5 Reasons To Trust Your Intuition

#Intuition is a funny phenomenon.  By definition, it is the innate the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.  It usually shows up as a "gut feeling" or heartfelt sensation.  For me, intuition sometimes manifests as visual images in my mind.  

In a 2001 Harvard Business Review Article entitled: When To Trust Your Gut, Alden Hayashi explores the case for executives using intuition along with other highly developed analytical tools when making business decision.  In nonprofit work, I've noticed that successful fundraisers often listen to these intuitive "feelings", while struggling fundraiser do not.  Whether you are in a corporate or non-profit environment, here are five good reasons to trust your intuition:

1) It always knows best.  
When drowning in data, your intuition will see the pattern from which to move forward.

2) It does not lie.
According to the intuitive genius, Mark Twain: "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics".  

3) It will guide you perfectly.
Since intuition comes from a source that is beyond the rational/analytical mind, it is free from the "noise" that pollutes the signals.

4) It provides clarity.
Intuition is like the morning sunshine that burns off the accumulated overnight fog.  When present, vision becomes clear.

5) It offers better decisions.
Steve Jobs famously followed his own iconoclastic decision making impulses.  He implored his colleagues at Apple to "have the courage to follow [their] intuition".

In her 2012 book, Intuition and Psychic Ability, Jennifer O'Neill explores the subject in great depth from a nontraditional angle.  Read it if you're brave enough to strengthen access to your own intuition.

What Is Money?

The root of all evil?  No.  A means of exchange.  Closer.  An expression of appreciation?  Bingo!

Over the past two years I have engaged in conversations about #money with a number of my coaching clients.  It appears to be a topic of universal interest these days.  In The Soul of Money Lynne Twist examines our attitudes toward money—earning it, spending it, and giving it away.  I recommend this book without reservation--especially for fundraisers.

My own heretical view expressed above is that money is an expression of appreciation.  When we earn it, someone else is expressing appreciation for our service.  When we spend it, we are expressing appreciation for the product or service we receive.  When we save/invest it, we say that our money "appreciates".  That is, those who use it pay us interest or dividends.

In fundraising, I recognize that donors may have multiple motives for giving.  I will assert here that the fundamental reason that donors give is because of the appreciation that they have for the organization they care about.  Incidentally, they also give because they appreciate the relationship that they have with their fundaiser.

So now that I have totally activated all of your negative saboteurs around money (these are the voices that are saying: "he's crazy", "that's not it", "it's way more complicated than that", and so on, and so on...), I ask you to conduct the following exercise.  For one week, or just one day, notice precisely how you spend your money.  Every dollar and cent.  Keep a record. And then sit back, and notice what you appreciate.

What Metrics Count?

"Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted."--Albert Einstein

In #fundraising there's lots of counting (often called "metrics").  Of course, there is the dollar value of pledges made each year, as well as the cash actually received.   We also often count the number of visits with donors along with the number and dollar value of proposals made.  We count the number of gifts made and how many stewardship letters and reports we send to donors.  We have headcount, and even those employees who count the minutes until they can slide down the tail of the dinosaur.

As a professional coach working with fundraising leaders, I see it a bit differently.  And that, I believe, is what Einstein was getting at.  For example, some folks whom I know look at the stock market several times every day so that they may keep count of their "net worth".  Does that really count (or matter)?  Can a person's "worth" really be measured by counting the numbers on a ticker tape?   Alternatively, how do we measure (or count) our love for a donor, friend, spouse, child, or other family member?  Who among these can you count on, and who can you not?

In fundraising by all means count what is essential (and forget the rest).  In life be mindful of those things that cannot be counted; for it is those intangibles that really count.