Conrad Hilton relied on his hunches to make his fortune. His intuition was so finely-honed that it was uncanny. Although he denied any psychic talent, he was often baffled by the accuracy of his intuitions.

"Most of the time I can reconstruct the circumstances of these hunches," he confessed, "and I can figure out in a general way where it came from. I mean I can explain it-not completely but enough to make it less strange. There have been times, though, when I couldn't come up with a good explanation."

Once his remarkable intuition helped him buy a prestigious old hotel in Chicago. The sale was based on sealed bids. All the bids were to be opened on a select day and the hotel would go to the highest bidder.

Some days prior to the deadline, Hilton offered a bid of $165,000, but that night he went to bed feeling restless and did not sleep well. The next morning he changed his mind. "It just didn't feel right," he said afterward. He increased his bid to $180,000. This was just right-he outbid his close rival by a mere $200.

The Success Principle

Conrad Hilton had a strong desire to win the bid. Although he made a calculated guess at what to bid, it did not feel right and he tossed and turned all night long. In the morning, he upped his bid. His new figure was arbitrary, but it was perfect.

His hunch arose from the wealth of knowledge stored in his subconscious. He had been in the hotel business ever since his purchase of a hotel in Texas as a young man. He had spent many years learning about the field and must have gathered a staggering number of facts.

In bidding for the Chicago hotel, he was consciously aware of the value of the real estate, the owner's estimate of its value, and his competitor's ideas about how much to stake. Based on this understanding, he placed his first bid. However, while he slept, his brain probably ruminated over numerous subtle pieces of information-perhaps the personalities of the owner and the other bidders, perhaps a remark heard, perhaps the memory of a offer on another similar property, and so on. This nonspecific and unconscious information forced him to raise his bid by an additional $15,000 when he woke up the next day.

Thus while he made a rational decision based on his conscious knowledge, his subconscious went through its own files during the night, and, upon awakening, prompted him to increase his offer.