Kids Know Best

My son is at an age where his baby teeth are falling out so his adult teeth will come in. And like many kids, he doesn’t like getting his teeth pulled. It could be scary – especially if it’s slightly sore and not ready to come out.

When I was a kid, my dad took a pair of needle nose pliers and pulled out my loose teeth. Yes. Pliers.

After a while, I figured out not to tell him when my teeth were loose. I’m sure you can see why.

Now, I wouldn’t take a pair of pliers to my son (since I know better) and I’m not beyond tying some thread around the loose tooth and giving it a nice yank.

Well my son won’t have anything to do with it. Why? Because his uncle did it when the first tooth was loose and pulled and guess what? The tooth wasn’t ready. And it hurt. And so now, no thread. Hey, would you knowingly put your hand on a hot stove after you did it the first time? My son ain’t no dummy.

Anyway, he had a loose tooth and it was ready to come out. It was wiggling good! So I told my son I was going to pull it out with some thread.

And guess what he said?

Of course… he said, “No Way Jose!”

O.k. He just said “No!” I added the rest.

Anyway, out of the blue, he then went on to say, “It’s going to come out on Tuesday.”

Now I’m not sure how he figured out that it was going to come out on Tuesday considering he’s six years old and he was absolutely positive it would be on Tuesday. It wasn’t a guess or a hope or anything like that. He was just matter of fact, like he just knew it. By the way, he said this on a Sunday. I even asked him several times if he was sure it was going to be on Tuesday and he simply said yes. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind.

And so I told him that if it didn’t come out on Tuesday then I would pull it out with a thread and without hesitation he agreed. In fact, it seemed like he was confused like why I was even saying that. He knew it was going to come out on Tuesday and there was no need for me to say anything else. It was just another weird daddy saying.

And yup, sure enough, a couple of days later on Tuesday, guess what happened?

Yeah. His tooth came out.

Now I know that’s a simple example of a kid just knowing something and he’s done stuff like this before. And talking to other parents of young kids, their children also just “know” stuff somehow and it’s quite amazing.

Their young brains just seem to absorb and process information in a completely different way than our adult brains process things. The main difference being is that they process things without a filter. They just take things as they are without question and come up with answers.

As adults, we all have filters.

Filters we call experience. Let’s look at this though…

Experience is simply things that have happened to us in the past. Remember that hot stove?

Now sometimes our experiences help us and prevent us from experiencing pain, fear, and danger (there’s that hot stove again). And sometimes, our experiences cause us to feel fear and anticipate things which may or may not be there and therefore preventing us from moving forward.

People look at their future through the lens of their past. Sometimes that lens is foggy and unclear. That is why some people get stuck, stagnant, and frustrated.

For most successful people, their lens is as clear as day. They have a clear vision of where they want to go and what they need to do.

How clear is your lens?

Here’s the thing though, we were all kids at one point. And we all still have that “inner child” deep within. Some people call it a “sixth sense”; some call it a “gut” feeling. And some people call it intuition. I call it a, “you’d better pay attention or something’s probably going to go wrong” feeling.

In fact, every time I’ve ignored my inner child “gut” intuition feeling, something went wrong. Had I paid attention to my feeling and done what it told me to do, I would have been much happier and saved myself a lot of pain.

Watching my son reminds me that I need to make sure to pay attention to my inner child more often.

Sure, I get it. You might just call his “Tuesday” statement lucky. And I’d rather be lucky than good.

I do find though that the harder I work, the luckier I get.

Believe it or not though, there is an explanation to all of this.

You see, about 70% of the population is what we call “Sensory” types. Only about 30% of the population is what we call “Intuitive”.

In a nutshell, sensory types, or sensors, usually only trust things that they can rely on using the information they have… their experience and data they can see, touch, smell, and taste. Intuitives learn how to recognize and trust patterns. They learn how to extrapolate large amounts of information based upon only a few data points or pieces of data.

Sensors are great a working with things in the here and now. They have challenges working on things in the future because it hasn’t happened yet. There are no data points to go off of. Intuitives on the other hand are comfortable “seeing” or “feeling” what isn’t there. They’re comfortable theorizing and speculating on what could be using the here and now.

Engineers, Accountants, and other analytical people are usually sensors. They rely heavily on data and analysis to determine their reality. Many artists and musicians are intuitive and “feel” their way through things.

Children are typically intuitive because their data sets (their experience in life) is well, very little. They don’t analyze and calculate things. They just do what feels right to them.

One is not better than the other and sensors are fully capable of being intuitives and vice versa. It just takes effort and practice if it’s not your natural state.

Of course I didn’t learn this until after I didn’t listen to my gut and made my mistakes.

If you read this entire post, you’ll be much better off than I was.

Hopefully you’ll start listening to that little kid inside of you.

Chances are it knows what’s best. After all, kids know best.

Celebrate Life!
Chaffee-Thanh Nguyen

************************************************************************************
Your Executive Business And Success Coach
Let Me Help You SYSTEMize Your Business And Master Your Mind
http://www.KeyConceptCoachi

ng.com

Enjoy My Blog At http://www.ChaffeeNguyen.com
And Don’t Forget To Join Me On The Social Networks:
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, & Google +
************************************************************************************

P.S.  For more great ideas and conversations, join me live and in-person at my lunch Meetups.  Simply go to http://www.Meetup.com/KeyConceptNetworking and RSVP for the next event!