OFI 990: You Better Learn To Hear What’s Coming

Published: Feb. 9, 2021, 7:30 a.m.

On last week's Tuesday episode, episode #984, I told you a story about trying to catch a train in my hometown of Valley Home, California.  That story got me thinking about that train, and that got me thinking about intuition.  Why you ask?  I'm going to tell you in today's episode. I talk about intuition or gut instincts quite a bit on this show.   Paying attention to your intuition is pretty important to me, and I try to do so whenever mine crops up.  This probably has something to do with my law enforcement career when I got introduced to the book The Gift of Fear: And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence by Gavin De Becker and started really paying attention to this aspect of human survival. The simplest definition of intuition I have ever heard comes from that book, and it is "knowing without knowing why".  Have you ever experienced this?  I think we all have, but a lot of times we don't realize we are experiencing it.  Worse yet, a lot of times we don't believe what our intuition is telling us, and we purposefully ignore it.  Usually we ended up regretting moments like this for one reason or another.  Hopefully, it is not too catastrophic. Intuition is very important for any of us who are going to be starting businesses as our way of funding our agricultural lifestyles.  You see, the advantage that an entrepreneur has in the market place is that they can be very agile and quick to act.  An entrepreneur doesn't get bogged down with committees and multiple layers of bureaucracy.  This means while big companies are trying to figure out if they are going devote any time or money to an idea, an entrepreneur is already implementing it and has already figured out whether or not it is going to work. This can be a very strong attribute and competitive advantage.  However, it can also be the thing that breaks you if you put all of your eggs into that basket.  That is why it is so important for entrepreneurs to bootstrap their businesses and new projects.  We need to test quickly and cheaply to take advantage of this agility without getting way out over our skis.  And sometimes when it comes to whether or not something is working we have to trust our intuition.  Because we don't have big research and development departments, this is all we are going to have to let us know whether or not we actually have something. The source of intuition is something that can be argued and can actually be contentious.  Some people say that it is born into you and is the voice of God or the Holy Spirit.  Others say that it is a result of evolution and survival of the fittest.  I say that I don't know why it can't be both.  Why can't intuition be God or the Holy Spirit talking to you?  Perhaps natural selection or survival of the fittest is how intuition has been voiced into your life. Think about the billions of human beings that have died over the entire history of the human race.  Think way back to when survival meant not getting eaten by a predator or knowing when to throw a spear or release an arrow.  In a situation in which our ancestors were hunting they would have to trust their instincts on when to go for the kill, or even where to devote their time and energy to hunting.  If they were wrong about either, they might not have the calories to make it through the upcoming winter.  Or, if they felt like they were being stalked by a predator and ignored that "feeling" they were likely eaten. Many millions of humans perished because they did not have the intuition to avoid death prior to procreating and passing along their genetic information.  All of us who are here to listen to this podcast are the progeny of those who did have the intuition needed to survive.  And that intuitive ability improved and improved, millennia after millennia, until it reached us.  We are the latest generation of a line of survivors, of victors.  We shouldn't throw away the tools that got us here. So, this begs the question,