Follow the wisdom that's inside, because you know as much about truth as any other human being.

Sydney Banks
Author, philosopher, welder

‘I don't know…’

My client had come to me because he was stuck, and didn't know how to move forward with his life. He'd been trying to make an important decision for many months, but the more he'd thought about it, the more entrenched he'd become. But now that same sense of stuck-ness had permeated our coaching session. My questions were easy, but my client's answers kept coming back the same way. ‘I don't know’. One of the keys to having a transformational impact with an individual or a group of people is getting into a feeling of connection with them. When you've got a clear head and a good feeling, you can allow that connection to emerge by following your curiosity and asking the questions that occur to you. This way of ‘tuning in’ to how someone sees the world was so normal to me that I was flummoxed. It wasn't working! My clear head and good feeling were rapidly being replaced with stress and irritation. Why couldn't he just have a guess? He was a bright guy; why was he being so difficult? I was totally committed to helping this person, but couldn't he at least meet me halfway? Why wouldn't he just answer my questions? We were stuck. He didn't know what to answer, and I didn't know how else to engage him. As my frustration grew, a new thought popped into my mind…

Where do you believe your experience is coming from?

In a flash, I fell out of the La-la Land of my judgmental, contaminated thinking and landed back in reality. ‘Your feelings aren't letting you know about a difficult client’, I realized. ‘They’re letting you know about difficult thinking; the principle of THOUGHT taking a “frustrated” form in the moment'. Feelings of humility and compassion washed over me as my client transformed before my eyes from ‘difficult and uncooperative’ to ‘feeling insecure and doing the best he can’. It was suddenly plain to see that he felt worried and anxious. Why hadn't I been able to see that just a few moments earlier?

When you fall out of the illusory non-reality of contaminated thinking…
Where you come to rest is the present moment; the reality you're built for…
A domain rich with wisdom, intuition and common sense.

When it comes to deciding what's right for you and your life, nobody has more access to wisdom than you. Not your parents, not your friends, not your priest, not your partner. Not your government, not your boss, not your teachers, and not me. From Napoleon to Nelson Mandela… from Oprah to Elon Musk… the world's greatest result-creators are guided by wisdom, intuition and gut-feel. As you start tuning in to this ‘common sense’, you'll realize just how ever present and available it is when you're free from mental clutter. Wisdom also turns out to be one of your most reliable ‘advisors’ when it comes to having an impact with other people.

When you get out of your own way, the next step is obvious

The moment I woke up to reality, I knew what to do. I explained that there's a flavour of ‘I don't know’ that's rich and juicy, with a sense of wonder and curiosity. At the other end of the spectrum is a flavour that comes with stress and pressure; like when a teacher asks you a question in front of the class that you're supposed to know the answer to, but don't. He nodded and said his were more like the second kind. I said, ‘I’m sorry, I should have explained. Asking questions is just my way to get a better sense of how you see life. I want to get on the same page with you, and for us to find a relaxed feeling of connection with each other. There are no right or wrong answers'. He visibly relaxed, and we started chatting. The sense of connection emerged and we started making progress. As each of us fell out of our contaminated thinking, we relaxed into wisdom. I was guided in how to work with my client, and as he fell out of contaminated thinking, he suddenly got clarity on the way forward for him.

How to make good decisions

As the world becomes more complex, volatile and uncertain, the consequences of our decisions become increasingly ambiguous, and we all have times when we find them challenging to make. Some decisions seems trivial (e.g. choosing your breakfast, a pair of socks or what movie to watch). Some seem more significant (e.g. selecting a holiday, buying a car or accepting a promotion). Some can seem enormous (e.g. moving in together, changing careers or starting a new venture) and some have consequences that are truly vast (e.g. cutting jobs, exiting the European Union or going to war). But here's the thing: while different decisions bring different consequences and levels of complexity, there's nothing in reality that makes one decision more difficult than another…

The outside-in misunderstanding is the main source of difficulty in decision-making…
But as you fall out of the complexity of contaminated thinking…
You fall into the simplicity of wisdom and common sense.

People aren't good at predicting emotional responses

Research reveals that people do poorly when it comes to predicting their emotional states in future scenarios. We fall prey to a variety of cognitive biases, amplifying our expected emotional response to certain things while underplaying or even ignoring others. While we can passionately believe that we would feel terrible if X happened or wonderful if Y happened, the truth is more fundamental: remember, you can't be a victim of circumstance, and neither can anyone else. We're always going to be living in the experience of THOUGHT in the moment, no matter what.

While 100% of your feelings are generated from within, the optical illusion of the mind can make it seem like they come from the outside; from somewhere other than THOUGHT in the moment. While the neighbours perceived the farmer's life as a wild pendulum of good fortune and bad, the farmer remained composed and philosophical. It can absolutely seem like your security and wellbeing is coming from circumstances (e.g. money, jobs, romantic partners), the future (e.g. hopes, fears, uncertainties), the past (e.g. victories, defeats, indiscretions) and even yourself (e.g. physique, health, personality). But all of those factors are neutral. 100% of your feelings are generated from within; you're living in the experience of the principle of THOUGHT taking form in the moment.

Freedom from fear of public speaking

I was working with a client who was scheduled to give a talk to a large audience, and was suffering with anticipatory anxiety. The person genuinely believed their feelings were giving them feedback about the future event. This, despite the fact that the future event didn't exist in reality; it only existed as a plan in the present. While there was certainly a high degree of probability that the event would happen, the talk would not exist in any real or factual way until several weeks later, when the client walked onto the stage. There was no place in the client's present reality where the talk existed; it only existed as an idea. While they could certainly believe they were feeling the future event, they were actually feeling THOUGHT in the moment.

The issue isn't that we sometimes have uncomfortable feelings arising from THOUGHT in the moment…
The issue is that we sometimes believe there's more to it than that…
That our feelings are arising from something other than THOUGHT in the moment.

Think about it: if you tell someone you're in a particular state of mind (e.g. happy, sad, excited, angry, grateful, stressed, love), they typically ask a variant of ‘Why?’ or ‘What about?’. We've been innocently conditioned to look to the outside for a reason. Whether the ‘outside’ we point to is our circumstances, the past or the future. Whether it's our physical body, our personality or our habits. We've been trained to look away from the true source of power that's creating our experience, and assign the cause somewhere else. We feel a feeling and assume, ‘There's no smoke without fire; there must be something out there that's causing this’. But the world of form is neutral; it's totally incapable of creating a feeling. Your experience is the creation of THOUGHT in the moment, brought to life by CONSCIOUSNESS. When it comes to our feelings, there is smoke without fire. The smoke of our feelings is giving us moment-to-moment feedback about the ebb and flow of THOUGHT, not about the ‘fire’ of circumstances, past, present or future. And it raises an important question…

What quality of decision making can you expect when a person is basing their decisions on misinformation?

When people mistakenly believe in a La-La Land, many of their predictions and decisions are fundamentally flawed, contaminated by misinformation. For example…

• When people mistakenly believed in a flat earth (La-la Land)…
• When astronomers mistakenly believed in a geocentric universe (La-la Land)…
• When chemists mistakenly believed combustion was caused by phlogiston (La-la Land)…
• When doctors mistakenly believed infection was caused by miasmas (La-la Land), with disastrous consequences for their patients' physical health…

Similarly, when you and I mistakenly believe in an outside-in world (La-la Land), many of our predictions and decisions are fundamentally flawed, contaminated by misinformation.

Back to reality

But here's the thing: the moment we fall out of contaminated thinking and back into the present, the quality of the information we're basing our decisions on increases exponentially. How often have you…

• Been unable to remember someone's name, no matter how hard you try, then suddenly recall it after you stop thinking about it?
• Been struggling with a problem and finally given up on it, only to realize what the solution is a short time later?
• Grappled with a decision that went around and around in your head, then had an insight about the way forward while you were doing something else entirely?

Should I really just follow my wisdom?

Sometimes I meet people who have asked someone for advice and been told ‘just follow your wisdom’. But what if it was wisdom that had them ask for advice in the first place? There are many domains in life that require specialist training, technical information and know-how. Just as you wouldn't want an untrained doctor to perform brain surgery on you by ‘following their wisdom’, there are many areas where we can benefit from other people's knowledge and expertise. Wisdom doesn't eliminate the need for knowledge or expertise, but it can be an excellent guide in selecting how and when to acquire that knowledge and expertise. Wisdom and common sense are a phenomenal guide when used by someone who has also developed a high level of skill. Here's an example: a while back, I decided I wanted to develop more muscular strength. I'd done some weight-training over the years, but usually ended up injuring myself after a short period of time. I didn't want to repeat that pattern, and I had a realization. ‘You haven't established sustainable habits because you didn't have an embodied understanding until now. Once you develop an embodied understanding, it will sustain and support you for the rest of your life’. As I saw the truth of this, I knew exactly what to do. ‘Hire a great trainer!’ I found someone highly skilled who could teach me exactly what I needed to know and help me get the embodied understanding I needed to develop in a sustainably healthy way.

So now that you're navigating by wisdom, you're all set to take your results to a whole new level.