The Power of Trusting Your Gut

I just had a note sent to me by a fellow entrepreneur of a woman-owned business that read: "Thank you Quenita.  Your gut was correct."

Why the message?  Let me explain...

A few months ago a fellow business owner in a group we all belong to reached out to gain new clients. This business owner ran a PR firm.  I sent a note to the owner inquiring about services.  To make a long story short, through our email exchange, something didn't sit right with me...my gut was giving me warning signals.

It was so odd to me, since I didn't personally know this PR firm owner, that I talked about it with one of my male best friends because I thought I was being too much of a "woman" about it.  My best friend encouraged me to just roll with what my gut was telling me and don't over-think it.

So guess what I did?  I spent the next few days doing exactly that: over-think.  I was trying to make my head and reason understand and justify what my gut was telling me.

The Over-Think:  I kept telling myself that I'd be helping a fellow woman-owned business, I'd be missing out on perhaps some affordable rates by not securing the firm, I'd never get my blog or business to grow without PR help, etc, etc, etc.

After a few days, I made myself move on and deleted all the email correspondence so that I wouldn't be tempted to go back to it.  I made a decision that good, bad or indifferent, I was going to trust my gut and move on with no regrets.

What I have observed over the past few months has been awkwardly confirming:
I have seen this PR firm owner bash and talk badly about clients on Facebook.  And when you work with one-on-one clients, no matter the profession, what you work on with them can be considered confidential.  I believe it is extremely un-professional to speak bad about clients over social media!  So imagine my shock at seeing post after post from the PR firm owner about clients!

And this bring me to the message I received "Thank you Quenita.  Your gut was right."

This message came from another woman-business owner who is apart of our group who made a post seeking out help from fellow members about not hearing from the PR firm owner after securing her services and pre-paying.  When I read the post, my heart went out to the other business owner.

The business owner made the post seeking out information on whether anyone knew the PR firm owner, contact information and personal experiences.  That's when I private messaged her to share my thought about how my gut sense made me make a decision to not hire the PR firm owner, etc.

Trusting your gut is something that can take a lifetime to develop and learn how to trust it and use it.  I  know that there were times when I either didn't listen to my gut or made a wrong call thinking it was my gut telling me to do something.  I don't know if there is one right or wrong way, all I know for sure is that your gut is a muscle that is meant to be used and it can only get stronger through use.

My best advice: use your gut and learn to trust it as a way to protect yourself!  That's what it's there for!  I can't explain it further, I don't know what the scientific explanation of it means and I certainly can't explain the spiritual detail of it's purpose other than to tell you to use it!  Don't question it, don't look back.  Use it and be okay even if you never receive confirmation that it was or was not accurate (like I did in the above example).  Just use it!

Have you had a positive or negative experience where you relied on your gut?  I'd love to hear about it...