Interview by Jonathan Kersting
Former Pittsburgh Technology Council Creative Industries Network Director Kim Chestney released her most recent book, "Radical Intuition: A Revolutionary Guide to Using Your Inner Power," this week to rave reviews.
While working at the Tech Council, Kim recognized the tremendous role that intuition plays in the business and cultural progress and set out on a quest to learn more. As a result of two decades worth of research and practice, Kim has developed a powerful system that anyone can use to tap into their inner wisdom. Get the whole story!
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Transcription:
It's absolutely 100% true. This is Jonathan Kersting. Once again with the TechVibe Radio, One Mic Stand. And I keep telling everybody that I keep stretching things out trying to talk to everybody, anybody in Pittsburgh's tech ecosystem and beyond. And today, I have a sneaking suspicion, I'll have a really good conversation with Kim Chesney, full disclosure, this is someone I've known for over 20 years now, which is kind of cool. I worked with her for like 18 of those 20 years at least something like I can't keep track of time. She's gone on to do some pretty amazing things when it comes to all things intuition and beyond. And she has a brand new book out called Radical Intuition: A revolutionary guide to using your inner power. And I'm excited to talk about this because I think intuition is one of the things where we think we know what it is we kind of know what it is, but we don't matter fully use it. And Kim has really become the expert on that. So Kim, thanks for hanging out with me today on the One Mic Stand.
Thanks for having me on. I'm so excited to talk with you about intuition today, or at least have these chats from time to time in the office about various things. I just never thought you'd get all serious about and actually do something.
You know, it's all research. Oh, yeah. I feel like maybe I was a research subject back in the early days is, is there a chapter on me in this book, like, if you look deep enough, you might read something in there? But congratulations on the book. This is really exciting stuff, especially in this day and age, because I think we all need a little extra upper hand when it comes to navigating life and business. I think we all we all understand. Like we all have intuition. We all feel Oh, I have a sense about something or feeling about something. But we often dismiss it, which I think is wrong. So but for we jump into the conversation, Kim, I mean, obviously you worked at the Pittsburgh Tech Council, you really you're the senior director, I believe it was of the arts and tech initiative, creative industries.
You were you're definitely definitely starting to become a practitioner of all things intuition during those days. And what led you to break off and what have you done since then? I mean, you've written a few books. This is not your first one. What's your background? What's intuition lab?
Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So much there. So you know, you know, when I was at the tech Council, and my younger years, my first book came out, and that was sort of it was the early days of intuition where people really didn't understand that sort of mainstream application of it that we're dealing with now. And it was really through those decades, really, that we worked at the tech council together. And, you know, we started and I got into the creative industries work network and working with creative technology companies and innovative technology companies that were in that space, right, we started hearing remember talking with so many companies listening to hearing this word intuition over and over again, how important that's becoming with technology. And that's a real surprise to a lot of people is how really vital the intuitive process is to all of this stuff that we're doing in business and entrepreneurship. And so, you know, I really wanted to kind of wrap that in, in a real practical way to the sort of deeper concepts of intuition that people have and spirituality and all that stuff, because it really is different facets of the same process. It's like you said we came in, it's about leveling up. It's about that additional sort of way of thinking that's higher than what we're used to thinking and everyday, and we can apply that. So really working with the tech Council on the stuff that we did, especially with the arts and creativity, I always looked at his intuition really applied. It's where the rubber meets the road. You know, we're out there when you're innovating and creating and having these visionary ideas, this is actually intuition coming into fruition in the world.
Yeah, that makes that makes total sense. Total sense. So what's up at the intuition lab? I mean, you went full, you went full bore on this, you left us at the council to do this full bore. And so what do you what do you actually been doing?
Yeah. And I really do, especially with all this pandemic, and so hard to get out, and, and, you know, stay in touch and do our, our meetups that we've had every so often. So yeah, so part of the whole process with, you know, with my transition away from the tech Council, and really taking that to the next level for me was creating intuition lab, because I really wanted to go wholeheartedly into it, you know, it's been my passion my whole life. And, and, you know, the work I did that really supported it, and was really wonderful. But, you know, it got to this point where I knew I had to be I was gonna grow, I needed to go out and go all in on what I was passionate about. So I found my own intuition. And so in doing that, I started intuition lab, which is this online school for intuitive development, teaching people how to actually start to think with both sides of their brain, you know, we've, for so long, we've been trained to be really smart and get PhDs and go through all these knowledge systems, but with my right brain, so we got to start doing the other side of the brain.
So use the right side of my brain cuz it's pretty smart. Not the wrong side of your brain.
So yeah, the more that we start to look, you know, use both sides of our brain then we started like tapping into that formula for genius when we're creating extraordinary products instead of just doing what other people are doing. And you know, we had a conversation about this back when I was working in the creative industry network, I remember always talking about when I was on the board of a company that will remain nameless. And we went in they said that one of their goals and their strategic planning was to stay relevant. And we're like, No, your goal is never to stay relevant. Your goal is to do something new and get ahead of the trends and, and create and innovate, right? So that's the realm of intuition. Those you follow yourself instead of following other people.
As long as you're doing what you do best. You're being metal, because that's, that's what the world needs more of right?
That's part of intuition, right? Because your intuition aligns you with that right path and purpose and all that stuff that you're really naturally good at. So when you're following that, you're putting your best energy in the world, instead of just going around trying to emulate other people, which is no formula for success.
Absolutely. Let's talk about your book, this thing just came. First off, where can you buy this book, I go on Amazon and just type in intuition. And I can I can order myself a copy.
You can get like, like, I'd like me get a free copy from your press people. But I was thinking you're gonna like autograph it for me. But I opened up and theire was no autograph. I have to do that personally.
I think one of the first things we got to talk about is a let's like, define, like, what intuition is. And the one thing I think it's really cool that you point out that intuition cuts across humanity, it doesn't matter what role do you have, what religion you are, whatever it is, there's, there's a place, intuition takes place, all of these types of things. So no one has to feel like they're, they're going counter to the religion or something. Just because they wouldn't grow that inner voice they had is actually trying to guide them. This voice that I feel like for Polly seems like it doesn't seem like to me, maybe you tell me it seems like forever, people tell you not to trust your intuition that it's just phony baloney thing if you're like someone's people are perfectly trying to tell us don't trust your own self. I guess that is true. And that's one of the things I talk about, I get really fired up about I'm like, that's one of the greatest crimes against humanity that we society is done, it's convinced us that intuition isn't real, right, we have this power inside of us to do these really amazing things and to know things and it's really kind of magical way. And we've been raised to think that it doesn't exist. And if it does exist, it's like scary or like going to like you're going to get possessed or something same thing like that. All of it is just, it's just not true at all. It's just it's almost to like, keep us down in a lot of ways. You know? Well, I'm excited to continue reading through the book, because I'm one of those, I've always felt like I have my sneaking senses, as I call them about things are gonna happen. But I always like sometimes like, I can take it so far. And then it just kind of goes away. I know there's ways to develop it. That's why I'm excited cuz I think your book, it really does explain kind of goes through what it's about. But they actually go through a step by step process to help you kind of tap more into it, and try to develop it more and actually use it in the real world. It's not just this thing where you know that some some some some pie in the sky thing. Totally. It's called like navigating the office place. And it's called going to the grocery store and not becoming ticked off when someone takes the last block off the shelf. Right. I think it's cool. It's about everyday application of just using this God given sense that's within you.
Yeah, I love that you just said that about pie in the sky. Because that's one thing. This book, I didn't want it to be just this this pie in the sky, like feel good book with me just like telling you things. This is a book where you can actually experience it for yourself. Like don't take it for me, this book is a how to book this shows you practices to things you can do to go out and just use your intuition yourself and get those validations and be like, Oh my god, this is real. Like I want everybody reads the book to be like, oh, gosh, I just did something that proved intuition is real and that I can trust it. And I'm going to start using it to do to make my life better. And all the things in it that I touch better.
You know, really, man? No, it makes sense. So let's start off let's give us like a definition like, like intuition. It's that it's that sense we have that something's gonna happen or we send something's not good, or something's gonna be good, or I should do something, I shouldn't do something. And we always I always try to I should listen to myself, but I'll try it anyhow.
You have good intuition. I've known that over the years. And so to really well, part of the reason there's been like so much confusion around intuition and like all of this stuff is that there hasn't been like a comprehensive definition of what it is because it's some people call it a gut feeling. Some people call it knowing or it can be psychic or telepathy, suspicion, mission, right, like so there's, there's so many different ways it manifests that people just don't even really know how to deal with it. So part of radical intuition is really creating an umbrella understanding of all those different manifestations and probably tie together and Apply different parts of our life. So, so, yes, it's Yes, it's a sneaking suspicion. Yes, it's a knowing Yes. How does that happen? Why are they different? How do we control these different things? So it talks about the four types of intuition, right? That all ties into that. But you know, like you said earlier, it's something that every human being who's ever walked on the face of the earth has all of us have it, no matter what our background is, no matter what our religion is, you can put different labels on it in terms of what we're connecting with. But ultimately, I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to use a technology metaphor. Now since we're, I like tech metaphysics.
It is our connection to the information that is stored the internal universal information that is stored in the universe, you know, and that can be Wait, there's a name for that? What's the cool name for that? A cloud? No, wait, it's not new. But there's like this. It's like the ethers of the universe. It's the Akashic Record.
We kind of are, it's kind of it's kind of like a, you know, a next level Akashic metaphor, because that's kind of what's happening on a universal basis. Because we know that everything that's ever happened, like energy can't be created or destroyed, right? No such thing as time, everything that's ever happened, or we'll talk about time sometime. All right.
Let's talk about that. So, so there's a part of our brains that can access that data. It's all out there. You know, it's, it's, it's not crazy to think that we have a part of our intelligence that's connected to that, that can kind of download that information.
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. So it's actually you get into quantum physics and, and intuition is very much tied into quantum physics. Okay. Absolutely. Say that, that like the thinking mind is like Newtonian physics, because it's like, linear and cause and effect. But then like, intuition is like quantum physics and quantum thinking, because you can just go straight from the beginning to the answer without all that in between.
So what's, so walk us through a couple of the key steps that you kind of you kind of walk people through? As they say, Yeah, I wanted to, I'm interested in this, I do get these feelings. I do feel like I feel like yeah, I'm into this, I want to be able to kind of build my intuition. If I want to be able to be more perceptive. I want to be able to break through and come up with new ideas, because I don't want to be stuck in this linear space. So what's like your first sets of steps?
Yeah. So I think it all kind of comes down to creating what I call culture of insightfulness in your life. So we hear a lot about mindfulness, right? mindfulness is really big, we all and be mindful, we all want to be present in the moment and really get into like meditation and stillness and all that stuff. And I think all of that was really a precursor that was laying a foundation for this sort of next wave in the imagination age and the intuition age, we're insightfulness is going to be what we need to cultivate and look for in our life. So the first step I always say with people is really just to unplug, slow down, disengage, right, create more whitespace, get into that whitespace and allow, you know this, this gap to open up where your intuition can speak to you because it's in that stillness in that moment in that bathroom, you find it. So you got to create the space, you said, we can't have our phones in front of us all the time entertaining ourselves and being on the world, we got a disconnect in order to find that disconnect to connect, right? That's the irony, you got a disconnect from this world, if you want to connect, that's a that's a pretty tough ask in this day and age. Because to get someone to say I know there's lots of folks like the Jack Dorsey's of the world and so forth, and Brad Feld, where they go for long periods of time without having any connection to the Internet, because they need to get that time away in order to fill and everything like that. So okay, so so I get this space, I'm saying myself, yeah, I'm gonna start making sure that I got at least an hour or two on a Saturday, or I'm gonna at least take this time and just disconnect and start being still for a walk, you know, whatever it doesn't, you don't have to get out like crystal balls and sit and meditate for an hour, but I love my crystal balls, the best.
Welcome to them, you know, something like that. So my way of disconnecting is when I ride my bicycle, right, exactly the kinds of things where it's like you think about things, but you don't think about things in your mind does let go a little bit. So it can be difficult for Walker doing something that gets your brain on a different wavelength.
Yeah, you get it even when you're driving the car back in the days when we used to commute to work, right? How many times are you sitting there you get an idea or you're sitting in traffic or something? Yeah, because you're disconnecting You're almost dripping. somebody's getting a brilliant idea.
On autopilot, hopefully it takes care of that.
Exactly.
So beyond that, you so you know, what do we do next is where you wherever you're going with this right, like, once we get into that stillness, then what? Right? Um, so you know, in the book, I talked about a number of different exercises we can do based on what type of intuition that we're working with. So there's four main mission. Gotcha. One is like intuition of our bodies, like really listening to our bodies. And an example would be like learning what to eat, right? intuitive eating is huge. So you know, we're always out there following diets, trying to be healthy, having everybody prescribed things to us, but really, all the time our body's talking to us, you know, there's a sense of things that we're attracted to. And I'm not talking about cravings and stuff like that, it's sort of on a different level, where your body will tell you, like, certain things are good for you. So learning to listen to your body, and a lot of ways is one type. And then mindful intuition is really using intuition to make those choices, right. So do you want to get into that space? where you're like, oh, what way should I go to work today? Is there gonna be an accident this way? Or is there gonna be traffic this way? Just even simple things, making decisions or having knowing. And then, you know, the third type of intuition is one that we dealt with a lot at the tech Council and the creative industries network, his creative intuition, and that's those new ideas and innovation and the big we're not there yet. Right? I think that's something people really want to learn more about. And that's what's really moving the world today, because it is transformational. It's about let's the intuition that brings change and growth and lead the way to these new frontiers that at the tech Council, you know, especially under Audrey's leadership, you know, we've been really committed to that, right, it's been that process of just of opening up the pathways to what's next. So before I get my best, I get my best creative and business ideas when I'm riding my bike. That's, that's all the time I think about it all comes together in my head, like a flash almost.
And that's how
I really call Audrey and tell her about it. So yes, that's
right. And that's why intuition is so great, because you don't have to work for it. You don't have to sit down and you know, have a strategic planning meeting for 12 hours or something, you know, it just comes to you in a moment. And I literally built the creative industries network that way, that was how I just like, I knew me, I had no idea what I was doing, like, I was just like, let's just do this. And let's do that and, and end up getting all this traction and having these wonderful experiences just just by following my own intuition to try these new things. And that's what everybody can do to really get to that place of, you know, getting out of your comfort zone and really trying experimenting and making an impact.
I was interviewing, I was interviewing raazi mom, he authored this book called keepers of the broken watches. And Rosie's a tech guy and uh, you might only make you might have crossed paths at 113 Industries. He has his book on Ask him, where he got the inspiration from he said, he got the inspiration in a flash. He said he literally had the entire book in a flash and just wrote it. Yep. And I was like, dang, dude, like that makes sense. Like is because it's a complicated, cool book. And it just, it just came home. And he said he had to write it. And that's what he did. He's up for all types of Book Awards for it right now, which is really cool. So I thought you were this guy's he believes in his intuition. And he follows it. And when something strikes, he follows so I mean, that's that's
just shows you smart. Because like all the great people like Steve Jobs, Einstein, all those people talked about how intuition was really the secret to success. You can?
Like it's not all that it's not all intellect. It's not.
That's it the intellectual only take you so far. And then beyond that, that's your intuition is your link to that genius. You know, it's really your link to your inner genius. So really great. People who do these things always have this intuitive component, even if they're working in technology are the seemingly most unintuitive places, you know,
right. Absolutely. Cool stuff. So so so I'm going through your process here a little bit more. So then it becomes these workshops, just kind of building and experimenting a little bit, and then you start seeing what works and what doesn't work as you begin to kind of Yeah, right. Try it out.
So everybody has their I always say they have their own intuitive language, because we're all different. You know, that's the thing about intuition and why it makes it so difficult to teach. Because there's no one singular manual. It's not like you can go to school for intuition. It works the same way with everybody. Right? And so it's so, so unique, so personalized, that your intuition speaks to you. Like Jonathan, your intuition will speak to you in the history of your whole life experiences. So if it's trying to tell you something, it'll show you something from your own life to get that message through. Like, if it showed me the same thing. It wouldn't mean the same thing can be you know, it's so weird to be weird and went that way. Maybe someday, you know, afterlife when we're all one and you drive
through life.
But that's the thing cuz the intellect is objective. And that's why it makes it easy in this world for us all to gravitate towards it, because it's something we can all agree upon. But intuition is subjective. So we can all agree upon it. We just have to trust ourselves and work with ourselves. So it's about learning your intuitive language. So the more that you practice, your intuition, the stronger it gets, that's the thing you just pay attention to it. You It on it, and it'll start to grow. It's like anything else, that energy gets stronger and stronger.
And as you deploy it, you start seeing it work and it kind of grows, it's new, I think it's gonna snowball a little bit. That's why I'm excited to kind of roll through all the different chapters in your book. I feel like you can read through it, and then go back to the different chapters, depending on what interests you most. And the app developed from there, which I think is cool. So I feel like this is one of those Firstly, kind of practical, almost how to guides to a certain degree how to do that. It really yeah, I think if anyone who's out there, you know, whether you're in business, whether you're an artist, whether No matter if you're a human being, you're in a situation, because you're existing in this world, and you're going to be interacting with people, I need to figure things out, tap into this. I think it's so cool. Kim, I'm just so proud that you wrote this book. Really cool, man. It's a it's a great, great, great job done, and I'm excited. Well, you've been on a lot of the journey with me for you were there when the first book came out?
I barely remember.
Crazy.
God, I forgot about that. That was so long ago. But it's so awesome to be able to catch up with you and tell people once again, radical intuition revolutionary guide to using your inner power. So one more thing. Oh, yes, yes. Yeah. Because Audrey, we're so excited. Audrey was such a, you know, huge influence on a lot of this work. And really, it was a great mentor to me through this process. So I had the opportunity to sit down with her during our upcoming book launch summit, which starts and on November 11, and it'll be evergreen. So if you're seeing this after 11 November love, but you can still see it, you can still sign up for it. And it really includes a lot of people from Pittsburgh, Jessie shell, Carl Kurland, or Jim de Nova, a lot of people and great conversation with Audrey too, about intuition and how it's played such a really important role in her her life and in business success. And all the companies that we've worked with over the years are really cool, how it applies both to your personal life and also to your business life. So it's one of those things that you can really get a lot out of it. It's not just a business book. It's not just like a whoop, you know, Julie wears book it's a little bit of everything so so that's something that is out there. Is this a lot of good a lot of good talks? Where do we access that? How is that how to be intuition dash revolution calm so we're talking about the intuition revolution and got a lot of cool people standing up for it. Very cool, man. That's so exciting. I think this is just another another good foundational step for you because I think more is gonna be coming our way from you, Kim, which Yeah, congratulations. Once again, the book, go to Amazon, buy, go online, find it and get it in 13. Your intuition we can all get along much better for all these inner intuition. And I think in this day and age, we need a lot more of it. Thank you for your work. Jonathan, so good talking to you. Everybody, this is the Pittsburgh Tech Council and Techvibe Radio, having awesome conversations like this all the time. It makes my job so much fun, Kim, be good.
Whoo.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai