Intuition + Logic: The winning formula

Creative intelligence is as much a key to success as will power and love. Without a keen mind, will power leads to crystallised, inflexible ideas or dogma. Love has nothing to preserve and will power has nothing to destroy. The cycle is incomplete.

The mind is actually comprised of more than one aspect: the concrete and the abstract. Like a radio station, the mind can tune into different frequency bands — from the lower vibrational signal at the level of the concrete mind to a very high signal at the abstract level, or beyond.

A big step for many business people calls for concrete, integrated and abstract thinking with more conscience – to discern options and use intuitive faculties. This will inspire them to be visionary thinkers. This will also make them real powerhouses.

Mental habits

Mental habits affect life on many levels because people can receive, transmit, store, assimilate, process, and transmit information or data as thoughts.

Try this experiment. Close your eyes and think of an enemy or critic. If you do not have one, think of a person who hurt you deeply and focus on the event, or how negative the person is. Do this for two minutes.

Now consider what is the effect on your emotions and vitality? Did you become “de-vitalised”, tired, depressed, or agitated? What is the effect on your emotions and heart? Did the feelings in your gut and your instincts change? How about your breathing – did it become shallow and erratic? Did sensations around your heart or your heartbeat change?

Repeated negative thoughts drain your vitality and affect your emotions and health. The mind has the capacity to heal or harm. You can’t throw mud on others without dirtying your own hands first. So gossip, criticising others, or ruminating on painful events or people you don’t like, will only hurt you. When people create goals and intentions coloured by negative emotions – anger, fear, guilt, grief, etc., – they can boomerang, especially in the long run.

As people become more mentally sharp and smarter, many things can be justified and manipulated to seem right. This can result in short-term success followed by years, or a lifetime of regret or suffering. According to the Law of Cause and Effect, we attract to ourselves the very things we are criticising in others.

When making decisions, if potential negative outcomes come to mind – especially accompanied by fears or worries – determine if they are real, or whether your mind is reminding you that there can be a downside to your potential decision.

How do you create win-win outcomes? In my book From Success to Fulfillment, I recommend people come to decision-making from the prospective of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you want others to do unto you. Do not do unto others what you do not what others to do unto you.”

Beyond common sense

Even what seems like common sense, which is an aspect of the concrete mind, can be analysed. First, be open-minded and not fanatical. Always ask questions to understand the bigger picture. Be careful with gossip and news emanating from the media, or friends. Extract what is true and forget the rest. Instead, use scientifically-based data as much as possible. Know your own weaknesses as well as strengths. Do not rush to conclusions. When in doubt, seek help from experts in the field. Also, apply universal values, and be realistic.

The power of common sense depends on the state of emotions and mind as well as the degree to which spiritual values are developed. Therefore, a lifetime of character building, that includes culturing the mind, improves the quality of decision-making. The next step for many is developing the abstract mind.

Abstracting the whys and hows

Philosophical, abstract, and principle-based thinking belongs to the abstract mind. The new generation of children is equipped with more abstract mental faculties than their parents, or grandparents. They want to understand the whys and hows of things rather than relying upon tradition.

Creative imagination is the hallmark of abstract thinking, which taps into the Power of the Soul. Advanced abstract thinkers are usually more forward thinking and dynamically positive because their mind allows their imagination to see ahead to greater possibilities that have never been explored before.