The Tennis Player and the Shaman

In high school my two "primary" girl friends were both tennis players, Melanie (who played 1st and 2nd doubles) and Tari, who was the star of the team, daughter of the most famous athlete in the city, and ranked as one of the top Juniors in the Midwest.  Back then, usually the only people who played tennis were people who were members of a country club and my father worked in a factory as a crane operator so no country club for me.  

As a result, I had never really played tennis but, due to Tari and Mel, I was able to go to the country club as their guest and I started playing with them.

At first -- I just got killed, especially by Tari who found it oh so entertaining.  After a while though, I started being pretty competitive and within a few months I was not only beating them, I was actually beating everyone else.  

It was weird, but pretty cool and when I went to college I was playing, and beating, everyone . . . even guys who had played on their Tennis teams in high school.  I was going to Ohio State so there was zero chance of me walking on as a tennis player but, year after year, I just kept getting better and better until I got to the point where I could play and hold my own against very high-level players.

But I could never beat them.  

A few people suggested to me that I could play professionally.  Of course, that was nonsense, as I was already in my twenties and would be going against players who had played since they were 5 -- but eventually I figured out, from talking to other college players and coaches, that my issue was not age or athletic ability . . . it was lack of fundamentals.

I was a converted basketball player and as long as it was about speed and hitting the ball back really hard, then for most people I was too good but when I ran in to players of equal natural ability who were grounded in basic fundamentals of the game, then it was all over.  I couldn't compete.

The only way I had a chance to rise to the next level was to "unlearn" all the things that had gotten me as far as I had and, basically, start over.  Of course, this would have been a slow and painful process and, with no guarantee of success and an absolute guarantee of lots and lots of frustration, I never bothered . . . 

Fast forward 25 years to another area in which, seemingly out of nowhere, I found that I was able to perform at a very high level based strictly on natural talent without having any basic training in the "fundamentals" -- business.  I was able to bluff my way through primarily because I was (a) a fast learner and (b) one HELL OF A TALKER :)

And since I was getting perks and rising quickly I never bothered to stop and "unlearn" my tricks and ground myself in the fundamentals.  I was doing too well and I didn't need to play with the best; life was good just where I was.

Ironically, over the past 4 years I have had the opportunity to step away from business and during that time I went through what I call "the shamanic roto-rooter" -- i.e. a personal and professional "crisis".  But the beauty of my time of "crisis" is that I stopped relying on some of my old "tricks" and started thinking, really thinking, about what REALLY worked . . . and why.

I wouldn't have willingly "stopped" and gone back to square one (just as I wouldn't have years ago to upgrade my skills as a tennis player) but over the past few years I have had the "luxury" of studying myself and what I did (and didn't do) that worked most effectively.

I have "unlearned" and so now have the "chance" to put things back together again "the right way" -- which maximizes the chances of me performing at an even higher level than ever before.  Some sports, like basketball, I got really good at but it was work -- a lot of work and my natural skills weren't enough . . . I had to practice practice practice.  But tennis was different.  I could quit for a couple of years, never pick up a racket and then poof -- be playing at a very high level 15 minutes later.

Psychic ability was like basketball.  I worked at it, for a long time; I got good at it but only after putting in years and years of work.  Tennis wasn't like that.  Same thing with business . . . for some reason, I just seemed "to be good at it".

The moral of the story is this -- if you expect to perform at a high-level at anything your chances are increased dramatically by being thoroughly grounded in the "fundamentals of the game".  As an athlete, I think people understand that but -- as a psychic, people typically don't.  Most people, it seems, think that you should be able to just skip the hard work and get "to the good stuff".

I see this attitude over and over.  I try, in my own way, to say "hey, it's not like that" but my speech is not a popular one.  But, popular or not, it's true.  

Going forward, I only want to work with people who, like me, want to perform at the highest level possible and are willing to put in the sweat equity to make it happen.  This is why I am shifting gears, and focus . . . 

I see "how it works" and why and after all these years of study and reflection I have figured out that my most natural talent is in business, more than any other.  Ironic in one sense but also, I think, absolutely . . . true.  

Intuition and Business Success

"Anyone can be a millionaire, but to become a billionaire, you need an astrologer." -- J. P. Morgan


Douglas Dean of the New Jersey Institute of Technology studied the relationship between intuition and business success. Dean found that 80 per cent of successful executives had above average precognitive powers.  'Success' was defined as doubling profits over a five- year period. Pretty impressive !!


According to the June, 2008 issue of Newsweek, "intuitionists" -- what you and I might call a psychic -- have crossed into the world of mainstream business, some receiving $10,000 a month per company for their 'insights'. In another study (2006, PRWeek/Burson-Marsteller CEO Survey), 62% of CEOs who were polled said they primarily use their "gut feelings" when making decisions .

Management professor Weston Agor of the University of Texas in El Paso found that of the 2,000 managers he tested, higher-level managers scored highest in intuition. Most of these executives stated that initially they gathered all the relevant information and data available, but if the data was conflicting or incomplete, they then relied on intuitive approaches to come to a conclusion.


Many famous business leaders openly stated their use and reliance upon intuition: J. P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Donald Trump, John D. Rockefeller and Conrad Hilton, as well as many more.  There is a famous story about Conrad Hilton and his "hunches" . . . a New York property was to be auctioned in a sealed bid. Hilton evaluated its worth at $159,000 and prepared a bid in that amount. He went to sleep that night and when he woke up, the figure $174,000 stood out in his mind. He changed the bid and submitted the higher figure and, as a result, won the auction.


The next highest bid was $173,000. Hilton later sold the property for several million dollars.


Business and Intuition -- the next frontier . . . that is my prediction :)

Psychic Business, Business Psychic

In 1999, I was the Process Manager for what was then considered to be the most innovative company in the world but I warned my bosses that all was not right in their kingdom.  That company: Enron.

And yes I, personally, wrote the Disaster Recovery Plan for Enron . . . a real resume ice-breaker :)

In 1999, I also liquidated my entire stock portfolio at its peak -- literally the week it peaked . . . and converted everything in to a 7 year fixed CD.  People told me I was being foolish but soon, VERY soon, they changed their tune.  I knew what was coming and my instinct was that it was the right time to shift -- and the right strategy to use.  In retrospect, that decision was correct.

In 2000, I went to Boston to build a Change Management platform for an implementation of Siebel that was considered so radical -- and ultimately so successful -- that I was offered an ownership stake in a software company to replicate it for others.  The dot com crash ended that -- a crash I had expected and said was coming.

I was the Lead person for several major Change initiatives at some of the largest corporations in the world.  I was the Operations Manager and 2nd in command for testing for what was then (and may still be) the largest software implementation in the world -- Kaiser Permanente's HealthConnect -- but, while there, with my career on a rocket ship path upwards my daughter died at Kaiser and the career . . . well it went away.

As a psychic I predicted, years in advance, just what was going to happen in and with the economy, giving dates and scenarios and, something I don't hear a lot of others doing, the reasons why these predictions were likely to happen.  

I am, somehow, able to see not only what is going to happen but also WHY it is going to happen.  As an economics "prognosticator" I think it safe to say that in this particular arena I truly do have a "Gift".

So, with that foundation, and my expectation that the worst economic storm is past and the new and better way slowly sliding down the birth canal, I am attempting to bring these two skills together.  In the "old days" my consulting company was Jordan tek/niche.

The time to get in to "the game" is fast approaching.  The economy is going to get better.  This is a gold mine time -- a period that will see a lot of innovation and wealth creation.  I intend to be a part of that . . . 

I see it happening.

Customer Satistaction and the Soul of Business

Many years ago, I used to be what is called "the escalation person" -- the last stop on the OMFG YOU PEOPLE PISS ME OFF Customer Service Food Chain -- the one who dealt with the MOST irate customers, who calmed them when no one else could.  


Later, I was The Head of Customer Satisfaction for Enron -- yes, 'tis true . . . my job was to look through our industrial client's surveys and, for any areas in which Enron's service was deemed to be "less than satisfactory", it was my job to build a CSIP (Continuous Service Improvement Program) to lay the groundwork for correcting it.


All this was long ago, literally in another century.  Since then, things have changed in the Customer Satisfaction World quite a bit, most of it bad.  There is a window opening soon for those of us who see service and soul and business as words that go together in the same sentence.  People are fed up, the world has gone to Hell and Corporations are the Devil's minions . . . or something like that.

There is a Revolution brewing and I believe that is going to happen in the biggest way in the world of Commerce.  People want to be treated as . . . "people" -- and so, businesses who start doing that again may find their worlds looking up . . . and those who don't?


My guess is they will be replaced by those who do.


Keep your chin up and focus on providing a kind word and a solution.  People, and businesses, who can do both will find their worlds soon, very soon, looking up.