Sometimes this means I spend more time in the kitchen than I should tracking down yummy snacks….oh wait that’s a different kind of following your gut. What I’m actually talking about is making a decision to do or not do something because it just feels like you should or should not. The polar opposite of following you gut would be making a decision by writing down a list of all the positives and negatives related to a course of action and then deciding what to do based upon which side of the T-accounts looks better. In fact, if you follow your gut you would often take the opposite course of action and over time find it was the correct decision.
Last July in my Regaining Trust post I explained how I jumped on a plane and went to visit a customer because it just felt like the right thing to do. Financially (at the time) – bad choice. Time management wise – bad choice. End result – thousands of dollars in revenue from this customer over the past six months and the opportunity to present a mid-five figure proposal to them next week. I’d say my gut got it right. Even though I had not yet given it a name I was already living a real authentic and sustainable life. Let me explain:
Real: I offered to visit the client because I had let him down. He needed my help to fully utilize our products and services.
Authentic: My offer to come was sincere (I had the flights picked out and clicked purchase while still on the phone with him).
Sustainable: While on-site with the client I made commitments. Together with my amazing ColorMetrix team I made sure we kept those commitments. Once again, he is my customer to lose.
A recent example – I converted JimRaffel.com from a blog about everything to a blog about the real, authentic and sustainable life. I completed the conversion within hours of the uh-huh moment that convinced me I need to blog solely about my passion on this site. Now, following your gut does not mean being crazy. You will still find more than 100 posts here about color and the printing industry. People still read those posts (in some cases LOTS of people) and that means they drive traffic here. Over time I will flip those posts over the the ColorMetrix blog and keep the message here on point, but Rome was not built in a day.
In yet another example, this morning without giving it much thought, I pulled the trigger on in-flight wi-fi service. So, now I have written and posted my first entry from 30,000 feet! Also, I would not have been able to read until later the several amazing and inspiring emails encouraging me that I am going the correct direction with JimRaffel.com.