Paul OBrien - Intuitive Intelligence: Make Life-Changing Decisions With Perfect Timing

8427 N.E. Cornell Road, Suite 500

Hillsboro, Oregon 97124-9808

503-531-8700 / 503-531-8773 fax

www.beyondword.com

Copyright 2019 by Paul OBrien

Published previously as Great Decisions, Perfect Timing in 2015 by Divination Foundation Press,
978-0-98849-423-7

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Managing Editor: Lindsay S. Easterbrooks-Brown
Copyeditor: Jenefer Angell
Proofreader: Ashley Van Winkle
Interior design: Devon Smith
Composition: William H. Brunson Typography Services

First Beyond Words paperback edition September 2019

BEYOND WORDS PUBLISHING and colophon are registered trademarks of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc. Beyond Words is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Beyond Words Special Sales at 503-531-8700 or .

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: OBrien, Paul D., author.
Title: Intuitive intelligence : make life-changing decisions with perfect
timing / Paul D. OBrien ; foreword by John Gray, PhD.
Description: Hillsboro, Oregon : Beyond Words, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019003858 | ISBN 9781582706986 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Intuition. | Decision making.
Classification: LCC BF315.5 .O27 2019 | DDC 153.4/4dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019003858
ISBN 978-1-58270-724-2 (ebook)

The corporate mission of Beyond Words Publishing, Inc.: Inspire to Integrity

For my grandson, Bryce,
and all future decision-makers.

Contents

Foreword

S ynchronicity is a term that the psychologist Carl Jung coined to describe the phenomenon of meaningful coincidence. When something happens that feels like an amazing twist of destiny, perhaps providing a turning point in our lives, we intuitively sense that events are not random. A common fruit of synchronicity is meeting the right people at the right time. The term provides extra irony for me with regards to Paul OBrien, because it describes our first meeting in more ways than one.

It was 1992 and I was on a book tour after Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus was published. Paul had just taped an interview with me for his Pathways radio show in Portland, Oregon. I thought he was an excellent interviewer and asked if radio was what he did for a living. He smiled and told me that he was a volunteer host for the community radio station (a public service he has continued for over thirty years). He also shared that he had recently left a position as a high-tech executive to start a quirky Macintosh software company. Being an early Mac user, this intrigued me, and I inquired as to the type of software he was developing.

When I learned that his program was an interactive version of the I Ching for the Macintosh that he named Synchronicity, I almost fell out of my chair. You developed the Synchronicity program? Surprised by my reaction, he replied, Youve heard of it? I said, Yes, I own it, and my wife and I love it. I can hardly believe that I am meeting the guy who developed Synchronicity! Paul replied, Well, its amazing for me to realize that I have been listening to your cassettes on relationships for yearsnot knowing who you were... and now I discover that you are one of my first customers... this is almost too much synchronicity! We shared a good laugh over it.

My wife, Bonnie, and I had used different versions of the I Ching as an aid to decision-making since the 1970s and found the Taoist divination system to be a source of wisdom. Around 1991, we tried out Pauls new software and found it an engaging new way to consult the I Ching. In addition to taking all the busy work out of casting a reading (the recording and calculating of six lines based on how three coins land six times, and so forth), the program contained an elegant, modern, and nonsexist version of the ancient text, composed by Paul.

The programs combination of poetic text and multimedia was groundbreaking in 1990, but Synchronicity would only prove to be the opening act in Pauls entrepreneurial adventure. Focusing on a mission to provide universal access to authentic divination systems, he eventually gave the world do-it-yourself I Ching and tarot readings via the internet. In the process he also created what turned into the largest astrology and numerology website, which became the exclusive provider of horoscopes and divination features for AOL, Yahoo, Google, Beliefnet, MySpace, and other large websites.

Part memoir, part how-to, and part philosophy, Intuitive Intelligence includes the story of how Paul made the strange but ultimately strategic decisions that led to fascinating business success based on staying true to his unique creative vision, against all odds. Beyond the highly entertaining personal anecdotes, the book provides an unconventional tool kit grounded in timeless wisdom, designed to help you improve your odds at finding success in your own way by upgrading your decision-making and improving your timing. His visionary approach to decision-making revolves around Jungs synchronicity principle, which Jung discovered based on his own fascination with the I Ching, and which describes the essence of perfect timing.

I have long noticed how synchronicity plays a huge role in relationships, especially for people who are destined to become partners. It certainly played a prominent part in my connecting with my wife, Bonnie, over thirty-five years ago. In an amazing twist of fate that occurred a couple of years before I met her, I was assigned the task of taking care of her needsspecifically some health needsunder the direction of our spiritual teacher. She was pregnant and needed special things to be procured, errands to be run, etc. I was a monk at the time and had not even met her. But as a result of synchronicity, I was helping provide for my future wifes needs years before we even met!

If life is elegant, synchronicity explains why. As Paul puts it, from the synchronistic point of view, there are no accidents. The way Bonnie and I came together is just one example of the mystical ways that people who are destined to be together can and do find each other. In thirty years of relationship counseling, I have heard so many simply amazing stories of how long-term partners have met. More often than not, a meaningful coincidenceor synchronicityis at the start of it.

Timing has also played a major role in my career as an author and teacher, but as this book explains, synchronicity doesnt operate in a linear fashion. This is where two key components of Pauls Visionary Decision Making approachself-discovery and intuitive intelligencecome to the forefront.

In 1983 I was a relationship counselor and starting to speak about the ideas that would later coalesce in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus . I wrote my first book in 1989, entitled Men, Women, and Relationships . It revealed a way of approaching and enriching relationships between men and women, based on appreciating our differences as well as our similarities. To highlight any differences, real as they may be, was politically incorrect in the 1980s. As timing would have it, my first book came out one month after Deborah Tannens bestseller, You Just Dont Understand . Although her analysis was quite different, it was academically grounded. The popularity of her book created a wider discussion around the different ways that women and men communicate.