Trust Your Gut, It Knows Best

Posted on 16 November 2007

I’m an upbeat person, and if you read here regularly I think you’ll know that. I always trust people until they prove to me that maybe I shouldn’t and as a rule I see the good in others. I used to love my customers when I worked in sales and can’t remember a single client that I have worked with as a life coach that I have disliked, honestly, not one. In fact just the opposite, I have had the privilege of working with some fantastic people that I now consider friends.

Addendum: I just spoke to the lady in question and she wants to re-book. I thought about removing this post so as not to offend her if she reads it, but then I thought “No, this is how I felt when I typed it and I should be honest enough to leave it” It’s not an attack on her or anybody else, just an interpretation of what I was thinking at the time.

I have a relaxed intake policy, I don’t demand people send me cash up front or some form of guarantee signed in blood, I just presume that they’ll turn up when they make an appointment. If not, and it does happen from time to time that people can’t make it or have a change of mind and I appreciate that, then all I ask is an e-mail or a phone call letting me know. After all, this is the man that subscribed to Satanta TV just so he could watch his favorite soccer team storm back to the days of glory in the English Premiership. 2 months on and they are nailed to the bottom of the table and the nails have glue on them and there is a rather large elephant sat on top of the nails. So yeh, I know a bit about having a change of heart.

 

So when I get a situation like today when somebody doesn’t turn up and doesn’t even get back to me when I phone and e-mail to confirm it frustrates me, because momentarily it knocks my confidence in human nature and I don’t want it knocking, I like liking people.

 

I’m good at reading people both with voice inflexion and body language; I have to be with what I do. The worst thing about typing this now rather than talking to the lady that had booked out my time is that I never ever expected her to show! From the first conversation something was amiss and I buried it! This has happened to me 4 times in the 2 years I have been coaching in the US and on 3 of the times I was expecting it. Yet on each occasion I did what I am always telling my clients not to do, I disregarded my gut instinct and got burned.

 

How often is your gut feeling wrong? My guess is rarely but my guess is you still overrule it from time to time and regret it later. Am I right?

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