In this intuitive episode, Fran Gallaher, Owner of Really Flourish LLC, shares how she lost touch with her intuition and what it cost her. She also shares how she got it back and has helped thousands of CEOs, executives, and leaders regain their intuition and weave it seamlessly into their individual and team-based decision-making.
You will discover:
– How to exercise intuition in a healthy team environment
– What intuition is and the severe cost of ignoring it
– Why we lose touch with our intuition and how to get it back
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello and welcome. Welcome once again to the secrets of the high demand coach podcast. And here with us today is yet another high demand coach we have with us, the one and only Fran Gallaher who is an intuitive leadership coach and helps executives of seven figure businesses in making better decisions using the power of intuition to access critical and otherwise inaccessible information, drive innovation and increase confidence, especially regarding their executive hires, and in all of that, avoid leadership fails. Fran uses her intuition to bring information to her clients, to establish rapport, quickly, shorten the coaching process and make it extraordinarily personal, powerful and, most importantly, effective. And she’s here with us today. Fran, as I was kind of getting ready for this episode, I realized that intuition is a word that a lot of us use, but very few people, I think, especially in the practical terms of daily life, could actually define it. So what is intuition, and why do you feel it’s so important for leaders?
Fran Gallaher
Intuition is just one of the ways our brain works. Intuition is what provides us with the aha moment, the sudden insight, oh, I forgot my phone. That is intuition everyone? Well, there are four people who are not capable of it, but most of us are capable of thinking in an intuitive way. The problem with intuition is that it is not rational, which does not mean that it is the way we use the word irrational, as in, somehow unreasonable. It’s just not rational in that you do not have a preceding reason. So if you’re walking down the street and you suddenly get the idea that you should cross over and walk on the other side of the street, you will not know why until Wiley Coyote drops an anvil on the side of the street where you just were.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s awesome. So why is it, then, if it’s such an important part of it, why is it that it’s so common for us to lose touch with our intuition?
Fran Gallaher
Because there is nothing in our society that models intuition in a way that science based people can accept. So logic is what is taught in school. There’s a great book called Open focused brain. It’s by Les Femi and Brad and I blanked on his last name, but it’s called Open focus brain. And what they posit is that the emphasis on closed focus, which is what we use when we’re six years old and we’re trying not to think about the lovely day outside and recess, which my grandchildren have always said, That’s their favorite part of school. So how do you block that out and get a kid to focus on little squiggles that you draw on a page? So that’s because we teach closed focus. But what these authors argue is that only emphasizing closed focus will eventually produce depression and anxiety, we have to open our focus now and then, and open focus is what we use with intuition. So Michael Crichton, the author and director of Jurassic Park, he wrote a wonderful book, a memoir called travels, and in it, he talks about the paranormal and how using a relaxed focus is what we need when it comes to and I’m going to steal his words for intuition, but it is what we need for intuition, we cannot drill down the way we do with logical analysis. So what he equates this to is, if you walk across the room with a full cup of coffee and you don’t pay any attention to it, you will spill it. If you walk across the room with a full cup of coffee and you pay too much attention to it, like a little kid, the first time they do it, they will spill it all over the place, but if you walk across the room with focused inattention, so not paying a lot of attention, but just enough, you will get it across the room without spilling it.
Scott Ritzheimer
I love that. What would you say then? Are because you mentioned earlier, kind of this correlation with depression and anxiety. What are some of the symptoms that we have either lost sight of or maybe just undervalued our intuitive decision making?
Fran Gallaher
Staring at the wall, you know, just being able to relax your mind and maybe you. Learn to meditate, maybe you just now and then look out the window with unfocused eyes. That’s actually a form of meditation, so relaxing your brain from time to time, instead of always using tension, ie tight focus, but relaxing your brain and opening your mind, that’s what we need to do every day. And you know, I’m not saying that everyone is interested in or capable of developing their intuition to the extent that, for instance, I have. So then, what would it be like if your team was intuitive, or even one member of your team, like Deanna Troy in Star Trek The Next Generation. What would it be like if you had somebody who said, you know, I sense a fail here. Or my question is because, by the way, learning to talk about your intuition is powerful. You can’t really say I feel this or that in an American cooperative environment, but instead, if you use the word sense, you can get by with a little bit of intuitive access.
Scott Ritzheimer
It was actually a question that I had for you is, what does this look like in a in a team environment, because I’ve I just want to lay out a couple places where I’ve actually seen it used a little bit poorly, and see if we can’t find a better way of doing this. So there’s two examples that came to mind. One is you’ve got like, a very intuitive, very visionary leader who is also the most senior executive, the one in charge, and there’s a discussion, they’re uncomfortable with it. Their intuition is firing something, and what I’ve seen happen is they’ll just kind of shut a conversation like, I just know, it’s this, I just know. And then you know, the rest of the team is kind of like, okay, what do we do? Another example similar to that, but how do you best leverage it? Because you don’t want to silence intuition, but how do you keep it from being something that just kind of kills a conversation, as opposed to dialing it in?
Fran Gallaher
Well, we can use that question to talk about either intuition or logic, and so that’s part of this silly bifurcation that we were raised with in school, you only close your focus, unless you have art class or you have music class, and then let’s get rid of those classes, right? So, and I’m sorry I may have sounded a little cynical there, because I can be, but the idea is that we have an either or sense about so many things we’re not going to I’m not preaching. Either you use intuition or you use logic, they can be used together. And we also have to develop humility with our intuition. You know, your fictitious CEO might need a little bit of humility and a little room for other voices. So I’m just saying, let’s have intuition be one voice at the table. May I give an example really quickly of how powerful intuition can be? So I was part of something called the program in intuition from the Kaiser Institute. It was a high end program designed to teach physicians and business leaders in tuition. So I taught the head of the VA, the head of the CDC, the president of Anthem, Blue Cross, Blue Shield. And the founder was the late Dr Leland Kaiser, who was a professor of organizational design and development. And his theory was that if intuition was brought into healthcare, it would save healthcare. Well, he didn’t quite manage that, but I was one of the faculty members who was both highly intuitive and capable of logic and not too weird. I’m a little weird, so I was, and I don’t mean to be bragging, but I was someone that they would show have a an executive meet to be convinced to be in the program. And so one day, I was meeting this executive, and I knew I had to perform, as it were, and I shook his hand, and I was immediately overwhelmed with the taste, smell, sight, thought of bazooka bubble gum. Now I’m a blonde, I didn’t want to be talking about bazooka bubble gum right out of the chute, but when I’m overwhelmed with this, I can’t do anything. But so I said, Why would I be seeing, smelling, tasting, thinking about bazooka bubble gum? And he said, Oh, we have bowls of it all over the tables for our executive team meetings. And I said, Who chose that flavor? Why not double bubble? And my the class. Client said, oh, so and so, and I got this intuitive download, similar to I forgot my cell phone, that this person who preferred bazooka bubble gum was concocting a fraud and embezzlement scheme and was also committing sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior in the workplace. And I said, if you look at their cell phone records, you’ll you’ll find the evidence you need. And so this CEO looked at the cell phone records, found exactly what they needed. Was able to head this off before it fully developed. This is the power of intuition. Now I cannot guarantee that every time I meet someone, I’m going to have my Sherlock Holmes moment, but it is a powerful addition to the way that we conduct ourselves in the world and in business.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, one of the things that I found and working with the team, and the the I just know was that that intuition served as a very helpful kind of spotlight to say, hey, go look here, right? We may not understand everything about it, but what I found was a really helpful way of, kind of orchestrating the team. Was okay, we’ve got this this sensation, we’ve got this feeling. We’ve got this intuition. Let’s explore it. You know what’s actually going on there? And to use that to get curious, I found was a really helpful tool. So if someone’s sitting there today and saying, Hey, we either individually or as a team, want to be able to access this intuition better, what’s a first step in that direction that they could take?
Fran Gallaher
Well, first of all, a little tiny bit more about me. I also used to be a technical writer. I wrote user’s guides for hardware and software. So I teach intuition in a really simple, step by step manner that’s very, very effective. So having members of your team or you, and I understand that some people might want send my team and do it, you know, but I can, I can teach your team intuitive practice. And the next thing is that I can encourage you as a leader, to listen for the sense words that people use. So if you have someone on your team who says, Look, we need to do it this way, or someone who says, Listen, this is what it’s all about, they’re explaining their dominant sense and their dominant sense for the external world might be useful for the internal world, the place where the intuitive thought and insight suddenly appears. So being able to understand how your internal world works, how the internal worlds of those around you work, you can begin to develop this additional dimension to thought.
Scott Ritzheimer
Oh, I love that. So Fran, I want to make sure folks know how they can get in touch with you. We’ll get some some of that sorted here in just a second. But before we get there, I’ve got one more question for you, and I like to ask this of all my guests, and that is, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all. What’s that one thing you wish everybody watching or listening today knew?
Fran Gallaher
Well, it’s hard to come up with one, but the one that I’m kind of fixated on these days is that what a leader really does is they are aware of the emotions and the thinking of those they lead, but they don’t match them. And for us, one of the secrets of manifesting is if you have circumstances in your life that you don’t like, don’t match them. Don’t complain about them, but match what you want. This is how a visionary works. They’re matching what they are aware of is possible, not what is the current reality.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, so good so good friend. There’s some folks listening, and they’re realizing this is a part of them that they’ve let be quiet for too long. They want to get more in touch with their intuition. How can they reach out to you? How can they find more out about the work that you do?
Fran Gallaher
My website is reallyflourish.com and if you were not a spelling bee champion, flourish has a U in it, flourish, I’m also on LinkedIn as Fran Gallaher, Tiktok, all the social media platforms. My name is what I’ve used, although I am really jealous of these people with these cool handles. And then, you know, I have an intuition program that will be starting in January. It’s called shine. If someone wants to join that or. Or I can work with your team to develop some leadership skills, including the skill of intuition.
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic. Well. Fran, thank you so much for being on thanks so much for bringing attention to such an important part of how we make decisions as a team and as individuals. I really appreciate you being here today, and for those of you who are watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. Hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Contact Fran Gallaher
Fran Gallaher is an Intuitive Leadership Coach working at the intersection of spirituality, psychology, and the practical. Fran assists executives of 7-figure businesses in making better decisions using the power of intuition to access critical and otherwise inaccessible information, drive innovation, increase confidence—especially regarding their executive hires—and avoid leadership fails. Fran uses her intuition to bring information to her clients to establish rapport quickly, shorten the coaching process, and make it extraordinarily personal, powerful, and, most importantly, effective.
Want to learn more about Fran Gallaher’s work at Really Flourish LLC? Check out her website at https://www.reallyflourish.com/ or connect with her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/frangallaher/
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