Instinct is The New Process

Instinct is the next everything. Instinct is the next process to be sure. When you work a process for years, or a long time, I mean, it depends on what process we’re talking about, when you work a process until it internalizes, it becomes you. You suddenly get to operate on something different, something called instinct. So if you think about process, process is probably something that started from instinct. Somebody was good at something. Someone had just done it a long time, they developed that working knowledge, they exuded whatever that is, it kind of came through them. And at a point, they broke down what they were doing. They step-by-stepped whatever was coming naturally. And that allowed someone who didn’t have that experience, maybe even not the same aptitude, to step into those activities by following step one, step two, step three. What I think people miss is the point of a process is to get you to instinct. It’s not to remove the instinct. It’s not instead of instinct. It’s to take what was someone’s instinct, turn it into a sequence, practice it, get it to become rote, and then find your instinct. So I have been coaching speakers for so many years, I’m not even going to tell you, and decades into this, I’ve realized that I have to listen inward. There’s a little voice inside that tells me what to do, that gives me ideas, that has impulses, that can feel its way. It’s like the inner compass. So if process is a map, well, instinct is a compass. As I move into my work now, especially when I’m working on individual transformation, say it’s a CEO or a leader in transition, moving into the next higher spot, and they just have to happen now. They have to hit their next level. I sit down with them, and I work on instinct. Now, instinct works on a team, but I really noticed it working with an individual. As they talked, ideas would come, instincts would pull me in one direction or another. And then I would notice, as far as what I did with them, it often was consistent with a previous process. And sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes it was something different, something beyond the process, something that wouldn’t have come from the process when we took something and step-by-stepped it. It came out of the moment. Instinct is more powerful than your process, but a process brings consistency. And these two things work together like a map and a compass. Don’t make the mistake of throwing away the compass because you have a map. That compass is the truest, most powerful voice that you have. You have it inside you, and you need to listen to it. And it will guide you. And feel free to use a process to start to get rolling, to get it down, to get into the pattern. But never forget that the goal is to find that special level of instinct that will drive you forward into higher and better places. That is your compass. Instinct is the new everything.