As I’ve mentioned on several occasions I find inspiration for this career success blog in a number of places. I’ve been reading The Inspector and Silence, an Inspector Van Veeteren novel by Hakan Nesser, a Swedish writer. I came across a passage that reminded me of the points I often make about intuition and common sense…
“Intuition?” said Przebuda, and smiled over the rim of his wineglass. “Surely you’re not telling me that you’re troubled by doubts as far as intuition is concerned? Myself, I rely on it without question, I simply think it’s a talent that has skipped a few stages – in the chain of cause and effect, that is. Or gives the impression of having skipped them. It’s a bit more advanced, but there’s no essential difference. We have it, but we don’t understand how we are in a position to have it. I mean, we absorb enormous amounts of information every second…Everything is stored away, but only a tiny portion of that gets as far as our active consciousness. The rest stays there, sending out its signals – usually in vain, simply because we so unreceptive. Let’s face it, we’re only human after all.
“Presumably it’s the same phenomenon that occurs in connection with new discoveries in the natural sciences,” said Przebuda. “The researcher already knows the answer, he’s seen the final solution before he actually gets that far. Or glimpsed it at least. If that weren’t the case, he would presumably be in no state to discover it. The bottom line is that we need an advance image of the conclusion. It’s another side of the cognitive, that’s all. A sort of…well, what should one call it? The avant-garde of knowledge, perhaps?”
Przebuda is a newspaper editor who shares the Inspector’s tastes for good food, wine and chess. The above passage came as part of a discussion over dinner.
I believe that common sense and intuition are flip sides of the same coin. Everything that Przebuda said about intuition — “We have it, but we don’t understand how we are in a position to have it. I mean, we absorb enormous amounts of information every second…Everything is stored away, but only a tiny portion of that gets as far as our active consciousness” — applies to common sense.
In my writing and speaking on life and career success, I try to help people bring all of the information they absorb as they go about their daily work and bring it to bare on creating the life and career success they want and deserve. As I mentioned in my blog post on Sunday, I crystallized my thoughts on common sense and career success by writing down the characteristics that I observed in successful people, and reducing my observations to a few simple, easy to understand and apply common sense ideas on how to create life and career success. In so doing, I brought what I knew at an unconscious level to a level of active consciousness.
Once I got that far, what I learned seemed like plain old common sense. It was sitting there staring me in the face all along, I just needed to be receptive to it.
As I mentioned in Sunday’s post, I found that the successful people I studied had seven characteristics in common. They all…
- Had a clearly defined purpose and direction for their lives and careers.
- Were committed to succeeding. They faced obstacles and overcame them.
- Were self-confident. They knew they were going to succeed and continue to succeed as they went through life.
- Were outstanding performers.
- Knew how to present themselves in a favorable light. Other people were attracted to them and wanted to be around them.
- Were dynamic communicators.
- Were good at building relationships.
When you see these thoughts presented in a bulleted list like this, they do look like common sense — something everybody knows, but not something everybody applies on a daily basis. To paraphrase Przebuda, we already know the answer to creating our life and career success. We see the solution all around us every day — or glimpse it at least. If that weren’t the case, we would be in no state to create our life and career success. The bottom line is that we need an advance image of what we need to do to create our career success. It really is just another side of the cognitive.
The career success coach point here is simple common sense. In order to create the life and career success you want and deserve, you need to follow your intuition and the common sense signals it sends you. In my writing, I’ve listened to my common sense and have come up with seven keys tohelp you create your life and career success. I’ve used these common sense keys to create my career success. I hope you’ll use them to help you create yours.
That’s my career advice on common sense – where it comes from, and how to use it to create the life and career success you want and deserve. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success – even when they get a little out there. I value you and I appreciate you.
Bud
PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained. It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail. Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy. You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.
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