contrary. I don’t know when I started to understand that there
was something divine about that inner voice—I certainly didn’t
in high school, college, or even in young manhood—but some-
where along the line, I appreciated that, too. How is it possible
that as a writer I can go to bed a thousand times with a second
act problem and wake up with the answer? Some inner voice.
To go with that—which I confess I don’t do all of the time—is
the purest, truest thing we have. And when we forgo our own
thoughts and opinions, they end up coming back to us from the
mouths of others. They come back with an alien majesty....
So the lesson is, you believe it. When I’ve been most effective, I’ve
followed that inner voice.”
Following the “blessed impulse” is, I think, basic to leader-
ship. This is how guiding visions are made real. But the need
for other right-brain qualities came up again and again in my
conversations.
Author and feminist leader Gloria Steinem said of being an
entrepreneur, “It helps if you’re a nonlinear thinker. And it
takes a certain amount of persuasion, which means empa-
thy.... Entrepreneurs always seemed to me like the artists of
the business world, because we put together things that
haven’t gone together in the past.” She used similar words
when she talked about success: “To me, the model of progress
is not linear. Success is completing the full circle of yourself.”
Herb Alpert described how he works this way: “I’m a right-
brain animal. I’m not a businessman in the traditional sense.
And I do a lot of buckshotting and I rely on my gut reaction.
When my shoulders feel tight, I know something’s off. I use my
body as a barometer.... I try to listen like a piece of Silly Putty
when someone plays me a song. I try to let my biases just blow
in the breeze. For the most part, I’m listening for the feeling.”
Operating on Instinct