In this episode of The Intuitive Leader, I am honored to speak with Gary Klein, one of the most influential thinkers in the world on intuition, expertise, and real-world decision-making.

Gary is a cognitive psychologist and a pioneer of Naturalistic Decision Making, studying how people actually make decisions in messy, uncertain, high-stakes environments. His Recognition-Primed Decision model has fundamentally changed how the US Army and Marines train leaders to decide under pressure, and his work has shaped fields ranging from the military to executive leadership.

We also talk about his long and respectful disagreement with his good friend and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, which evolved into a five-year adversarial collaboration and resulted in their joint publication Failure to Disagree, exploring when intuitive expertise can, and cannot, be trusted.

Gary never set out to study intuition, but to understand rapid decision-making. When a senior firefighter once told him, “I’ve never made a decision in my life,” it revealed that experts do not experience decision-making the way textbooks describe it. That moment marked an unexpected turning point in Gary’s research.

Gary is a natural storyteller, and it is both a pleasure and enlightening to listen to him. Join in!

Links to Gary and his company Shadowbox

Shadow Box: https://www.shadowboxtraining.com/our-team/

Gary Klein - Seeing what others don’t: https://www.gary-klein.com/

Links to Maurice

Decoding Intuition™: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/masterclass

Community: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/community

Webinars: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/webinars

Podcast: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/podcast

Email: maurice@intuitiveleader.net

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricejenkens/

Every now and then you meet someone truly special, and you just know it.

This was my first impression of Canadian Mac Van Wielingen, shaped by his presence and by his family history.

I was deeply moved by his personal story and by that of his Jewish father, who fled the Nazis in Germany and ended up in the Dutch resistance, operating close to the very village I was born in.

That connection hit me in a way I did not expect.

Mac (Canadian with a Dutch mother and a German father) is the Founder and Chairman of Viewpoint Group, a Canadian family-owned investment and philanthropic holding structure, as well as the Founder and presently Partner of ARC Financial Corporation, a private equity firm with approximately $6 billion CAD under management.

He is known as the Rebel-Investor and is a strong believer in “ethical leadership”. He was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal for his philanthropic contributions, and he is a regular advisor to the Canadian federal government on energy and climate-related issues.

Already in our pre-podcast intake call, we ended up in a deep dive into everything between Heaven and Earth. Some of my favorite take-aways from my conversations with Mac are these:

He uses intuition in boardrooms by saying, “I don’t know why, but I am uncomfortable with something here, please help me understand,” inviting trust, psychological safety, and opening the door to “the unspoken”, the tacit knowledge the rest of the room is sitting on.

Mac also speaks vulnerably about his private life, shaped by seeking meaning and by confronting the WWII trauma in his family history. He shares how “discomfort” has been his greatest teacher throughout life.

Interestingly, his father did not speak about that past until he was 85. Mac had been sensing his family’s pain long before the words were ever spoken, which I believe may have sharpened his intuitive gifts over the years. Something had been transmitting meaning and depth through deep silence.

And this, maybe most of all, is my biggest take-away and lesson from him:

To turn toward discomfort, not away from it. Because, however hard it may be at times, it is in the discomfort where life’s greatest teachings lay hidden.

With an enormous amount of respect and gratitude, I would like to invite you to listen to our conversation.

I am humbled to have had the opportunity to speak with him.

Thank you.

Links to Mac and companies

About Mac and Viewpoint: ttps://www.macvw.ca/biography-1

ARC Financial: https://www.arcfinancial.com/

Viewpoint Investment http://www.viewpointinvestment.ca

Links to Maurice

Decoding Intuition™: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/masterclass

Community: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/community

Webinars: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/webinars

Podcast: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/podcast

Email: maurice@intuitiveleader.net

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricejenkens/

Who starts a company on her credit card and turns it into one of the fastest-growing firms in Canada? Who walks away from a successful exit not to retire, but to build a movement that treats companies as forces for good?

This episode is a conversation with Catherine R. Bell, founder of The Awakened Company and former CEO of Blue Era. Catherine is a multi-company entrepreneur, bestselling author, culture transformer and unapologetic believer that business can -and must- awaken.

We talk about the role of intuition in leadership and how “lightning-bolt knowing” shapes the biggest decisions. And also why ignoring your intuition feels like a sinking stone while following it feels like lift and expansion.

Catherine opens up about the risks she took, the failures she learned from, and the inner trust that carried her through building multiple companies while raising a family.

It was my good fortune to be able to sit down with her for a candid, energising look at purpose, culture, and the courage to build the world you believe in.

Join in!

Links to Catherine, book and company

Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Awakened-Company-Catherine-R-Bell/dp/1897238797

Company: https://awakenedcompany.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bellcatherine/

Twitter / X: https://x.com/AwakenedCompany

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awakenedcompany

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/theawakenedcompany/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AwakenedCompany

Catherine Bell: https://catherinerbell.com/

Links to Maurice

Community: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/community

Webinars: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/webinars

Podcast: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/podcast

Email: maurice@intuitiveleader.net

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mauricejenkens/

MasterClass Decoding Intuition™: https://www.intuitiveleader.net/masterclass