Trust Your Instincts
A friend of mine – who prefers to remain anonymous but has given me permission to tell his story – told me about an event in his life from several years ago: He was working at a small retail store and had just come on-shift. He was alone in the store. He looked up and saw someone standing on the outside of the store, leaning against the wall and casually looking around. There was nothing unusual about this particular occurrence, since it was a common place for people to wait for rides from a nearby dental clinic. But something wasn’t right. My friend still doesn’t know what felt "wrong" about the situation but he locked the door that led from the front of the store into the back… something he only ever did that ONE TIME in the two and a half years he worked at the store.
Moments later, the individual who was outside of the store walked in, pointed a gun at my friend and demanded the money in the cash register. Not interested in letting things get worse, he handed the money over and the thief ran away.
He says: "I can’t tell you what was wrong in the situation but I knew something was wrong. It was my instincts telling me from clues that were not visible. I trusted my instincts to a point and locked the staff entrance, and I often wonder what more I could have done to follow my instincts further. Obviously, locking the front door or calling the police was out of the question because there was no evidence to suggest that I was in danger. And yet, my instincts knew it."
Fast forward nearly two decades later: He is a business coach who helps small businesses and start-ups. And this time, he has learned a lesson from his instincts.
He says: "I follow my instincts all the time. If something’s not right, I know it and I obey what my gut tells me".
He goes on to tell other (thankfully less dramatic) stories in which he trusted his instincts: "I have plenty of colleagues who give me advice about how to run my business. While I appreciate that they care, and I do sometimes take their advice, I always run it through the filter of my instincts and ask myself, ‘does this feel right?’. One colleague keeps recommending that I offer a newsletter. It might be good for business, and it might even be good for my business, but my instincts are telling me that I’m not ready to do it yet. I have it on a backburner and I’m thinking about it, but it’s not the right time."
And, you may recall that we recently wrote about firing customers and strongly recommended that you follow your instincts about which customers to keep and which ones to let go.
But this has an impact for your clients, too. If you’re a coach and you’re working a client who seems strongly compelled to do something or not to do something, explore why they feel that way and ask yourself: Are they following habits or trends or pressure that are prompting them (in which case, you might have to work with them to resolve the situation) or are they following their instincts (in which case, you might have to work with them to obey their gut).
Unfortunately, clearly identifying the difference is NOT easy. In fact, one of the only ways that you’ll be able to draw out from your clients whether or not it’s their instincts that they are hearing is to be like eccentric doctor in the TV show House (except maybe less cantankerous). Each episode, Dr. House is given a challenging medical dilemma and he spends the entire episode eliminating the possibilities until he is left with the one and only problem that it could be.
In a similar way, you’ll want to talk to your clients and try to narrow down if they are listening to outside peer pressure or following old habits or responding to market trends… or, if they are in fact following their instincts.
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