There are a lot of positive words to express the abilities of intuitives. Sometimes we are called “prescient.” Others call us “creative.” I think we may even be called “visionary.”

Here is what I hear more often: crazy, unfounded, scatterbrained, lack of discipline, chaotic…I didn’t have to struggle to come up with those negative words. In my graduate program, we learned the value of “playing to your strengths.” It is a waste of time to put your strongest ability on the back burner in order to cultivate skills that you don’t possess naturally. I could argue that getting an MBA was an enormous exercise in playing to my weaknesses. But let me offer up a positive spin on this paradox.

I am lucky enough to have a boss who recognizes my abilities and gives me opportunities to use them. Intuitive accounting, for instance, allows me to look at a stack of numbers and immediately recognize an error. A few years ago, all of the accountants were scratching their heads trying to figure out why a business unit was off by a huge sum. I took one look at the workbook and told them that they were showing a different number for the forecast than what was given. I emailed the forecast to the head accountant so she could correct her mistake. Flustered, they begrudgingly thanked me and muttered things like “lucky guess.” It wasn’t a lucky guess. I just happen to know how to do math in my head and have an almost absurd recall for numbers. I had seen the forecast before month end close, and it was much larger. I didn’t know the exact number, but I knew the number they used was the wrong one.

The sad thing is that my ability drives logical sensing people to the edge of sanity. My boss knows how to keep his distance from me, as he is an extreme sensing person. He doesn’t know how I know what I know, but he does listen. I warned him of several efforts to undermine his plans based on a few snippets of conversation I had overheard. All of them were real, but he didn’t want to take action until the actual coup d’état was right before him. I have stopped offering up my psychic knowledge to him to preserve his sanity. He cannot understand how I know things in advance. I can read people’s subtle energy and he can’t.

I untangle a lot of financial knots. I love doing reconciliations. They are like an Amish puzzle for me. I love getting things started, but prefer to hand them off once there is momentum. When I hear the words “attention to detail,” I sigh, because I can only pay attention to important details…and what I deem important is rarely, if ever, what sensible business people consider important. If I have to pay attention to unimportant details, I will fall asleep at my desk.

I guess I would ask, gentle readers, that you weigh in on whether hyper-intuitive, psychic people belong in the world of business, and if not, where do we belong?