Every year at Thanksgiving in Filley Nebraska where Laura’s parents live, my mind often goes back to a rather uncomfortable conversation nine years ago I had riding in a car with Brett. Brett is my brother-in-law, considerably older than me, a fine man who puts in a hard days’ work on the railroad. And at this particular time his son Marshall is following in my footsteps. I’ve gotten an engineering degree at the U. of Nebraska, Marshall is doing the same, he’s going to be graduating in a year or so, and Brett wants to know something.
“Perry, I know you and Laura have been struggling lately” [uh, let’s see… getting Laura’s parents to co-sign a loan for us, refinancing our house to restructure a mountain of debt, cash-without all the time, yeah, ‘struggling lately’ would be an understatement] “and Marshall is finishing his engineering degree, and…
“Perry, I guess I just want to make sure it’s going to ‘be there for him’ when he graduates.” Slight insult to my ego there, Brett, thank you very much. I have taken a rather unusual path for an engineer, haven’t I… I need to reassure Brett that my nephew Marshall isn’t going to grow up and be a washout like me.
“Well Brett, a couple years ago I took a big risk and went into sales. This last little while has been a little rough. I think as long as Marshall doesn’t go into sales, it’ll definitely ‘be there for him’.”
The other day I was relating this story to Garrett, a young guy who’s in the exact same spot I was ten years ago, because his situation reminded me a lot of mine. High energy, determined, capable of at least 1500 Cold Cranking Amps on any given snowy morning, but the guy couldn’t seem to find his groove. His career is a series of mismatched jobs, I know he’s an entrepreneur ‘cuz he’s a square peg just like the rest of us. He doesn’t fit the corporate mold, and…
…and he’s just about to launch out on his own, to become a broker for a company he’d already been selling successful selling for as an employee, he’s about ready to pull the trigger and go independent, and suddenly…
Along comes a job offer. Takes it ‘cuz the money’s good. Two months have now gone by and he’s miserable, trying to manage advice from the father-in-law who is, I don’t recall, maybe a public school administrator in the same place for the last 30 years or something, providing all kinds of well-intentioned advice that applies only to ladder-climbers.
Garrett looks foolish in front of family and friends because he won’t take their advice, won’t just be happy with an engineering degree or whatever, and seems to be crawling around in a marsh somewhere.
So anyway, he was just about to do his own thing, took the job offer instead, now he’s in pain, and he’s trying to figure out what just went wrong.
I tell him: “This comes down to two things: (1) listening to your gut, and (2) trusting your gut.”
“They don’t call this ‘gut’ by accident. I don’t know the chemistry or biology, but I know for me it’s right in the middle of my chest, things feel right or feel wrong and they sometimes they argue with your head.
My hunch is: Your gut said OK, let’s go into this new venture.
Your head argued with you, and won.
Your head said, no, the money’s good, take this job.” Your gut said, but this doesn’t
feel right.
Your head said, yeah, but the money’s good and we’re going to do this.”
I continued. “If you roll the tape back, and go with your gut, your head says I don’t know about this and your gut says I know about this, this is good. Then your head says but we don’t know what to do. Your gut says when we get into the situation and we don’t know what to do, I’m going to feel where to go, I’m going to feel what to do, and you need to trust me.”
Now… when you’re about to go into a bad situation, your gut feels agitated and fearful, even if your head tells you it’s OK. When you’re about to go into a good situation, your gut feels peaceful, even though your head sees all these problems. Your gut is the one that’s right.
This is stuff that you can’t explain to your corporate family members, because they only get to communicate with your head. That’s the only part they get access to.”
When I look back at my decision to leave Synergetic and a whole bunch of other things, I had to listen to people who were similar minded to me. I had family-corporate job friends and I also had entrepreneur friends, two totally different kinds of people.
The corporate friends thought I was nuts to leave a job a month after 9/11. My entrepreneur friends said Take the money and run, run, run. The company you thought you worked for is gone. Doesn’t exist anymore. The minute it got sold, the old company is gone whether you like it or not. Get out and go.
There were things I just felt I should do, and I would do them just because I felt I should do them. I felt like I should write Dan Kennedy a thank-you letter to tell him about escaping from the Dilbert Cube. I did that mostly just because I felt it was the right thing to do.
But I did write that letter in such a way that if he published it in his newsletter, some people would come to my website. He did put it in his newsletter and Ken McCarthy read it and loved it. Ken then put my letter in his email newsletter with my website and one day 200 people showed up and opted into my email list.
That became my first supply of information customers, which was a separate business from consulting clients. A year later, Ken says “Hey, I need someone to speak at my seminar on Google AdWords.”
My head argued with that too, because I wasn’t sure there was room for me in that business. But I followed my heart, my gut. Walked through the door that Ken opened for me.
Then ran as fast as I could.
None of this is to say that your head is unimportant. You should have things in place that calm down your head too. What I mean by that is, you need to have written down on a piece of paper: Backup plan #1, backup plan #2, #3… if this doesn’t work, I’ve got this other plan. If that doesn’t work, we’ve got yet another thing.
You reason things out until your head and your heart reach an agreement. The heart says, OK head, are you convinced? Do you have a plan? Are we reasonably sure we’re not going to end up with our butt in a sling?
The head says, Yeah. OK. Let’s go.
I think the hardest thing for some people to grasp is: Business success is not a mere formula. There is always an aspect of your path that you must feel your way through. It’s not written in a book or an e-book or seminar, or available in exchange for a franchise agreement… it’s not a formula, it’s you following that instinct and just getting better and better at listening to it.
Most of us don’t even know how to listen to it at first, but one of the best things you can cultivate is your own internal sense of direction, balance, orientation. Feeling all your feelings, sensing all those sensations, listening to your intuition.
