“It doesn’t take smarts to notice a gut feeling.” So said The Grasshopper last night.

Even the stupidest among us make brilliant decisions when we pay attention to the sensations our body is sending us.

There is science behind a gut feeling. Your brain doesn’t get the signal first; your body does. Your brain then puts words to the the sensation. It may offer something like, “This doesn’t feel right.”

Long discussions about what the sensation means are unnecessary and most often counterproductive. You can boil down a sensation to two labels: “OK” and “Not OK.”

Learn to calibrate your body’s signals. Learn what Not OK feels like in your body. Do the same calibration for OK. You may get a knot in your stomach, or a lump in your throat, or a flushness on your face, or a gurgling of the bowels. Your signals will be unique to you, so find out where they register in your body and pay more attention to them when they arrive.

Your body has intelligence separate and apart from your intellect. Your body is a sensor; your intellect is a labeler. The only labels you need are OK and Not OK. They will pay dividends when heeded. You, too often, will pay the price when they go unnoticed or are ignored.

This is a “gut check” for all of us. Start noticing OK and Not OK. It’s the smart thing to do.

All the best,

John