Everything Intuition

Conrad Hilton, the originator of the hotel chain, admitted he was accused more than once of playing his hunches. In his autobiography, he delves into this aspect of his life in a little more detail.

“Since I suppose I do (play hunches) and it sounds so mysterious, a little like following a Ouija board or gazing into a crystal ball, and since I further believe most people have them, whether they follow them or not, I’ve tried to figure out what’s in a hunch.”

Now you really have to read the autobiography (freely available in all Hilton hotel rooms!) to get a feel for this man’s business sense and ethics. His explanation of his hunches is fascinating stuff…

“I think the other name for hunch is intuition and I think intuition can be in the form of answered prayer. You do the best you can - thinking, figuring, planning - and then you pray. It’s no use praying, “God, do this for me and let the other fellow hold the bag,” but it’s perfectly fair to ask: “What will you have me do?” Or, “What is the right answer?” Nor is it selfish. Everyone has the same right. But the key to intuition is not in the prayer but to listening for a response. If you don’t listen you make it a pretty one-sided affair.

This listening can become an intense thing, can even resemble absentmindedness or preoccupation…I know when I have a problem and have done all I can to figure it, I keep listening in a sort of inside silence ’til something clicks and I feel a right answer. ”

A good example of that occurred when the government took over the Stevens Hotel [then the biggest in the world and one which Conrad dearly wanted to buy prior to acquiring the Waldorf Astoria] The Stevens Corporation was then for sale. The Air Force only needed the hotel building but the corporation held miscellaneous assets, accounts receivable, inventories, tax claims. If I couldn’t have the hotel, I decided I wanted the corporation. It would give me a finger on the building if and when the government released it, as well as possible profits from the assets.

The trustees asked for sealed bids. Now few businessmen like sealed bids and I’m no exception. My first bid, hastily made,w as $165,000. Then somehow that didn’t feel right to me. Another figure kept coming, $180,000. It satisfied me. It seemed fair. It felt right. I changed my bid to the larger figure on that hunch. When they were opened the closest bid to mine was $179,800.

I got the Stevens Corporation by a narrow margin of $200. Eventually the assets returned me two million.”

(He later acquired the Hotel itself, his prime target, because of this deal.)

To me, the interesting aspect of this is what he says about his intuition. Notice that he says he gets A right answer, not THE right answer. That’s important. Don’t expect the perfect right answer to appear. There may be more than one answer which is right. For example, in his tale of the Stevens Corporation, he could have bid anywhere between $179,800 and $180,000 and still won. But the key was that he said the bid he put in felt right and satisfied him. In other words, he was listening to himself and what his emotional reaction was to the situation and using that as his guide. He’d done all his due diligence and was left with just his emotional response as a guide to his actions.

So when he speaks of listening to the response, he’s really talking of listening to his own emotions to any response he got. Being in touch with what you feel and why you feel that way is key to using your intuition and benefiting from it.

And if a person as successful as Conrad Hilton can admit to using his intuition, then there’s absolutely no reason why we (not being involved in multi-million deals) cannot use it fearlessly as well!

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