More and more, I see that people already know what to do. They just don’t know that they know. And even if they know, they don’t trust that they do.

Why?

Most of us in the corporate world have been taught, have been trained even, that decisions are made with data. That important things like strategy and innovation are best accomplished with analysis and spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks, often prepared by expensive management consultants.

But this is exactly backwards from what actually happens.

Scientists have concluded, over and over, that we make decisions first and then justify them with information and analysis.

In other words, we use the data to justify, to literally rationalize, what we already know but cannot explain.

We believe that it is the rational, the quantifiable, that is real. That our feelings can’t be trusted.

And yet everyone I talk to has had a “knowing” at some point that they can’t explain, and that they acted on anyway. Often in an important area of their lives. (For example, we don’t typically decide who to date based on a spreadsheet.)

My experience is that this knowing, when you recognize it and learn to trust it, is the most powerful decision making tool that we have.

It is a felt sense. It isn’t eager or anxious or impulsive. It doesn’t feel frantic.

It is deep. It is calm. It will quietly remind you and wait.

It’s not offended if you ignore it. But it can be persistent.

Do you know what I’m talking about? That job you knew you should take even though it paid less? That career shift that has been beckoning, but that you just can’t justify yet?

That idea for a new product or service that could change everything?

That’s your innate wisdom. And it can be cultivated.

Here’s an experiment for you–for the next week, make your decisions, at least the small ones, based on your sense of knowing. Your immediate response, yes or no, to what you should do.

This doesn’t have to be a big decision like where to work or whom to marry.

But it could be where to eat. It could be picking up the phone to call that person who just came to mind. Or taking an action based on a song lyric that comes to mind.

See what happens. See what surprises you.

Begin to see that this sense can be trusted.

And let me know what you learn along the way.

Not perfect as in, without flaws, but perfect as in, “exactly who you are supposed to be right now.”

Despite all the time we spend thinking that we could be different, that we could have done things differently, that anything could (or should) be different than the way things are, I see no evidence that this is true.

The only evidence that I see is that, no matter what we might think about the matter, things, and you, and I, are exactly the way they are because that is the only way they can be.

Otherwise they would be different. Right?

Does that mean we are done learning and growing? Does that mean that we should somehow stop trying to improve ourselves and the planet?

Of course not.

But think of the trillions of events that conspired to bring you right here, right now. From the conditions that had to be just right to create our universe to the conditions that had to be just right to create you.

You are almost infinitely improbable.

Exactly as you are.

Sounds pretty damn perfect to me.

A shout out to my teacher, the late Doug Silsbee, for inspiring this post.

I’ve been reading a great book, “Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers,” by Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD.

But it’s not just about kids, or parenting.

It’s about brains. Everyone’s brains.

According to experts, we have two kinds of attention—voluntary and involuntary.

Involuntary (or bottom up) attention is where we find ourselves a lot of the time. It’s the pull of social media (maybe even this post), the pull of video games or Netflix or any of the distractions that suddenly, seemingly without warning, grab us.

Voluntary (or top down) attention is the act of CHOOSING where to devote our attention. Voluntary attention is required for things like writing, or learning an instrument, or doing the actual work of our work (rather than distracting ourselves with YouTube videos to “learn” something).

Voluntary attention uses technology as a tool rather than as a toy.

There’s nothing wrong with getting lost in a video game or a new series. As long as we know we are doing it.

But it becomes a problem when it pulls us from what we really want to do. From the thing that might feel hard, but necessary.

And the more you are able to strengthen your voluntary attention, the more you can use it to create what you are called to create.

What practice are you using to increase your voluntary attention? One of my favorites is mindfulness. My son’s is martial arts.

What’s yours?

[After I wrote a draft of this, I wondered if, with everything going on in Ukraine, I could post it. Whether it seems naive in the context of so much personal upheaval to post something about happiness, especially something that says that happiness is often on the other side of taking personal risk.

Yet I believe that what I have written is just as true, maybe more so, in times of struggle. Even war.

See if you think so, too. And I welcome your comments.]

Safe looks comfortable, even happy. But is it?

Whether someone is thinking about the sale of their business or a change in career, I see, time and time again, the same fundamental misperceptions.

First someone thinks they can, and should, know exactly how things are going to work out. Before they start.

Second, they think there is a “right” path and a “wrong” one.

What I observe is that neither of these things is true. Instead, life presents doors, and we get to choose whether or not to walk through them.

Often, the desire for safety prevents someone from walking through a door. What might be on the other side? What if it doesn’t work out? And as we refuse to walk through these doors, over time, the structure that we call our life gets smaller and smaller. More and more, life feels small and restrictive rather than large and welcoming.

My experience is that people who say no, who refuse to walk through those doors, end up less happy than people who are willing to walk through one door without knowing what the next door will look like. Who are willing to start the book not knowing how it will end.

The people saying no, in my mind at least, are resisting the flow of life. And the flow of life is where the wonder, the awe, and yes, the happiness reside. Because we are made of the flow, when we feel the flow, the aliveness, we feel happy.

Each of us is that flow of life, the creative force of the universe, showing up in a unique way in a unique place at a unique moment in time. Over and over and over.

And the more we allow that flow, the more we allow ourselves to look in a direction and be amazed at what shows up, the more we get to be swept away in the flow of our own inherent happiness.

We can choose to be afraid. Most do.

But we can also make the other choice. Awe, grace, beauty, connection. Even in the midst of struggle or suffering, there is the more daring, the more expansive choice.

Open the door. Walk through it. And let me know what you see.