--- title: Trust your gut created: 2025-01-01T16:32:50 modified: 2025-08-29T08:30:45 --- > _“Intuition is the whisper of the soul.” — Jidda krishnamurti_ --- # Unconscious Decision-making (aka “Gut Feeling”) The worst decisions in life are made when you allow your head to talk you into something when your gut already said no. How many times have you allowed your head to convince you that something made sense, even when you knew it didn’t feel right? Or, how many times have you allowed your head to convince you that something didn’t make sense, even when your gut told you it did? [The gut is the ultimate decision-maker; the head just rationalizes it after the fact. For any important decision, wait until your gut answers with conviction.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyfUysrNaco&t=5443s) Never let your head outsmart your gut. --- [Don’t trust the coin (you flip); trust your inside guts.](https://mariandrew.substack.com/p/100-things-i-know) --- If it doesn’t feel right, it’s not right. --- # Hunch v.s Intuition A **hunch** can be seen as a quick, focused form of intuition, while **intuition** encompasses a more general sense of understanding or knowing. --- # The Story Of The Scorpion And The Frog: > A scorpion is sitting on the bank of a river, unable to cross to the other side because it can’t swim. > > The scorpion sees a frog in the water and asks, “Can I ride on your back to get to the other side?” > > The frog is understandably hesitant and replies, “No, you’ll sting me!” > > The scorpion was ready for this concern and answers, “No, I wouldn’t do that, because if I sting you, we’ll both drown.” > > The frog, convinced by this response, agrees to the arrangement, but when they’re halfway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog in the back. > > As it starts to sink, the frog asks, “Why did you do that? Now we’re both going to die!” > > With its last breath, the scorpion shrugs, “I couldn’t help it. It’s my nature.” The most common interpretation of the story is that we should trust in our intuition about the danger someone poses to us. The frog’s [instinct](Judgement.md) was correct, but it was swayed by the words of the scorpion, which put it in danger. The scorpion is the person whose nature makes them dangerous to you. Never let their words convince you otherwise. --- # The “Whole-Body Yes” Check * Where? 1. Head 2. Chest (Heart) 3. Gut * How? * Look for a _YES_ signal in _ALL_ three areas; that is the only situation in which you should say _yes_. If they’re not all saying _yes_, then it’s a _no_. * You get a tingling feeling on the back of your neck. This sensation may not come around that often, but when it does, you know it. --- [In an interview at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, Apple CEO Tim Cook talks about how intuition led him to Apple and how intuition develops over time.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6X9-br--jM) > I don’t think that you’re born with a gut. I think the gut matures and gets better and better over time. And the struggle that most people have I think, is learning to listen to it and figuring out how to access it in some way. > Even though I’m an engineer and an analytical person at heart, the most important decision I’ve made had nothing to do with any of that. They were always based on intuition. [^1] > I remember forming my list of pluses and minuses and I could not get the chart to work out the way that I wanted it to. I wanted something to say, you know, this says I should go to Apple, but it would not. Nothing financially would do that. I talked to people I trusted that knew me and they said, “This is not what you should do.” It wasn’t so easy. And people said, “You know, you are just crazy. You are working for the top PC company in the world. How could you even think of doing this? You’ve lost your mind.” [^2] And yet that voice said, “Go west, young man. Go west.” And sometimes you just have to go for it. [^1]: Side Note: [Steve Jobs began each morning by asking himself, “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” He believed that “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”](death.md) [^2]: At that time, Apple held only as little as 4 percent of the computer market.