Influence and Intuition
It’s ok to listen to experts and influencers, journalists and news anchors, politicians and CEOs, as long as you understand that what they’re saying is just a suggestion. It doesn’t matter how they say it, and who it is that says it. It is only a suggestion, an opinion, one perspective, and you need to digest it, then decide how you feel about it.
If the experts say the key to longevity is intermittent fasting, which requires skipping breakfast, but breakfast if your favorite meal of the day, and fasting until lunch feels like torture, then eat breakfast. Intermittent fasting is not for you. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. It doesn’t work for you. Breakfast does.
If the president says that we must support war against terrorists, and the media says it is a necessary war, but the war is actually the murdering, starving, and maiming of innocent men, women, and children, and you think murdering, starving, and maiming innocent men, women, and children is not ok, then it doesn’t matter what the news or president tells you. It’s bad, you know it. You don’t need anyone to tell you that you should oppose it.
We’re so weird in our proclivity as humans to constantly defer to appointed experts, politicians, and anyone on TV, and dismiss what we think. We hold these people in such high regard, as if they have access to information and knowledge that would make skipping breakfast feel ok, or supporting unjust war acceptable. But we know just as much as anyone, and nothing can make that uneasy feeling go away.
When UnitedHealth Group (UHG) took over the company I was working for, many of my colleagues at the executive level expected UHG to have a team of geniuses who would swoop in and fix all of our problems. They spoke about it openly. And when that didn’t happen, and we learned that the people who worked there were no smarter than any of us, and that they didn’t have any magical solutions, my colleagues were genuinely surprised and disappointed. But I was not. I never understood why or how working for a larger company would make them more intelligent and capable. Turns out, they weren’t.
With very few exceptions in this world (yes, there are real geniuses), we are all born of the fairly same level of intelligence. And it is only experience and the environment we grow up in that begins to separate us. But our intuition, that feeling we get that says “something ain’t right,” or “I really want to do that,” is something we are all born with, and never goes away. So when you hear something that doesn’t make sense, or you try something you saw on TV or heard on a podcast, and it doesn’t feel right, go with that feeling. You are not wrong. Do not doubt yourself. You know more than you think, and a lot more than they want you believe. Have trust in yourself.
That goes for me and this site as well. This website is just a collection of beliefs, perspectives, routines, and resources that work for me. But I encourage you to do what you want. If something I say resonates, great, go with it. If you try something I suggest and it doesn’t work, stop doing it. Everyone is unique. Everyone knows what works for them and what doesn’t. What they feel deep in their bones. The secret to success and happiness is finding what works for you, and the best way to find out is by listening to yourself, and taking what other say with a grain of salt.