Chapter 17: Step 1 -Unlock Your Intuition
Before you can lead, hire, market, or sell from genuine conviction, you need to be able to read your own signals accurately.
Step 1 of the Intuitive Branding Process, introduced in Chapter 17 of Build Trust. Become the Brand., is about building the practice of distinguishing genuine intuitive signals from noise, and acting on what you read before the pressure to decide fills the gap.
What Unlocking Your Intuition Involves
Unlocking your intuition is not a mystical practice. It is a set of specific habits: naming the signal before acting on it, checking it against all four intuitive types, giving it deliberate space before overriding it, and cataloging the history of decisions where your intuition fired so you can recognize your specific patterns more quickly over time.
The most common failure mode is not a lack of signal. It is misreading which type of signal you are receiving, specifically, confusing adrenaline with a positive intuitive signal, or treating ordinary anxiety as a negative intuitive signal, when the genuine signal requires a more precise read than either of those defaults provides.
Taking the 60-second Intuition Scorecard will give you a chance to see which of your four types is the strongest.
Nokia: The Signals Were There
Nokia’s 50 percent global smartphone market share started to collapse as touch-first devices arrived. [1] Engineers had the pattern recognition to see what was coming. Field teams were reporting customer signals. The convergence of intuitive reads across the organization was pointing clearly toward a fundamental shift.
Leadership waited for the data to confirm what the signals already knew.
Nokia was forced to eliminate close to 14,000 jobs as the collapse accelerated. [2] Microsoft wrote off its $7.6 billion investment in Nokia, one of the most expensive wait-for-the-data decisions in recent technology history. [3]
Oprah: Acting Before the Conventional Wisdom Caught Up
Oprah Winfrey’s Experiential Intuition held the scars of having her voice managed and her content softened by network executives. Her Relational Intuition told her the room lit up when she told the full truth. Her Situational Intuition read that syndication was expanding and the window for a different kind of media ownership was genuinely open.
All four types were pointing in the same direction. She created Harpo Productions before the conventional wisdom caught up with what she had already read.
The Oprah Winfrey Show was regularly seen by over 40 million weekly viewers. [4] Her show was seen in over 150 countries worldwide. [5] Oprah’s personal net worth climbed past $2.6 billion. [6]
The Key Takeaway
The signal is already present. The work is building the practice of reading it accurately enough to act before the data confirms what you already sensed.
Case studies featured: Nokia ($7.6B written off when signals were dismissed [1][2][3]), Oprah ($2.6B platform built by trusting the convergence of all four types [4][5][6]).
→ Deep dive: Step 1 – Unlock Your Intuition → Related: The $3 Million Mistake He Never Saw Coming → Related: The 5-Step Intuitive Branding Process → Read the book: Build Trust. Become the Brand.
References
- Global Equity Nokia. Briefing: The Collapse of Nokia. https://www.globalequitybriefing.com/p/briefing-the-collapse-of-nokia
- ET HRWorld. Layoffs: Nokia cuts about 14,000 jobs as profits drop. https://hrsea.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/layoffs-nokia-cuts-about-14000-jobs-as-profits-drop/104637810
- Computerworld. Microsoft writes off $7.6B, admits failure of Nokia acquisition. https://www.computerworld.com/article/1620732/microsoft-writes-off-76b-admits-failure-of-nokia-acquisition-2.html
- Oprah.com. Behind the Scenes at Harpo Studios. https://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/the-oprah-winfrey-show-trivia
- PBS News. The Oprah Effect, by the Numbers. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-oprah-phenomenon-by-the-numbers
- Yahoo Finance. How Much Is Oprah Worth? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/much-oprah-worth-180353685.html