Intuition - Successful Women

Excerpted from
The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women
By Marion Luna Brem

Reading Signals

How many times has your husband, boyfriend, or other man asked you how you could tell that someone was mad, or sad, or glad when he saw no clues? It almost seems that women have special antennae that allow them to transcend distracting sights and sounds.

When it comes to insight, men claim-sometimes even boast-to have laserlike focus. While this may be generally true, it comes at a cost. They miss a lot of small and important details. Women, on the other hand, seem to have the ability to pick up information off the screen by using their peripheral vision. One theory is that this gender difference is evolutionary. Men, the hunters, had to set their sights on the target and stay fixed. Women, the gatherers, had to look all around to find just the right berries. In any event, their peripheral vision helps women to see things many men miss.

I have firsthand experience to know that gathering important information means sometimes looking beneath the surface. From my stint as a finance manager. I recall a couple who became evasive when I asked them a routine question for their credit application. (It was something like "What are your Social Security numbers?") At first I felt like I was talking to a blank wall. Did they think they were above having to go through this inquiry?

Then the writing began to appear on that blank wall. The wife became fidgety. The husband kept wiping his hands on his pant legs. They weren't only evasive. They were nervous. Without playing amateur psychologist, I wondered if something I said had embarrassed them. I walked behind them and closed the door. As I returned to my side of the desk, I touched the wife on the shoulder. I sat down, took a deep breath, and started explaining to them that many of the customers I talked with in the course of my work had credit "snags" of some kind. Seldom, I continued, was there a situation for which we couldn't find a solution. The conversation flowed from there.

I learned that their daughter's illness had set them back financially two years earlier. (Little did they know with whom they were sharing their story!) They knew that their bad credit history was about to be revealed and even though they realized it was unavoidable, it didn't make the ordeal any easier for them. The signals of what was really going on in the minds of this couple were clear. They just weren't loud and clear - at least not at first anyway.

Seeing and Observing

Recently, I had occasion to talk about women's intuition with renowned psychologist Dr. Joy Browne. She said that because women are better at reading body language they have the makings to be better salesmen than most men she knows.

If you're like me. you've purchased and read the body language books, but reading body language is much more than just looking at the way someone's arms are crossed or the way they're holding their fingers. It's important to be attentive to the subtle nuances, the way someone turns down the corners of their mouth, or the way they release a small sigh, or the way they shift their weight in their chair.

It's also interesting to recognize that when a man and a woman act out the very same body movement it does not necessarily mean the same thing. For example, a woman shifting from side to side in her chair or otherwise acting antsy (like the woman with the bad credit rating) is probably nervous. A man behaving that way might simply be bored. But anyone honing her body language skills will also be on the alert for staged performances. If a body statement is exaggerated - like someone sitting at a sharp ninety degree angle or someone piercing you with deliberate, unblinking eye contact, chances are their body language is a mask for a hidden feeling or attitude.