Energy, stillness, and balance lead to your ability to use intuition in a predictable and systematic fashion. Intuition is not just the luck of a random lightning strike suddenly lighting your way. It is seeing what to do directly, inwardly. This is probably the number one thing people overlook in our scientific, data-driven age: whether we realize it or not, intuition drives all of the main decisions in our lives. We do what feels right. It’s just some people can be successful doing what feels right and others cannot.
Most people have trouble feeling to begin with. Thoughts get in the way. We rationalize and over think every situation. While there is a place for critical thinking in life, that place is fairly limited. Thinking attempts to be linear and logical: forming ideas into verbal thoughts slows down the speed of our minds tremendously. We can move our minds to operate on an intuitive level whenever we need to: this is the reality that is beyond thought. That is what the term “zen” means: to be totally and completely in reality beyond thought.
This reality can be used in your day to day life: it is your day to day life! If you are already a successful entrepreneur, you already trust your gut to help you through your most critical tasks and decisions. You probably also can feel whether things are on track or not with your company and your leadership.
As we gain traction in our meditation practice, our minds gain the ability to focus, slow down, and eventually stop thought. We apply this meditative focus to our entrepreneurial work. This focus allows us to simplify. What’s arguably the number one skill that differentiates a leader from everyone else? The ability to prioritize correctly. Entrepreneurs and startups fail mainly because they choose the wrong priorities. How do you choose the right priorities? Through intuition.
These questions and answers may sound circular and maddening: traditionally Zen masters worked hard to frustrate their students by answering questions in nonsensical ways or asking seemingly nonsensical questions. The Japanese term for these riddles is koan. A koan is designed to get you out of your limited state of awareness. Zen masters always adapted their koans to each age they taught in. Today we live in an age where our koans can be applied to technology and entrepreneurship.
Use these riddles to understand the deeper nature of reality beyond thought. The important thing is that these techniques work. Try developing your intuition through meditation and notice how much it guides both your creative work and decision making.