Trust Your Gut

How do you make decisions? I bet you don’t trust your gut.

As highly educated homo sapiens, we are taught to analyze every detail that comes our way. Evolution taught us to overthink relationships, decisions, and ideas as much as the next over-educated person. Do you know what an MBA, CFA, and economics degree taught me?

It taught me how to make decision trees then evaluate upside and downside; sum it all together to =  analysis paralysis. In the end, I often went against my own well-being; more times than not I wasn’t happier.

Do you know what that schooling didn’t teach me? To trust your gut. That’s right. The cavemen didn’t. They trusted their gut — maybe they were just hungry — and so should you.

I left the best job I ever had and it gave me a stomach ache. But I did it because I wanted something more. I worked with people who didn’t hold the same values I did and my gut churned. In the end, it didn’t work out.  I know when I make other people’s guts roil; they walk away, even on a first date. Respect, I give to that.

Today, I listen to my gut and my body in decision making. Ryan Paugh talks about the wisdom of the body. How does it react to people, places, and potential opportunities? Not just how the body feels but precisely, how my stomach feels.  Johns Hopkins research shows an inextricable link.

Scientific America shows new research about how the gut has enough neurons to act independently of the central nervous system. Kind of fascinating, isn’t it?

Even with all the parasites, I’ve had, my gut still works — most of the time. I listen to it more closely than ever. Mark Twain once said, “I never let schooling interfere with my education.” You shouldn’t either; that schooling is your gut.

Trust your gut and see what happens.