally, itwas horrible. So I just thought
it was a machine I could workforever and I didn't have to
(10:49):
attend to anything that had todo with sleep, food, my own
health. I also went on to workfor the UN in Geneva. I got a
permanent position with the UN.
This had been my dream job rightafter Kosovo, I really wanted to
work for the UN for the rest ofmy life. I came to the palette
de Nacion in Geneva, and I justfelt like walking into this
(11:11):
heavy bureaucracy hierarchy. Andjust I felt my agency and fuel
was just being suffocated by bythe system around system around
system around system. And I'vehad felt very disconnected from
people on the planet, and Ibecame increasingly disconnected
from myself. And within a periodof four years, I also went
(11:34):
through some really difficulttimes personally, which has to
do with your emotionallandscape, and I just hit a
wall. I I didn't know the wordburnout at the time. So this is
like, 23 years ago, 22 or threeyears ago, and I just hit a
wall, I crashed. And I like, youknow, I would look in the mirror
(11:58):
and and to think like there isno sparkling my eye anymore,
like, how do I get it back? Youknow, the stuff like that. I was
diagnosed with three slippeddiscs, and the doctor said to
me, I don't think you have toprepare that you might not ever
be able to work full time again.
And I was devastated. I washeartbroken. I was I couldn't
(12:20):
tie my own shoelaces because ofmy my back and just losing hope,
and I had to go like throughthat process of healing, and my
only way out of this was to turnwithin. So this is when I, when
I start to think about intuitionseriously, and it, it came to me
(12:41):
both through kind of thesewhispers that we get, but also
there was a person who kind ofcame into my life, and this was
wiser and older and started totalk to me about intuition
taught me how to sleep again,and being the nerd I am, I dived
into Everything I could read andlearn and watch and practice
(13:03):
around intuition. And this iskind of what brought me back to
me, but also in a different way,sort of shifted the centre of
gravity within me, because I wasa typical person who was very
ambitious. I was thinking aboutthe career ladder for a while. I
was very concerned that therewas a gap in my CV because of
all this, like that was a majorconcern of mine, which really
(13:25):
doesn't matter today. And so,but, but so finding my way back
meant that the way I look atcareer, how I show up in the
world, how I navigate is hasreally been informed by that.
And you asked, how do you alignwith your intuition was, was
that also part of your question?
So how do you become moreconscious of it? So the first
thing, both for me and what Iwhat research shows and what I
(13:49):
always advise people, is thefirst step is always to become
more self aware. So to just bemore aware of of yourself, how
you navigate, how you think, howyou feel, how you sense the
environment, how you interpretthings to become more connected
with yourself, and the way thatI did that at this time. And if
(14:10):
we can pack like maybe a coupleof years into the context here,
then to sum it up, what I what Idid. I spent a lot of time
outside. I walked a lot. I wasfortunate enough to to live by
the sea, at this time inIceland, during my main process
of healing, I started to write alot. So this is when I wrote a
(14:34):
play. I started to developentrepreneurial projects, I
wrote poems and short stories.
So creative activity was, is, isvery healing. And I also learned
to use journaling as a techniqueto become more aligned with my
(14:56):
intuition. And you know, thething is, with the. With the
world that we live in today.
It's so noisy, like we mentionedearlier, it's so loud. And I
know I'm not saying anything newto people, but I just want to
kind of bring it into into thisconversation. There's there's
billion dollar businesses, veryambitious and very happy to
(15:17):
hijack our attention as much asthey can. And so attention is
our key to our intuition. And soone of the things that we need
to really understand withintuition is that we pay
attention with our whole body,not just the the eyes or ears or
the and the brain is neverdivorced from the rest of the
(15:39):
body. So chills down your spine,not in your stomach, goose
bumps, all these things this isthese are signals, like sensory
data that we are picking up. Andso our attention is a hugely
scarce resource. And we haveknown this for decades, for
example, in the field ofeconomics. And today it's it's
(15:59):
an even more scarce resource. Sowhat I would always want to
bring up is how important it isfor us to become the stewards of
our own attention, to comeeccentric, to become eccentric
about what it is that we take inwith our whole body. And I do
want to say that we can never be100% aware, because we would
(16:22):
lose our mind. There's likemillions of data coming in every
half an hour. But you know thatwe can do better, most of us,
and and I can do better, even ifI do this for a living. I can
always do better every day,because I get height, my
attention gets high, getshijacked all the time.
Scott Allender (16:40):
I love this word in SAE, by the way, and every
way that you've defined it, andI love everything that you're
saying. And I have just so manyquestions. I guess we'll hone in
on this one, because you talkedabout connecting to your
intuition by healing. So myquestion is, do you think that
we are naturally very intuitiveand more in contact with it as
(17:02):
younger people, and then itactually get noise, the all the
noise and all the distractionsand all the attention hijacking,
we then lose it. And part of thejourney back toward it is paying
attention to what you payattention to, but also figuring
out places that you kind of needto heal. That's what I'm hearing
from you.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (17:20):
Yeah, I think this is a, this is a
really nice way of approachingit. So, yes, I think we are, you
know, so when we think aboutintuition, so I'd like to bring
in here this thing that thisthing, which I found radical at
some point, like intuition, isfundamental to our intelligence.
(17:41):
It's not just one piece of it.
So it's fundamental. So the sameintuition that can keep us sane
and aligned and in harmony, likein flow, is the is the same
intuition that that our greatestminds, Nobel laureates, used to
come up with the greatestdiscoveries, you know? So it's
the it comes from the from thesame source. When we shut out
(18:02):
our intuition, that's when we weare super stressed, and we are
always doing the output. We'realways like, delivering, showing
up there. We leave no space forthe unexpected. We leave no
space for being as opposed todoing, we leave no space for
receiving as the boat, asopposed to planning and being
(18:24):
deliberate. So it's that so inmy book, I write about the two
rhythms. So it's like honing andharnessing learning to train
these two rhythms to be inbalance is what brings up
intuition working in all itsdifferent forms and ways that it
can work, but, but we cut, it'slike limping, you know, if you
don't do the other rhythm, thenyou're just going to limp. So
(18:47):
you can also be like somebody,if we imagine somebody who is
who just doesn't plan anything,isn't deliberate about anything.
So that's kind of whoo flowingaround. But we want it to be in
balance, right? So it's it'sthat. And when you mention, when
we are younger and healing, thisis like so closely related to to
(19:08):
being aligned with yourintuition. And when we say
healing, it's like our bodieshave an incredible power to
heal, and so does our mind, youknow, in collaboration with the
body. And I think even for thoseof us here and those listening,
you know, when we work reallyhard and we just need to let
(19:31):
things sink or sit or take apause, then it's it's great to
go to meet friends and have alaugh or whatever we do just to
have fun, and that's asimportant as it is for people in
sports to rest before a game.
You know, it's it needs to gotogether. Playfulness is super
(19:52):
important, because there issomething about lightness and
ease that comes with things thatwe do with. Our intuition. Do
you guys know that feeling? Youknow it's just like, it's it's
ease, it's like, I, we, we, itdoesn't always have to be so
hard and labourers. It's somethings come with ease. But then,
(20:13):
having said this, I have to alsosay that there is so much that
happens before the ease ofknowing and doing, and that's
what I want us to remember, thatit's not just something
intuition is not just somethingthat comes out of nowhere. You
know, it's something that we'vebeen brewing and taking in with
our sensory data and body andmind and and do we process it
(20:36):
well or not, and stuff likethat. So it's all an ecosystem
of thinking and being
Emma Sinclair (20:46):
you were talking there in a something that I
really took away was this, thissense of enable, like, yeah, and
how you enable intuition, and Ithink, and I can, I guess, I can
only talk for myself. And Iwonder if others have
experienced the same is that youknow when you're in a constant
sense of always on likeeverything's happening, and it
(21:08):
always feels like it's happeningpotentially to you. How? How do
you help individuals who arepossibly over indexing on that
always on, to just and, youknow, work harder just for that
moment in time that enables themto create that flow state, to
(21:32):
enable them to gain the benefitof intuition. It's a hard
question, because, I guess youwere saying at the that
beginning point, you have towork hard to find intuition, and
once you can gain it, and youcan sort of build it, it starts
to flow the other way for you,those two rhythms start to
balance each other out. But Ijust wonder how you make that
first starting point torecognise its benefits.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (21:55):
Yeah, so yes, it's a big question, but
it's a very good question. Andwhen you say work hard. I'm glad
you brought that up, because Ido think that let's imagine
somebody who is reallydisconnected with their
intuition, and they're listeningand thinking like, how do we
even start to listen? And I wantto say it's not hard, it's not a
lot of work, it's more givespace, spaciousness in your mind
(22:24):
and in your day to be withyourself, to start with that you
know, don't be like, always,always doing and executing and
like, you know, don't burn yourcandle from both ends. And then
I like And then sometimes, whenI work with people, you know,
(22:44):
every individual is a universein it, in their own so that's
how I look at it. So it's verypersonalised. Then people have
to find their own words aboutthings and really own their
intuition, because they we canonly be the experts in our own
intuition, right? But, but I Ireally so people can meditate,
they can go for a walk, they canlie down. Some people just need
(23:06):
to sleep for two weeks. Itdepends on the state of the
person right, whenever they canfor two weeks. Some people
meditate, some people draw, somepeople do sports, different
things. But what I alwaysrecommend people do, and the
people that I work with is tostart journaling. What happens
(23:27):
when we start journaling? Andthere are different ways of
journaling, but just to focus onthe word journaling, you have a
pencil or a pen in your handthat already activates your
whole system differently than ifyou don't have a pencil or a pen
in your hand, and then you writesomething on a piece of paper.
So we have this expression inIcelandic, applying your hand to
(23:49):
your hat. Doesn't make any sensein English, but it's almost like
if you imagine you put thecirculation system of your soul
and mind and brain into motion,you start writing, and you start
writing in a stream ofconsciousness, so that you can
see on a piece of paper all thethoughts and things that are
swirling around in your head,1000s of thoughts per hour or,
(24:11):
you know, or day. I can'tremember exactly in this very
moment, the research that Ireferred to in my book, 6000
something words. We can'tpossibly grasp all of these, but
they are swirling around in ourhead. They're taking up a lot of
space. So when we journal themand we put them on a piece of
paper, and we look at the pages,we start to realise, like, Wow,
(24:32):
do I really spend so much timethinking about this. And then
you read the text, and you see asentence, there is a judgement,
there is something there. Andyou wonder, this isn't even my
voice. Whose voice is it? Andthen you realise it may be
something from way back that'salways coming at you, stopping
you in your steps, orundermining your your agency,
(24:53):
like you want to do something.
And then there's this voice inyour head that says, No,
probably somebody else hasdefinitely done it, or you. You
have other things to do, or youcan't give yourself, you know,
all these different things. Andthen you also notice that you
have these recurring thoughts,ideas that are very constructive
for you. So maybe you want tofocus more on them, on them and
letting other things go. Whathappens also is that you start
(25:16):
to notice that you start tonotice that sometimes your
intuition comes through in thetext. Sometimes you think
something is intuition, and it'sactually not so. For example,
you're writing about somethingthat basically sheds light on
the fact that you were verygrumpy and tired on that day,
and your judgement was It wascute because of that, or you
(25:38):
were very stressed and anxious,or you were totally falling in
love, and just everything was soRoy rosy that you couldn't see
clearly. And so you begin to seethese rhythms that we have, and
just to really understand whenyou can rely on your intuition
and when not. And so it is thisreally important to know that
(26:01):
your fears are different fromother people's fears, and they
show up in a in a certaincontext. And so slowly but
surely, you start to recognisewhen it is that your intuition
has been strong about something,you start to recognise the
thoughts that are affect likethoughts that are come from fear
and are stopping you and you maynot even need them anymore. You
(26:25):
know all these different things,and it's, it's, it's, it's a lot
of it is a lot of selfreflection. It's like a
metacognition. You are observingyour own thought processes. You
are becoming more self aware.
You during this process, a lotof people and including myself,
(26:48):
you start to realise thatactually there are certain
people around me that I lovevery much, but I need to take a
break from being around them fora while. While I clear my head
about something, or there arecertain circumstances that don't
work well for me when I need totake a good decision,
Emma Sinclair (27:06):
is it possible just to help someone who's
perhaps never started journalingbefore? Just you know you're,
you know, great pointers tostart well, because it's not
necessarily easy just to pick upa like pen and and begin to
journal. What's the what's agood guide for a starting point
(27:29):
for somebody?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (27:31):
So keep a journal at hand, if you can.
So have a journal with you,which means for some people not
not to buy a big one, or not tohave a big one. So just keep a
journal tent and scribble. Youknow, that's that's a nice thing
to do to scribble, but the butthe practice is the following.
And I take this from JuliaCameron, the queen of
journaling. Every morning whenyou wake up, if you can take a
(27:58):
site, even if it's just two tofive minutes and you start
journaling in a stream ofconsciousness, if you don't know
what to write, you just write. Idon't know what to write. I
don't know what to write. I haveno idea why I'm doing this. Why
am I doing this? Who told me todo whatever comes out? Do this
for a few days. You may resist.
You may not like it, but thenslowly and gradually. And this
(28:19):
happens, trust me, you willstart to write thoughts. I
dreamt this. I love the coffee.
Yesterday, she said this to me.
It doesn't have to make anysense. It's not yours to judge.
Just allow it to come down onthe piece of paper. The first
thing that happens is that yourmind gets lighter. You're just
creating more space in yourmind. And I think for a lot of
(28:42):
people, that's really valuable,right? And then just trust that
this is just your journal.
Nobody's gonna read it, youknow? It's just for you. And
then I always say, if, if youcan't do it in the morning, then
just do it in the evening. Ifyou can't do it in the evening,
do it for five minutes at twoo'clock. If you can do it
(29:05):
whenever, like every day, if youpossibly can, if you skip a day,
then just continue the dayafter, you will reach a point
where you really feel why thisis good. And the reason why you
will remember that it's good foryou is because you're journaling
about
Scott Allender (29:19):
it from a leadership perspective, I'm want
to stay with this idea of beingable to reflect and understand
when to trust intuition andmaybe when not. And you even
touched on at the very openingsome of your opening remarks
about becoming conscious ofthings that might be bias in us
(29:42):
and these kinds of things. So,you know, because I've, I've met
leaders that I think you couldalmost argue, almost rely over,
rely on a sort of intuitiveapproach to things, and then
almost look for data to validatethis sort of intuition, and in
fall into the. Trap ofconfirmation bias, right? And
that's not what we're saying.
And then, of course, you've gotother groups of people who
(30:04):
probably are way too rationaland don't want to rely on
intuition or emotion or payingattention to their physical well
being or any of those kinds ofthings. So you've got,
obviously, in a bunch of peoplein between. So I'd love to get
your sort of thoughts, becausethe journaling is a super
helpful strategy. But are thereother things that our leaders
(30:24):
should be thinking about interms of honing intuition and
being able to pull apart wherethey might be biassed or making
assumptions and they need tosort of then test and validate
intuition?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (30:40):
Yeah, this is a, this is a great
question. So there is, I wroteabout this recently in my
newsletter about management andintuition. I think that's a
that's a nice place to startthis, answering this question.
So it's, I think it's importantthat we when we look at
(31:02):
intuition, we have the scienceto some extent around intuition,
but we all know that it's notlike a long story of science or
intimate of intuition. And Iwant to say like, I don't think
that science can explaineverything. I also want us to
remember that consciousness,brain and intuition, we don't
really know very much about anyof these things, so let's just
(31:23):
keep that humility, but researchon management and intuition. So
intuition becomes superimportant in uncertainty. So
when we have known knowns,statistics and analysis work
super well when we haveuncertainty, intuition based on
expertise, knowledge andexperience becomes super
(31:45):
important. The more that we areaware of our intuition in that
context, the stronger ourintuition becomes, and we can
start to talk about mastery. Soif you are a leader, a manager,
and you have a team, and youwant to start to cultivate
intuition in decisions andactions in your team and
(32:06):
yourself. Then the the advicethat researchers and
practitioners would give,including me, is to train
yourself with your team to pickup signals the sensing part of
intuition. This is somethingthat a lot of management trained
(32:26):
people are very reluctant to do,you know. So like sensing, what
do we mean by that? So it's likesensing what's on the horizon,
you know, what's happening inthe area. So this could even be
like you're working in one veryspecific area. Deliberately look
outside that area to collectdata about trends and changes in
the environment around us. Weall work with stakeholders. We
(32:48):
all work with certain contexts,like market or environment, you
know, explore that fromdifferent angles. You know,
that's one of the ways to sensewhat's happening. What a lot of
managers are doing today is alsojust to give space for
mindfulness meditation askingquestions that are like, give
(33:10):
permission to ask questions in away that you haven't quite
formulated your questionbecause, like we talked about
earlier, when we get theseintuitive hints, They often come
to the surface, and we can'tquite put it into words. This is
something we feel in ourfingertips. You know, it's like,
I always think about theantenna. We all have an antenna,
and it's quite it's trying toget the signals correct, but
(33:32):
it's not there yet. So sometimesit takes days, weeks, years, to
put intuition into words. Sogive space for that, because
very often this is like, verypragmatic. Very often in the
workplace, we sit in meetingsand we are, like competing to
say something before the meetingis over. It's not helping us
speak from a place of intuition.
We need to be super trained tobe able to do that. And then we
(33:54):
also have cases in researchersfrom for example, you have a
board taking difficultdecisions, there's a senior
member on the board, seniormeaning having lots of
experience, having having trieddifferent things, so experience,
expertise and knowledge aboutcertain situations. And that
person says there's somethinghere that really doesn't sit
(34:16):
right with me. I think we needto reconsider this decision. And
the Chair of the Board says wedon't have any time to
reconsider, you know, and thisdismisses it, and let's, let's
go on with the show. And oftenthis turns out to be a mistake,
you know. So there is, there isreal value in in how we sense
context and environment. So weare going to want to cultivate
(34:40):
that element. And then there arealso advices from researchers
and and lots of good studiesthat have shown results to the
benefit of intuitive judgement,which is doing exercises. You
know, some offices have set uplike places, spaces to to. Draw
to do something with our hands,like craft creativity, just let
(35:01):
the mind flow and rest thelogical mind. Because when we
reach a state of flow, which isoften called the highest form of
attention that humans can offer,I love that. I think it's Johan
Hari who faced it that way. Whenwe are in a state of flow is
when we are doing something thatwe are super curious and
(35:24):
interested in. We are beingchallenged in a healthy way.
It's not overwhelming, but weare doing something that
challenges us a little bit. Butwhat also happens is that the
part of our thinking which isthis fault finding rational,
logical mind, whatever we callit, steps aside and we are in a
flow. We are in our zone. Weforget time and space, and we
(35:48):
become very productive andperform in ways that we may not
have thought possible before.
Emma Sinclair (35:56):
Can I take that a little further as well and think
about this from the you talkedabout? The environments we
create to enable that intuition,insight to to build and I was
just wondering, from yourexperience and maybe any of the
research, how you can use thisto build better relationships,
(36:19):
or think about building betterrelationships. How does
intuition work together inpartnerships?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (36:26):
Yeah, that's a great question. So you
mean just relationship in thebig in the big convening of
Emma Sinclair (36:31):
relationships, or it could be in teams, or it
could, it could be in culture,yeah.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (36:37):
So one way to approach this is to say
that when we are disconnected,we're absent in ourselves. It's
very hard for us to makeconnections with other people in
the world around us. So that'slike the starting point. When
people who are aligned withtheir intuition, they tend to be
(36:59):
present, more present. We can'talways be 100% present, but they
tend to be present like they arepresent in front of you,
speaking to you, and you feelthat they are listening to you.
You feel seen. That's an examplewhen people are aligned with
their intuition, because when weare present, we become more
aligned with our intuition. Webecome better listeners. And
(37:22):
presence gives us this, thisability to have a broader view
of things. So we are not sotunnel viewed. We are not just
waiting to speak as opposed tolistening. So we become better
listeners. We become more ableto engage. We also become more
able to read the whole being infront of us, you know, it's not
(37:44):
just the word they say. It's howthey say it, you know, it's not
just the brilliance of somethingthat they've just said in a
sentence. It's also just like,where are they coming from? You
know, you just read the signalsof the whole being in front of
you in a different way. Andthat's very much intuition. So
it's both reading the physicallanguage, the energy, you know,
(38:07):
we co regulate as a species. Sofrom a perspective of
neuroscience, we co regulate,you know, like we are in the
same room, and I can be totallyabsent, very stressed. You will
feel it if we spent hourstogether. Our heart starts to
our hearts can start to be tothe same rhythm. Our breathing
can also start to be moreshallow. If our breathing
(38:30):
becomes more shallow, then we westart to think differently,
because we have less oxygen andwe produce more cortisol, which
is the stress hormone, and allthese things. So we are co
regulating in this way. So it'simportant that when people are
aligned and they are present,then they are more able to bring
out a better version of theother persons as well. So it
(38:52):
really matters, if we aredisconnected from ourselves,
it's hard to buildrelationships, and we all know
this from so in my coaching, Ijust Just this week, I've had a
few sessions where people areexplaining they are at work. And
this is going to be very common,also for the listeners and the
and the leaders, people aresharing stories of they are
(39:14):
trying to they want to be seenat work. Their boss isn't
listening. They are standingthere but but they can tell that
their eyes are moving. They'relooking at something else.
They're just always waiting togo somewhere else. That's an
example of someone who is notaligned with their intuition and
and is becomes a worse listenerin the process. And also, you
(39:38):
know, because you sayrelationships. So this also
comes up a lot parents, theywill say, I have a I have a very
good intuition about my mychildren, but I don't know if I
have good intuition aboutanything else. So domain
specific intuition at work, youcan build that up. And sometimes
(39:58):
it's about turning on the switchand. Really seeing how you're
navigating with intuition. Butthe reason why we have good
intuition about our children isbecause we observe them. So
observe you're speaking topeople. You're observing a
context and environment. Thisalso enables you to build up a
stronger intuition aboutsomething. You start to notice
(40:20):
when something's off. You startto notice when things could be
done better. You start to askreally, like, good questions,
like, and that's another thingabout intuition and
relationships. You know,building a culture around
intuition and more intuitivesensing is also about asking
good questions. We don't alwayshave to have the answers, right?
Sara Deschamps (40:44):
Welcome back to the evolving leader podcast. As
always, if you enjoy what youhear, then please share the
podcast across your network andalso leave us a rating and a
review. Now let's get back tothe conversation.
Emma Sinclair (40:58):
I took a took a sentence, if you don't mind your
book, and it led to a question,because you have a wonderful
phrase in here that says, ourbrains wire to the world around
us, and it matters if weexperience it remotely, and
whether it's abstract anddisconnected ways, or if we
immerse ourselves in the worldand live within it. And it just
(41:22):
got me questioning on the backof what you've just said there,
like, how do we how do weexperience really great
intuition, or build that reallygreat intuition with the world
that is getting slowly, fast,very quickly, more and more
digital, the AI and the and thechanges that are happening there
(41:43):
too. How? How can we? How can webecome that sort of, that human
anchor in a world that'sbecoming so, so technical,
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (41:53):
yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's a
really great question. Sothere's something about being
connected with the real world,with a living world. That's one
thing, you know, the the anxiousgeneration, Jonathan Haidt in
the States, and then smartphonefree childhood in the UK. I
think it's called, you know, allthe conversation around that is
(42:14):
about, you know, we are beingoverprotective over our kids
when it comes to the real world,you know, the fresh air and the
natural world and the pavementand the neighbourhood, but we
are too little protective overthem in the virtual world. So
it's that distinction so beingmindful of just being part of
(42:38):
the living world and theinformation that we take in and
consume. If we think about if wego back to the attention, and we
pay attention with our wholebody, when we consume
information like virtual,digital information all the
time, and they are fragmented,we start to experience things as
(42:58):
being we forget the context ofthings. And I think that the
biggest mentor always is nature.
And it's not just because I'mfrom Iceland, you know, we have
because it's a very like richnatural land, you know. But, but
it's also research shows justhow nature opens up our energies
and and and can reduce anxietyand stress. Can fuel our ability
(43:22):
to connect with others and haveconversations and like walking,
taking a meeting, walking andtalking with somebody. It's,
it's great, like people aredoing it more and more, I hear
that around me. So there's,there's this thing about being
connected with the world. Andcan I take, take a story of some
of a leader, just to give thismore kind of a professional
(43:44):
context, holistic professionalcontext. So in my book, I
interview many, a few greatpeople. One of them is Andrei
Sallah. He is an ocean explorerwith the National Geographic and
David Attenborough, just prepremiered their documentary
ocean, which is very much aboutenrik Salas work in the world.
(44:08):
So Enric Sala grew up in Spain.
He was very passionate about theocean. He was very inspired by
ocean explorers like JacquesCousteau, and he wanted this to
dedicate his life and work tothe ocean. So he goes on to
study, and then he goes touniversity, and then he becomes
(44:29):
a university professor in marinebiology. He's a university
professor in Spain for sevenyears, until he wakes up one day
thinking, listen, I'm justwriting the obituary of the
ocean. I'm so disconnected fromit, and the ocean is withering
away, and it feels like I'mdoing nothing about it. So he
(44:49):
decides to leave his position asa professor at the University,
and he decides that he wants tospend most of his time immersed
in the ocean. And. Deepen hisintuition about what's wrong
with it and how to bring itback. So that is literally what
enrik Sara has been doing. So hein the last years, he's been
(45:12):
sailing and around the world'soceans, diving in the oceans
with scientists, filmmakers andanalysts to document the state
of the ocean to share footagefrom it, and they have created
these, I think, 27 protectiveareas in the ocean that equal
the size that is twice of twicethe size of India, in order to
(45:34):
bring the ocean back. And whatEnric says when he's explaining
this, he's like, I'm ascientist, but I need to immerse
myself in the ocean with thiswhole body and being in order to
build this intuition aboutwhat's wrong with it. And so
what that implies is, are somany things, so picking up
information, really sensing, butalso rationally understanding
(45:58):
what's happening, and being likea living part of the context
that you are dealing with. Themore that we are locked away
from the real world around us,the less I think we are able to
really understand how everythingis interconnected. So my
background is largely insustainability and and peace
(46:19):
building and stuff like that.
And it's, it's like, it is veryscary to think about that we
need to really do a lot ofresearch and spend a lot of
money to prove that if we, as wehave today, crossed six out of
nine planetary boundaries, whichmeans the earth is losing its
(46:42):
ability to renew its energy. Ifwe need to have like 1000s of
conferences and write lots ofresearch to say why that's
serious, I think it's anindication that we have lost
this innate ability tounderstand that. That the
natural world is aninterconnected web of ecosystem,
(47:05):
and so are we as humans, becausewe co regulate as a species. We
can die from loneliness. Youknow, I can also co regulate
anxiety.
Scott Allender (47:16):
Do you think sometimes it's more than an
inability to understand but anunwillingness to see because
perhaps even, I think most, mostof us, least I hope, would
intuitively understand what'shappening to the planet. But
some choose to say that's toohard to look at, because that
would be I'd have to confront alot of things I wouldn't want to
(47:36):
confront in myself and my ownbehaviour, and maybe my lack of
action. And are, do you find it,even in other areas, perhaps,
that there's a willful, like,distant dissonance between
intuition and understandingmeaning that, that I want to see
the world a certain way I have,like, this ideological frame
that I want to hold to, and so Ialmost actively put away access
(48:00):
to my intuition. Would that befair to say, have you seen that?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (48:03):
Yes, I think that's, that's very spot
on. And I think that's thereality. And I think it's, I
think it's both clear andunclear, you know, so I think
it's something that so, so ifyou just look at the knowledge
that we have, so we have thescientific knowledge, we have
the expertise and we have theresources, but we're still not
(48:24):
exactly going in the rightdirection, right so that tells
us a lot about how you know, andmany of our leading scientists,
and people like DavidAttenborough, like, I'm such a
fan of his, like, they wouldsay, like, I thought that when
we would publish the scientificStudies and Results and people
would know, then everythingwould change. But that is not
what happens. So it's so truewhat you're saying, and I think
(48:47):
also just to so for my work,what I find like so incredibly
important is to emphasise thatwe're talking about well honed
and harnessed intuition, becausewe easily confuse intuition with
biases or or just an opinionthat we want to have because
it's more comfortable for us.
It's so important that we unlockwhat this means, because we and
(49:09):
in the light of AI and and andeverything that's changing so
much in our our in the worldthat we live in, and how we
accumulate knowledge, how welearn and how we how we work, I
think it's just super importantthat we start to think about,
how can we actually I think thatwe are biassed against our own
(49:32):
intelligence sometimes. So howcan we build confidence again,
or build confidence in our ownintelligence and judgement, and
for me, a big key to that wouldbe to really understand what we
mean by being aligned with awell honed intuition. Because,
you know, when I started tospeak openly about intuition
(49:57):
like it. Is only in the In veryrecent years where we're, you
know, a scientist said this awhile ago. She said there has
been an ice age in the world ofscience when it comes to
spiritualism and intuition, butnow that ice is throwing and I
(50:17):
love that expression. So it'sit's a culture of ice. It's not
like scientists don't followtheir intuition or or are
spiritual. In this case, as hewas coming from. It's more that
the the permission to talk aboutthings, is changing a little
bit. So for me, intuition is theway I approach it. And this is
(50:40):
not what everybody would say,but the way I approach it is to
say, like people, can we thinkabout intuition and how we can
align with it and hone itintellectually, emotionally and
spiritually? Because I don'tthink that. Think that we are
just scientific. I don't thinkthat we are just, do you know
(51:02):
what I mean? So I'm also justkind of taking it a step
further, that just to bring thatinto the picture. I think we've
been very afraid to talk alongthese lines for for too long,
and I think it's just to thedetriment of our ability to
thrive as humans and and inthriving ecosystems,
Scott Allender (51:24):
what's perhaps a final call to action or
challenge you would leave ourlisteners with today?
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (51:33):
Oh, that's great. So maybe, maybe
just for those who are not usedto trying to trying to hone
their intuition, I would leavepeople with two questions. And
if you feel like it's buy ajournal or take out your old
(51:53):
journal that you have, I won'tgive up on that point. Write
down the following two questionsand answer them, maybe just
once, maybe once a week,depending on how you feel. When
was the last time you didn'tlisten to your intuition? Where
did you feel it and whathappened as a result? I'm quite
(52:16):
sure everybody has their ownstory of that, and that will
already expose lots of things.
The second question is, when wasthe last time you did listen to
your intuition? Where did youfeel it? How did you feel it,
and what happened as a result?
Scott Allender (52:34):
That's great.
I'm going to be answering thosequestions. Good. Good. Arjun,
thank you so much for sharingsome of your wisdom with us. I
feel inspired by thisconversation, and I've got a lot
of takeaways, and so I it's theconversation I needed to have
today. So thank you for joiningus.
Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir (52:56):
Thank you for having me. I'm honoured.
It's been great speaking withboth of you,
Scott Allender (53:01):
alright, folks, until next time, remember the
world is evolving. Are you? You?
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