We all have it. A little voice in the back of our head, the one that quietly tries to warn us. To keep us from making epically stupid decisions, like eating grocery store sushi that smells funny. We call it intuition. A hunch. A gut feeling. We often dismiss it because that little voice never wants us to have any fun.
Why? Because we're often our own worst enemy. Because the common denominator in most of your horrific decisions…is you. After all, you bought it, leased it, smoked it, drank it, ate it, sent it, slept with it, tattooed it, moved in with it, and maybe even married it.
Since it's just you and me talking, I'll admit that once I make up my mind, I'm as deaf as a doornail. Apparently my ears think their work is done. I'll ignore that little voice faster than my wiener dog, Peanut, dives on a wayward chicken nugget.
Peanut
Could intuition be a kind of sixth sense? Not like the kid who sees dead people, but a way of recognizing that something isn't quite right. An answer that arrives before we can fully explain it. But how much should we trust it? Think about your last epically dumb decision, where you clearly ignored your intuition. We'll wait here…
Okay, so you probably remember the warning signs. You may even remember explaining them away. The investment sounded too good to be true. Like the time I made an investment in a coal mine. Or the time I ate that grocery store sushi. It smelled funny. I ignored my intuition and regretted it for five days. Or the time I decided to give up coffee. Okay, we don't need to spend the whole day reviewing my qualifications to write this column. I assure you they're sound.
But remembering the times we should have listened doesn't tell us how often that little voice was wrong. What about the things that turned out just fine? The Manager we didn't trust who became our favorite boss. The decision not to invest in Anthropic three years ago. All because something unfamiliar made us uncomfortable.
Getting your heart broken by someone charming doesn't mean you should be forever suspicious of charming people. Or move to New Mexico and live in a yurt, eating only fermented foods. The heartbreak is real, but whether it tells you anything about the next person is a different question.
A helpful reminder and an unfair assumption can feel remarkably similar. So how do we know the difference? We can start by asking what we noticed. Did someone actually give us a reason to be suspicious? Or do they remind us of someone who did? Have we learned something from experience? Or are we just trying to avoid ever getting hurt again? There's no wisdom in the second kick of a mule. But getting kicked by a mule doesn't mean everything with four legs is out to get you.
And intuition isn't always warning us that something is wrong. Sometimes it tells us everythibg is right. An investment is foolproof, or romance is designed to last. It's easy to question a feeling that gets in our way. It's harder to question one that tells us exactly what we want to hear.
We'll cross-examine the little voice telling us to ease off the accelerator, then hand the car keys to the one telling us to floor it. Which reminds me of the time I took a job purely for the money. When everything went to hell in a handbasket, I announced confidently that I should have trusted my gut. Apparently, I'd forgotten that my gut was the one who tossed me the keys.
We demand evidence from the warning and accept encouragement without a single follow-up question. Then, when things go badly, we remember we knew better all along. Conveniently, we forget how certain we were that everything would work out.
So maybe that little voice deserves a hearing before we make up our minds. We can ask what it noticed, what we might be missing, and whether we'd find its advice so persuasive if it told us something we didn't want to hear. We can also admit that a feeling doesn't have to be an instruction. We can stop and ask questions.
Being confident doesn't mean we're right, and wanting something badly doesn't make it a good idea. Sometimes we should ignore that little voice. Sometimes we should just throw away the sushi. We don't need to learn everything the hard way.
I’d love to hear what you think. Leave me a message by clicking the link below. I promise that you’ll hear back from me cause, you know, I’m not important enough to ignore my emails.
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