Your Gut Feeling Is Your Superpower | The Mindset Mentor Podcast

Today we're going to be talking about your gut feeling, your intuition and how it is your superpower and exactly how to use it. Now, we've all heard the phrase of make sure to trust your gut feeling, right? When you get a gut feeling about somebody, make sure you trust it. When you get a gut feeling about something, make sure to trust it. What the hell does that mean? Right. Most people that I meet are not really good with their intuition. And I've, I talked about it and I, I feel like it's a skill set that I have developed over time. But a lot of people are like, hey, I don't know when to find my gut feeling or how to find my gut feeling or how to use it. And it can seem like trusting your gut is this mystical woo, woo, even unscientific approach to making decisions in life. But today's episode, I'm actually gonna show you it is extremely scientific. It is rooted inside of the body. And they actually call your gut your second brain. And so when you look at it, and they say that, when I say they, I actually mean scientists, neurologists, psychologists, call your gut your second brain. Why is that? Well, that's what we're going to dive into today. And we're going to talk about your gut, we're going to talk about the science behind it, the psychology behind it, we're going to talk about the neurology behind it. And then we're also going to talk about how to actually get better at figuring out what your gut feeling is and using it. This isn't theory. What I'm going to be teaching you, I've done a lot of research on over the past couple days is actual fact. It actually comes down to your gut feeling. Your intuition is a powerful tool to making decisions. And it is something that you might not be good at now, but it can definitely be something that you become better at, especially when you're looking at other people or other situations as well. Because we're taught in our society to rely on our brain, to rely on our intellect, to rely on being very rational in making our decisions. As if using our instincts or using our emotions are unreliable, like feelings are unreliable. Feelings cannot be trusted. And so we like to work with just our intellect. And there's a saying that says the heart knows what the mind cannot understand. So the heart knows the gut. The heart and the gut. Usually people refer to those when they're in the body. It's more of when I say these things, it's kind of like the body is the central place we should be listening to. So the heart knows, the gut knows, what the mind cannot fully understand. Sometimes in the moment, we cannot fully comprehend how our body, how our gut is actual picking up signals from other people in certain situations. And so research shows that the gut feeling, your intuition, is actually rooted inside of your physical body. And so there's actually a part that's called the enteric nervous system. So ENS is actually what it is. So the enteric nervous system, it's a system of neurons that are located in the walls of your digestion tract. And neurologists refer to the ENS as your second brain, your gut as your second brain. And this was actually discovered back in 1990. There was a Dr. Michael Gershon, who is a professor of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia University, and he published a article, a finding inside of the American Scientist journal back in 1999. What he found is that your gut actually functions as a separate independent nervous system. So complete nervous, completely separate nervous system from your central nervous system. Holy right. It has over 500 million neurons. So your gut has over 500 million neurons. And it's a complex system that is capable of influencing both your physiological and your psychological process. And so the communication that goes on between your ens, your, your gut, the, the, you know, completely separate nervous system and your brain is bi directional. So your gut actually communicates to your brain and your brain communicates to your gut, which is why your gut can influence your brain and the brain can influence the gut. And this is often why when we think about something or we think about someone or we think about the future or we think about any of that type of stuff, what tends to happen is we can actually get butterflies in our stomach. It's a physical feeling inside of our gut. When we're nervous, when we're anxious, when we're excited, when we have something that's coming up in the future, like maybe a date and we're unsure, they call it butterflies. Why is that? It's because your gut is actually feeling something. So let's dive into it. Let's talk about this thing. Why the hell does nobody talk about this? Why doesn't we talk about how to actually make your intuition better and your gut feeling and how there actual is actually is science behind it. What's interesting about the gut is that the gut is also connected to your amygdala. And your amygdala is where fear comes from. It's the part of the brain that processes the fear. It's the part of the brain that processes emotions and plays a really key role in your fight or flight. And so there's been times in your life, I'm sure, where you had a gut feeling about something, a fearful feeling about something, and you listen to it. And I also bet there's been times in your life where you haven't listened to it. And it usually comes back to bite you in the ass, doesn't it? And so usually it'll pop up and we'll get unease or we'll get uncertainty, but what's actually happening is your gut is sending you information because your gut can't speak. Like when you think about your brain, you start thinking about the voice that's inside of your head, that's housed inside of your brain, right? But when you think about your gut, it's like, can your gut speak directly to you? Maybe not. So maybe what we should do is take a step back and I'll show you why this is important. Take a step back and actually think, how am I feeling physically in my body? Because it's an emotional, a physical response, excuse me, it's a physical response to a perceived threat. Sometimes it's a physical response to maybe an exciting opportunity. And so we can ask ourselves, what am I thinking about it? But a really important question is, besides just what am I thinking about? It is, how do I feel about it? Because we need to check in with both our brain, but also our gut and then make rational decisions from there. Because when we get a gut feeling about something or we get a gut feeling about someone, we should learn to pay attention to it. We should learn to use it as our actual decision making process. Because the gut feeling can be the body's way of saying, hey, this is a great opportunity, this is something that you should follow. This is what you're supposed to be doing. But it can also be a way of saying, hey, don't go this way, don't trust this person. There is potential threat, there is a potential danger, and it's your, it's, it's your gut picking up on it. Even when your conscious mind hasn't been able to register that potential threat or that person who you shouldn't trust. And so your gut can actually pick up on these things quicker than your brain can pick, can pick up on them. So studies have actually shown that people who trust their gut instincts are often better able to predict outcomes. These are actually from scientific, scientific journeys, scientific journey, scientific journals. So studies have actually shown that people who trust their gut instincts are often better able to predict Outcomes and make accurate judgments even when they don't have all of the information. Think about that for a second. Scientific journals have actually said that people who trust their gut instincts are often better able to predict outcomes. It's like they're seeing into the fricking future and make more accurate judgments even when they don't have all the information. So how in the hell can your gut predict the future? I like to get a little bit woo woo here. I think that the universe and God communicates through us in our feelings because they can't speak directly to us sometimes. That is my personal opinion. That's the way that I feel about it. And so when I get a gut feeling, and it's a strong gut feeling, you better believe that I trust it. Like for me, when I started this podcast seven and a half years ago, eight years ago, and I had the feeling that I needed to leave the company that I was at to do this podcasting thing when podcasting was not really a big deal back then, and go from making a quarter of a million dollars a year to making $0 a year. There was a strong internal feeling of trust. This dude, this is right. It didn't logically make any sense, rationally make any sense to leave and go from making quarter million dollars a year to making $0 a year. But it felt right and I trusted it. Now when you fast forward eight years later and you see, oh yeah, it ended up working out like this. This was like my gut knew my brain was very fearful and wanted to hold me back. Now, it's not to say that we should just blindly trust our gut feeling all of the time, but how can you use your gut feeling and your rational brain to actually make better decisions? Like, we can use our gut feeling and say, how do I feel about this situation? How do I feel about this person? How do I feel about this opportunity? And. And what do I think about this person? What do I think about this opportunity? What do I think about this situation? And use both of them to become better decision makers. And so this is something that we can train ourselves to be better at, because we're all like, head, head, head, head, head. We're thinking, thinking, thinking. And the problem with your brain, even though it's this incredible machine, it's the most incredible thing on the entire planet, probably in the entire universe, is your brain. And it's amazing. But usually what happens, I don't know if you're like me probably are, because we all tend to be very similar in this, is that our brain Is usually not in the present moment. Our brain is usually in the future, Thinking about what we could do, what's next, all of that stuff. Or it's in the past. It's thinking about all of the things that have happened to our past. And so our brain is in the future, or it's in the past, but it is very rarely in the present. The beautiful thing about your physical body Is that your physical body is always in the present. And so when we notice that we're too far in the future, Too far in the past, we're spending too much time not here. We can check in with our physical body and say, hey, body, gut feeling. How do we feel right now? And that's a beautiful thing about it. So it's something that we can train ourselves to get better at, and we can train ourselves to pay more attention to how our body feels, how our gut feeling feels. Using our second brain to see and check in. Hey, how does our body respond to certain situations? How does our body respond to certain people? And we can learn to recognize patterns. Man, when I'm around this person, I feel amazing. I don't get around them enough. Maybe I should spend some more time with them. Or, hey, when I'm around this person, it's like my body sending me signals of, like, this doesn't feel right. There's something about this person that's just not clicking. It feels like it's wrong. Like there's no rational reason why. But there's something in my body that tells me I shouldn't trust this person. Right? And so if you, you know, if there's an example of if you feel uneasy about a person, Even if you can't logically pinpoint why, take a step back and say, how do I feel when I'm around this person? And then see if you can use your brain and your body, your brain and your gut to actually make a better decision. And, you know, don't dismiss it as, oh, yeah, this is irrational. This is unscientific. This is just, this is my brain, and my brain says I should do this. My gut's trying to hold me back Instead. Or instead, just use it as a. As a valuable piece of information to actually help you make better decisions. Remember, it's not just some random emotion that's just coming up. It's a physical response to a deeply rooted part of your body, inside of your body that is just picking up on something that your brain might not be. You know, when you're around somebody's. Some other person's nervous system, your nervous system, your body, your, you know, your central nervous system and your enteric nervous system are picking up on that other person's nervous system as well. There's many scientific studies around this, is that your brain is thinking things and you're around somebody and your nervous system is picking up on their nervous system as well. And so you have to use your brain and your gut to make better decisions in your business, in your personal life and your finances and everything. And so what I want you to think about is this. Like, I want you to really think about this for a second. Can you remember a time when your gut was kind of giving you a feeling, but you didn't listen to it and it ended up backfiring? Like, think about that for a second. Can you remember a time, think about a time where you decided not to listen to your gut and it backfired? We all have those moments, oh, don't trust that person. It doesn't feel like I should trust them, but, you know, there's no real reason why I shouldn't. And then something ended up backfiring, oh, two years down the road. That's why I shouldn't have trusted that person. That's why I shouldn't have made them. My business part, whatever it is, because it's your gut. Actually, somehow I don't understand how picking up another person's body and looking into the future and saying, yep, this is a possible threat, go another direction. But can you also think of another time when you did something you trusted a feeling, you trust your intuition, you trusted your gut, and it might not have logically made sense, but years down the road, it's like, oh, now it makes complete sense. Like the podcast I gave you, the example that makes didn't make sense in the moment, but now, years, eight years down the road, 1400, 1500 podcast episodes later, oh, damn. Yeah, that did make sense. To follow this logically, it made no sense. Gut feeling, it made a whole lot of sense. Can you think of a time when you had that where you followed your gut feeling, where you followed the feeling in your body, even though it might not have logically made sense, but it makes sense now shows you you should trust it. So what I want you to do is to use this, knowing that your intuition, your gut is not just some random woo woo thing. This is scientific proof that there's over 500 million neurons inside of your gut trying to talk to you all, all of the time. What we should do to become better decision makers is not just use our brain, but use both of them together. So instead of having just one, one guy on your side, you got two guys on your side. You got your brain to one side, to your right side, you got your gut to your left side. And when you're going to make a decision, an important life decision about somebody else or about business or about feelings or about if you should do something or not do something, take a step back and check in with your brain and check in with your body and take a journal out and write down, how do I think about this situation? What are my thoughts about this situation? Okay, we've got all of those. How do I feel about this? If I take a step back and take six deep breaths and just kind of center myself, how do I feel? Okay. And use those two things to make better decisions. Your gut and your intuition is not some weird woo woo thing that doesn't exist. There have been scientific studies since 1999 showing that it's got over 500 million neurons. That is a completely different nervous system that is separate but also attached to your central nervous system, and that is constantly sending you signals. What you need to do is just become better at listening to those signals. And like I said, it's a skill set. You might not be amazing at it now, but you'll get better at it the more you do it over and over and over again. It's a skill set. It could be learned, it could be developed, it could be strengthened. That's what your goal should be to do. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode and you learned a lot and you think, hey, maybe the world could learn from this as well. Hey, do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at robdial Junior. R O B D I A L J R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it with other people who are out there. And so I would love for you to be able to do so. Go ahead and share it and I'm gonna leave you the same way leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing.