A question was posed recently to Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, and his answer stopped me cold.
“Who is the smartest person you have ever met?”
He said he could not answer it, and then he explained why in a way that I have not stopped thinking about since.
Jensen believes most people define smart as being technically brilliant, able to solve complex problems, gifted at coding or engineering.
But here is the thing: AI is now handling all of that.
Software programming, long considered the gold standard of intelligence?
AI is conquering it first.
So what does “smart” actually mean now?
The New Definition of Smart
Jensen Huang’s definition hit me right in the chest.
He believes truly smart people live at the intersection of three things:
- Technical understanding
You do not need to be a programmer, but you need to grasp how the tools work. - Human empathy
The ability to feel what others feel, to read a room, to sense what is unspoken. - Seeing around corners
The rare ability to sense what is coming before it arrives, to preempt problems before they show up.
That last one.
That is the one that lit me up.
He said this ‘seeing around corners‘ comes from a combination of data analysis, first-principle thinking, life experience, wisdom, and sensing other people.
It’s a vibe.
And that person, he said, might score terribly on the SAT.
“People who are able to see around corners are truly, truly smart, and their value is incredible to be able to preempt problems before they show up. Just because you feel the vibe.”
— Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia
Intuition Is Your Edge as an Entrepreneur
I have been in the entrepreneurial world for a long time, and I have watched brilliant people with perfect credentials build businesses that crumbled, while people who ‘just had a feeling’ built empires.
The ones who succeed long-term are rarely the ones who out-think their competitors.
They are the ones who out-feel them.
They sense when a market is shifting six months before the data confirms it.
They know when a team member is quietly struggling before anyone says a word.
They feel when a partnership is off, even when the contract looks perfect on paper.
That is intuition.
And in this age of AI, where technical skills are increasingly commoditized, intuition is the one thing AI cannot replicate.
It’s your competitive edge.
And IT can be sharpened.
My Personal Goal This Year: Honing My Intuition
I will be the first to tell you: I am a keenly intuitive person.
I have always operated from a deep inner knowing.
I trust my gut. I have built my businesses and my life from that place.
But here is what I have been sitting with lately: even something you are naturally gifted at can be sharpened.
A great singer still takes voice lessons.
A natural athlete still trains.
And an intuitive person can still practice deepening that gift.
So this year, one of my most important personal goals is to hone my intuition even further.
To get quieter inside so I can hear more clearly.
To trust those early signals even more.
To stop second-guessing the flash of knowing that comes before logic has a chance to argue.
I want to share with you exactly how I am doing it, because I believe this work could change everything for your business too.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Sharpening Your Intuition
These are practices, not one-time tricks. Think of them as a daily training regimen for your inner knowing.
Step 1: Create Space for Silence
Intuition cannot compete with noise. If your days are packed from morning to night with meetings, screens, and stimulation, your gut does not stand a chance. Start with 10 minutes of silence daily. No phone, no podcast, no planning. Just sit. This is where your deeper knowing lives.
Try this: Each morning before you check your phone, sit quietly and ask yourself, ‘What do I know today that I did not know yesterday?’ Write whatever comes without filtering it.
Step 2: Track Your Gut Signals
Most of us feel an intuitive hit and then immediately talk ourselves out of it.
Start keeping an intuition log.
Every time you get a strong feeling about a business decision, a person, or an opportunity, write it down.
Note what the feeling was, what you did with it, and what happened afterward.
Over time, you will start to see patterns. You will notice what your intuition actually feels like in your body and you will start to trust it faster.
Step 3: Do a Body Check Before Big Decisions
Your body knows things your mind has not processed yet.
Before any significant decision, pause and do a quick body scan.
Ask yourself: does this feel expansive or contractive?
Light or heavy?
When something feels right, there is often a sense of opening.
When it is wrong, there is often a subtle closing or tension.
Practice this on small decisions first so that when the big moments come, you have built the muscle.
Step 4: Fast from Opinions
For one week, try this: before making any decision, notice how many external opinions you are collecting.
Slow that down.
Give yourself 24 hours to sit with your own knowing before asking others what they think.
You will be surprised how often you already know the answer and have just been looking for someone to confirm it.
Step 5: Study Your Best Decisions
Look back at the best calls you have ever made in business.
What did those feel like?
Were there signals you noticed early that you almost dismissed?
Most successful entrepreneurs, when they look back, realize their best decisions had an early intuitive signal attached to them that they almost ignored.
Study those moments.
They are your blueprint.
Step 6: Practice Pattern Recognition
Intuition is often pattern recognition happening faster than conscious thought.
The more you expose yourself to diverse experiences, conversations with people unlike you, books outside your field, and industries you
know nothing about, the richer your pattern library becomes.
Read widely.
Travel when you can.
Talk to people who see the world differently.
This feeds your ability to sense what is coming.
Step 7: Debrief After Every Pitch, Meeting, and Decision
After every significant interaction, take five minutes to ask yourself: what did I notice?
What felt off? What felt great?
What did my gut say that I did not say out loud?
These micro-debriefs train your brain to stay attuned to subtle signals and bring them into your conscious awareness.
The Bottom Line
Jensen Huang is right.
The future does not belong to the person who can code the fastest or memorize the most data. AI will handle that.
The future belongs to the person who can feel the room, sense the shift, and act before the crowd catches on.
That is you.
That is who you are becoming.
And the beautiful part is that intuition, unlike a degree or a certification, only gets better with time, attention, and care.
Let this be your year to trust your inner knowing more deeply than ever before.
Ready to Build Your Business from the Inside Out?
If you are an entrepreneur who knows there is more inside of you than you have been able to fully access, I would love to connect with you. I offer entrepreneur coaching that helps you lead with clarity, trust your instincts, and build a business that truly reflects who you are.
Set up your discovery call: https://calendly.com/Kalika
I cannot wait to meet you.
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Sharpening Your Intuition
Set aside 20 to 30 minutes in a quiet space with your favorite pen. There are no right or wrong answers here. The goal is simply to start listening more closely to yourself. That is where the real business wisdom lives.
