Episode 4 – Follow Your Intuition as an HSP

Clare Kumar: You're listening to episode four of the Happy Space Podcast. Today, we're going to explore why it's so important for highly sensitive people to follow their intuition with intuition expert, Sunil Godse.

Welcome to the Happy Space Podcast, a place where highly sensitive people thrive. Not only will we learn how to better navigate life with our superpowers. We'll find ways to better manage the challenges too. We'll hear from product and service innovators, space designers and leaders who believe in creating an inclusive neurologically, safe world. If you are highly sensitive or want to better understand and support someone who is then you are in the right place. I'm your host, Clare Kumar and I'm so very happy you are here.

So it's a great pleasure of mine to really highlight HSPs in the world who have figured out ways to be successful, integrating their trait into their lives. And I'm really thrilled today to be diving into a topic which I think is very important for HSPs. It's the topic of intuition and I'm speaking to Sunil Godse, who's an intuition expert. He's written a book called Gut, titled What is it, How to Trust it and How to Use it. And, Sunil works now as an intuitive branding expert. He has significant experience in business, growing multimillion dollar businesses cumulatively over several years and now helps other entrepreneurs and business owners leverage their intuition. And I thought, you know, as an HSP we have incredible powers of noticing, but sometimes in an effort to fit in and belong we suppress some of these superpowers or even ignore them. I know for years, I really did not pay attention to some of the signals that were coming to me to give me a feeling, an inkling that something was off.

I just let my head overtake my heart and my gut, the whole body. My spirit was not aligned with some of the decisions that I made, so I thought, “Boy, it would be great to learn from Sunil about what he's learned through studying intuition.” And that's the conversation I’m inviting you to join in today. 

Today's episode of the Happy Space Podcast is sponsored by ClareKumar.com. Not only am I excited to spearhead the Happy Space movement. I love coaching busy professionals to achieve greater productivity and wellbeing. The two go hand in hand. I also adore taking the stage. If you are looking for an interactive engaging event to inspire and invite action, whether it be on successful work-life integration, sustainable performance, organization and productivity or expanding inclusivity, please visit ClareKumar.com and find out more.

So Sunil I'm so thrilled that you're joining me. I know you recently discovered that you are a highly sensitive person, and I wonder that upon reflecting and learning about the trait, if you can share a little bit about what it means to you and how you think it’s affected your life?

Sunil Godse: Yeah. You know, it's really interesting having that conversation with you about  HSP and you know, reflecting back on it, obviously there's some pattern matching that I like to do in the past. And so I used to always wonder when I used to get into situations, even when I was younger, I used to really soak in a scene. And it was really something that I– sometimes I would catch myself staring at someone or the background, or why is someone acting like that? Or even in movies, when I watch movies, you know, people would be looking at the main character, but I'll find myself looking at the others in the scene. And now that we almost have a bit of a label on it, which is really sensitive, it was really important for me to soak in everything in that scene And, you know, it was really important to watch how people reacted when I said something or when something was said to them, and I found it really fascinating in a very quiet way, because it's something that I really don't share with a lot of people. And this is probably the first– I think it is the first time that I'm actually being vocal about it, because nobody's really– it's not normal conversation that you generally have with people. And in some cases I used to think, “Am I weird?” I would think that maybe people that are high in HSP maybe asked that same question, like, “Why do I seem to focus like that and others don't? if we're looking to compare.

Clare Kumar: Well, you know, you remind me of Brené Brown. Recently, I listened to a podcast where she's talking to her sisters about her latest book, Atlas of the Heart, and she reports being, as a child, highly vigilant. Now I think that she grew up in a house where they didn't feel particularly comfortable all the time and so she was noticing, and she was paying particular attention to people's emotions and it sounds like there is a parallel noticing. And, so I suspect she's a highly sensitive person too. I'm playing “Spot the HSP” all the time now. Right? And so, yeah, when we spoke I thought I bet, I wonder. And so we explored it and it turns out you are. And so, yeah, you noticed as a child, and this is interesting because Dr. Aaron and her in her assessment, and I think other assessments I've seen about the traits, say, “Answer this as if you were a child”, because we've evolved a little bit and maybe we've turned off or suppressed some parts of ourselves in order to not show up weird. But that innate sense of curiosity and what we tune into is, I think it's a really profound cue. And you're right we don't talk about this stuff. This is just the stuff of life that happens, but when we give it attention it's really interesting to see. So now, as an adult, as a professional speaker, as a business consultant, how does sensitivity– how does it play in your work now?

Sunil Godse: So it's really important for me because what I deal with when it comes to reactions is very, very important, right? And sensing, seeing the scene is really important, especially when you're looking for clues that can't be fixed or can't be masked. Oftentimes that's where the gold is in finding a solution to a problem or finding what the problem is, because it it's almost like theater when you're dealing with the client sometimes where there's a lot of people running around with masks, but you almost have to kind of look behind the masks or under, or what have you to find out what's the real problem going on and once you can sort of pierce through that, and I think highly sensitive people are better able to do that because of that heightened sense, you're trying to investigate something at least from my opinion. And so when I have those sorts of micro senses heightened, then oftentimes I'll find inconsistencies and then start the question “Why?”, and then those questions have to be answered and if they can't, we have a problem and that problem leads to a bigger problem and it's the bigger problem they're dealing with. And then what I have to do is sort of peel back the layers to get to the root of the problem. And then that's the suggestion I have to the client.

Clare Kumar: That's amazing. I have a feeling that the fact that highly sensitive people have more mirror neurons is also part of your success in building rapport and making people feel like they can trust you and open up too. Do you think that has a part to play in your relationships? 

Sunil Godse: Oh, big time. Yeah, because the mirror neurons are obviously the ones that are, you know, obviously they call them mirror neurons cause you're sort of mimicking who's in front of you and as HSPs, we are reinforcing that.

And when we reinforce that, that's sort of a trigger to the neurons to kind of, you know, go forth and multiply, so to speak. And then from a neuroscience perspective, that's exactly what happens. It's just like if you look at when we get hit with a fearful experience or a shocking experience, the unconventional wisdom would say that that's the best time to change. And so if you look at it from a neuroscience perspective or neuroplasticity perspective, that is the best time because what happens is you shock the neurons into finding new pathways and they're ripe to find the new pathways. What you have to do is give them the new pathways. And unfortunately we fall back into our own habits and the neurons start to solidify those old pathways again. 

Clare Kumar: So we miss an opportunity. So stress is an opportunity is what you're saying stress and challenge. I mean, we've certainly had that in the past two years, we've had all kinds of stress and challenge.

And I do notice that there have been some really incredibly good things that have come out of it. But to be someone who can respond in a way to grow in stress, have you noticed anything that needs to be present? Is it a mindset? What is it about the people that recognize that stress and are willing to, I call it “dancing in discomfort” and grow? Have you noticed anything about that? 

Sunil Godse: Yeah, and I think this is a bit of a challenge to some, but this is where we call it– if we sort of dive into the intuitive aspect of things where my expertise is. When you look at intuition from perspective, the basics is to send you some signals. Right? And so when you're looking to, even in signs of stress or fear, or what have you, if your intuition's kind of telling you to go in the right direction, it's paired with a positive signal. And so what you have to do is in the smoke and the noise, and the news and where you're trying to figure out where your life needs to go, you really need to pay attention to those signals because there you're guiding light through the fog And that takes training, and as HSPs we're highly sensitive, which means we're highly sensitive to those signals. And if we take the time to figure out what are the positive signals and negative signals, then that should guide us through whatever path that we're trying to go down

Clare Kumar: Yeah, absolutely. So now is a perfect time to tell our listeners about your expertise. So Sunil here, well, you would've heard in the intro, but he's here because he is an expert in intuition and I've known in myself that dismissing my intuition has led to numerous blunders in my life and I've had a renewed commitment to say, “Wow, I need to step into this noticing and pay attention to it”. And so Sunil in his book Gut: What is it, How to Trust it and How to Use it talks a lot about this. So I urge you to grab a copy of that if you want to deeply explore it. But I want to talk to you to dive into this topic of signals. Understanding sort of– can you give us an idea of what signals are? So that the highly sensitive person out there can say, “Oh yeah, I've got those”. What are we talking about when you say signal?

Sunil Godse: Yeah. The best thing that I can take people down is to look at a situation where you made a decision that you knew was the right decision.

And you can go down memory lane and say, what was one of the best decisions that you made? And then what did it feel like in that moment? And that feeling is one of your positive signals. So we all have a set, a set inventory of them. And so your job is to find out what is that set inventory by continuing down memory lane. And then the exact opposite is what are the bad decisions that you made and what did it feel like In that moment? And those are negative signals generally like irritations. And the thing with negative signals is that they actually start very subtle in nature and so generally when you make the first bad decision, your intuition's giving you this little subtle signal “Come on. Sunil”. But then, because we haven't done our homework on what those signals are, they're too subtle, we go to the next signal, intuition says, “Okay, you're going to ignore me here. I'm going to send you something a little bit louder or something that changes”. And so ultimately you get to a point where you say, “Ah, this is really uncomfortable. I'm going to start backing away”. And so what I'm trying to get people to do is to really take stock of their inventory of signals. And then if they go through my book, there's sort of the four types of intuition that are there, instead of just labeling intuition as sort of one big construct. And we're naturally stronger in one of the four types. And so what I do is that I make sure that the other three are stronger through either my coursework or my coaching. And if you don't strengthen the other three, what happens is then you miss their signals.

Clare Kumar: So I love all the nuance in this and the deep thought that you've clearly put into it. I want to stay with signals just a little bit longer and then we're definitely going to dive into the four types of intuition because I know I was immensely curious and I'm like, “What do you mean four types?”, but staying with the signals, can you just paint us a little bit of a picture, more of some of those positive feelings in the body? Like what kinds of positive signals are there that are good? Like what should we be noticing and labeling as a signal? 

Sunil Godse: Yeah, absolutely. So, some are going to be pretty common. So these are going to be sort of that feeling of flow, the dots, connecting, gentle pulling, or just absolutely knowing that this is the right decision to make. But then there are some unique ones. Like, for example, there's one CEO that I interviewed and he sees this omen that comes up behind his right shoulder. And so it just sits there. There's no color, there's no shape. It just comes up. And so whatever he's doing in business, when that omen pops up, he immediately says yes to everything that he's doing and he's now run two multimillion dollar businesses because an omen pops up on his right shoulder and he's never told anybody except me because I was the one to figure out, you know, how does this intuition really kind of speak to him? 

Clare Kumar: An omen sounds kind of handy. I like to have a happy omen. But yeah, but you know, this feeling of knowing, I said, actually with respect to the podcast itself, I talked to the designer and I'm showing for the video for people who are not watching the video, I'm showing the podcast cover art.

And I said to her, I said, “Okay, we're close with some earlier designs. I will know it when I see it”. It's because I knew when I named my company Streamlife, as soon as I came up with this word, I thought, “Ah, that's it”. I'll know it when I see it, but if I don't, I know just keep working with me cause we're going in the right direction. We'll know when we get there and I can trust that feeling of knowing I never thought of that as a signal until now. 

Sunil Godse: Yeah. And, what's really interesting using your same example. Is when I first saw that piece of cover art that came up on your Facebook, it was pretty intriguing for me and so my intuition was in a positive way saying, “Yeah, this is really neat”. And so when we look at establishing trust and intuition, trust is a two-way street. So your intuition is saying, “This is really good”. My intuition is saying “This is really good”. And now you have the ability to connect with people at an intuitive level that really gets the relationship to go deep.

Clare Kumar: Okay, so I just had goosebumps when you said that, what the heck signal is goosebumps. Because when I talk to someone on the regular now, when I hear something that resonates with me and is positive, I have full body goosebumps. What is that? 

Sunil Godse:That is, it could be your first signal. It could be a confirmation signal. It could be a signal that you have a trusted relationship in front of you. So somebody particularly that you want to deal with in your inner circle, that's coming closer to your inner circle. 

Clare Kumar: Double goosebumps. Oh, stop. 

Sunil Godse: So these are now confirmations. And so what you're hearing, what you're seeing, my facial expressions really resonates with who you are and that's how you form really intimate relationships with good friends.

Clare Kumar: Oh my gosh. And what even is a goosebump? Like what? I mean, it's like a shiver through the back of my body.

Sunil Godse: Exactly. And so this is an intuitive signal for you. So just like that omen that popped up this is yours and it could be particular to people. Yeah. Right? So in professional situations, you may not go “I don't know”. This is where you'd have to do some discovery process 

Clare Kumar: It’s happening all the time on zoom calls with people in coaching conversations, when it's something profound, meaningful, and positive. Right? And it stops me, everytime I'm like, “Ah, goosebumps”.

Sunil Godse: It's yeah, and it could be a sign of some really deep conversation. Yeah. That's meaningful. That's not superficial in nature. And so that's your intuitive signal coming through saying, “Hey, yeah, this is a great conversation. Let's take this forward or deeper or what have you.” And then you just navigate that path based on that goosebump, which is an intuitive signal.

Clare Kumar: Yeah. The people listening. Can't see my face, my jaw dropping like numerous times in this conversation.

Sunil Godse: And so we're just working at this in real time. Right? You just figured out what your positive, intuitive signal is. You just answered that for yourself.

Clare Kumar: I know I might. Oh man. Okay. And so some of the negative ones then. Because those are the ones that can really help keep us on a more positive course if we tune into those. Yeah. And I know that, I was in a, not a very loving relationship for many, many years. And for my chapter two, I decided “Hot damn girl you deserve to be in a relationship like your mom and dad had”, which was so special. And so I resolved that when I was dating, I was going to take any little red flag and write it in bold capital letters in my journal. And I sure did. When I met my love on the second date, I firmly believe food is to be shared. I came back to my journal and wrote. “Not sure. He likes to share food”, in big bold capital letters because I decided I was not going to dismiss even the smallest thing. Now I was going to just, I was going to have to name it because I was afraid of dismissing something that maybe is not the end of the world, but I wasn't going to miss it.

Sunil Godse: So yeah, no, absolutely. And, you're right. So, when it comes to your intuitive signals that are negative, they're going to be irritations or red flags and so others are going to have different language around it. And from a scientific perspective, your intuition hits the amygdala and there's no capacity for language. So, you know, goosebumps are things we feel. I can be saying red flags, but when I say red flags, everybody can have their own version of red flags. Right? So, some will see the more common ones are getting a gut feeling, getting rashes, the hairs in the back of the neck coming earlier than most, so we're not looking at a scary event where they should be, but they're warning you that maybe, perhaps you don't go down that alley or don't approach these people. So these are some of the common ones, some of the more unique ones, I've got a unique one where my very first signal is that I lose my peripheral vision and I get hyper-focused and my eyebrows cross. And so it doesn't necessarily mean that something in front of me is bad. It's just that when I'm thinking of making a decision and that decision is not correct if I start losing my peripheral vision I know I have to take a step back and evaluate that. And I had another entrepreneur who actually, when I was interviewing him, he had no clue what his– I mean, you don't really go up to somebody in a coffee shop and say, “Hey, listen, what are your negative intuitive signals?” They say, “Well, I've got a psychologist you might want to talk with”.

Clare Kumar: Right? Strangers coming up to me and asking weird questions, there's a signal. 

Sunil Godse: But this guy, eventually when he started talking to me about his negative experiences. He kept grabbing his left ear lobe and he just realized that every time he made a bad decision, his left ear lobe pulsated with heat every single time. Wow. And that was his first negative, intuitive signal. And so now, yeah, as long as we learn that, for him every time he gets a hint of heat on his left earlobe, there's a decision he's about to make that he has to back away from and find more information about. And same thing with me if I lose my peripheral vision, that's my first signal to say, “Okay. What is it about this decision that I need more information, before I permanently back away from it?”

Clare Kumar: Hmm. So you need to back away, gather more, decide if you're going back in or not.. Yeah, absolutely. Powerful. Thank you so much because I think our noticing listeners out there are going to be resonating with this in their own different way. I love it, if you know, through social media, reach out to me, let us know what your signals are. What kind of language do you put to positive signals and negative signals? Do you have an omen? Do they have a name? Like how in touch with you are these with these cues? Are you, and as I think towards the upper limits of sensitivity and the empath community and that tuning into even more different energies, I have a feeling that that's the sort of the greatest tuning into intuition because those clues are deeply profound. And in elements, I don't even begin to understand actually, 

Sunil Godse: Yeah, if you're an empath or high on the HSP, that's actually a really good way to be because one of the things I talk about in my book is something called intuitive mediums. And what intuitive mediums are, are those environments that you put yourself in, where you cut out the noise and just sort of let those thoughts or those feelings or those intuitive signals soak through. And so, as an HSP we naturally do that. We naturally take because we're highly sensitive, we're tuning up the noise to sense what's in the environment, which means we're better in sensing our intuitive signals than other people, because they're so caught up in the noise and they have to go to greater lengths, to kind of step outside themselves and to really listen to their intuition compared to HSPs like us. 

Clare Kumar: Yeah, now if HSPs are managing things well, we naturally bring in this introspective time. Yes. And quiet walks and stillness in our day. If we're not and if you use the word you were using earlier, this masking that can go on, we might be denying ourselves that, which is what I think I did for so long. So I was like “Signal? What signal? Who needs a signal? I'm just going to operate from my brain. Thank you very much. And dismiss the rest”. But boy, the power in being able to be still be quiet and do that tuning in. Oh, huge. So let's move now from the signals, which I'm so appreciative of that deeper exploration into, to now look at the four different types of intuition. And I wonder if you can bring those to life for us.

Sunil Godse: Yeah, absolutely. And so the four different types, it's almost the way that I characterize intuition is like driving a car. So when you drive a car, you know, you basically push the button or turn the keys depending upon how old your car is. And then you listen to the engine and as long as the engine is kind of sounding like a positive signal, then you just kind of drive. And you don't need to be mechanics to, you know, open up the hood and figure out what's underneath that hood until somebody weird like me comes in and says, “Oh, listen, uh, I want to open up the hood of this thing called intuition to figure out what's underneath”. And so when I looked at intuition and when I interviewed over close to about a thousand people. To figure out and I looked at scientific research, what I found out was that there were four types of intuition that actually work all in unison. And so when you have a decision, all four, you have to gather certain types of information for you to go ahead with it. And so we're naturally stronger in one of the four and we're weaker than the other three and so that's why we miss the signal that our intuition generally tells us. And the best way to describe these four is using a case study, and this is a case study of my fellow friend, John Rothschild, who, when I approached him said that “Intuition doesn't exist”. Come on, this guy's an investment banker, you know, data, Excel spreadsheets, ruled the world. And at the time when I asked him, this was one of my first interviews for, when I was diving into intuition. And at that time, if you Googled intuition, it came from like manifestation, voices from God and things like that. And so someone who's an investment banker, he's just like, “Okay, I'm not sure what you want to talk about Sunil, but come on down anyways, we'll have a chat and we'll grab a coffee”. 

Clare Kumar: And he was worried about you though, wasn't he?

Sunil Godse:  He was a little worried. I think that's why he didn't ask me to his office. Let's go and visit another boardroom somewhere else. So, as I was driving down to see him I was really worried to say, “Okay, this is going to be either a very short interview or it's going to be pretty interesting”. So I had to take all the research that I did. And so, you know, I turn on the camera and I'm starting to interview him and I'm telling him about the CEO that sees omens and I'm actually telling him about the entrepreneur who gets, you know, his left ear lobe warms. And he says, “Sunil, I'd really like to shake those guys hands, because omens and stuff like that” He said, “Listen, every decision you make in life or in business is based on your experience in learning.”

And so now let's dive into the four types of intuition cause one of the four types is called experiential intuition. And so you're born with intuition and there's this research study that shows that infants as young as two months old have been shown to have intuitive tendencies. So if you look at the research in terms of the number of events that you have, when you're younger, five to 6,000 events per day, and when you're older, 28 to 35,000 events per day, every single piece–

Clare Kumar:. No wonder we're tired.

Sunil Godse: We're really tired, super tired. But every piece of that learning or experience is a data point that goes into the subconscious area of your brain, like a library. And so if you look at your brain, like an iceberg, 90% is below water. That's the subconscious area, your brain, and the 10% above is the conscious area. So by the time you make a decision today, you've got billions and billions and billions of past data points to tell you whether the decision you're making is the right one or not. And so if it's the right one, obviously it's going to send you a positive signal. If it's the wrong one, it's going to send you a negative signal. And in some cases I was telling John that your intuition goes against the data and he goes, “Well, that's kind of funny Sunil you mention that”. He said he had that exact same thing happen to him.

And so John was in the franchise business. And so putting in McDonald's or Dunkin Donuts, or, you know, Burger King, what have you. And what his team would do is they would look at the location and rate it on a scale of 10 looking at demographics development in the area, traffic patterns, things like that and there was this place in Toronto, in the Esplanade area and it was a five and a half out of ten. And, you know, he and his partner went out there. And now we're getting to talk about the second of the two called situational intuition that looks at the situation that you're in and the business units that support that situation.

And he just looks and says, “I don't know. I think we should be okay if we put a location here”. And so he goes against the data that his team puts in and that ends up being the Beer Market, which is one of the best franchise locations in his whole portfolio, all because what he says now is perhaps this intuition, he's not sure. So at least half an hour into our conversation, I've got John from it doesn't exist to perhaps it's intuition. 

Clare Kumar: And let me just say that Beer Market is where I had some of the best dancing I've ever had in Toronto. So yeah, you know, you talked about the podcast, cover art, feeling good for me and then feeling good for you. There you go. Right? There's something about that place that was amazing. They have another location that just closed. It was always terrible. The layout was terrible. The location just never worked. So,. Yeah. There's something about that place and the Esplanade. It was hot. 

Sunil Godse: Yeah and it went contrary to. You know, at the time there were people that were just going to have anything, just to take a swig and he wanted to do beer pairings. Yeah. So anybody who thinks that they're sane in terms of business saying, “Okay, you want to take a place where people just want to get drunk and teach them about beer pairings? Like, are you insane?” Yet, he goes against that because situational intuition was telling him this is the place to go. Yeah. And then at some point his purpose changes and so John no longer wants to be an investment banker, he actually wants to run a business. And now we're going to get into the third of the four called relational intuition. And what relational intuition does very much like you get goosebumps. It sends you signals when the people that you encounter. There's a thick filter that only lets in people into your inner circle, who you absolutely trust who are going to be there for you through thick and thin, which your intuition knows are really good people. They're not putting 'em on a mask. There's no bad intentions. and in John's case, when he made the decision to say, I want to run a business. All the people who were filled with things like ego, money, fame, high end restaurants, you know, making millions of dollars. All of them said you're nuts.

Only one person asked him why and that was his wife. And his wife simply asked John “Why do you want to do this? Why do you want to throw a three to 4 million careers to start a business from ground zero?” And he looked at me and now he's– I'm paraphrasing him on the video. He says, Sunil “You sometimes you can have all the data in the world, but you have to trust your intuition. This just feels right”. And that was his intuitive signal. Yeah, it just felt right. And so now we're an hour in, from someone who says it doesn't exist to now realizing it exists. And a fourth of the fourth is called creative intuition. 

Clare Kumar: Before we go to that one though. Yeah. Help me understand the relationship a little bit, because everybody was saying no, but his wife was asking him a question. So help me understand relational intuition in the context of that story. What was it exactly? 

Sunil Godse: Yes. In this case, nobody really wanted to find out why he wanted to do something that he wanted. And he wanted to, instead of being, you know, someone who kind of paid for a team, he actually wanted to coach the team. And so everybody else was more concerned about him keeping the career, not really thinking about what's your purpose? What do you really want to do? Why are you driving to this decision? They all were more concerned about the extrinsic motivation.

Clare Kumar: Ah, so it was the strength of the relationship with his wife and what she was reflecting back to him was what's truly important to you, John 

Sunil Godse: And asking that. Yeah. And actually asking that rather than judging his decision based on the lens of others, right? I mean, so if you are judging someone based on your extrinsic motivators, then you are going to think that John is nuts. So, but if you're a true friend, you would actually say, “Okay, why are you doing this?”

Clare Kumar: So this is talking about in terms of relational it's then a meaningful–someone of a relationship that's very meaningful to you. Yes. That's going to have higher value, helping reflect back to you the positivity or negativity of this decision potentially.

Sunil Godse: Absolutely. And that filter is usually pretty thick. All of us have met thousands of people. Yeah. But if you can actually. On your hand, how many people will actually be there for you? I've got two and they come and go. There's people who have been there for me when times were tough. But then when times were tough, again, they weren't and intuitively I knew that they were pulling away before that anyways. Yes. So we intuitively can sense the fact that people are, you know, the strength of that rope between us–

Clare Kumar: Oh, goosebumps again, stop it. 

Sunil Godse: It is thinning and that rope is getting farther and farther away. What happens is we forget to cut that rope. And we hang on way too long, even though our relational intuition is saying, “Let the rope go, let the rope go.

Are you going to drown with them? Let the rope go.” Yes, but we seem to want to keep hanging and hanging and hanging. And when we need those honest opinions, these are people at the end of their rope. That they're saying, “Ah, you're what are you doing? Yeah. But they're not close to you asking why you want to do it.” Yeah. They're judging through their lens. 

Clare Kumar: That's not a heart caring center place, not at all. So, I had goosebumps when you said that. So it's becoming more clear to me that goosebumps are around a profound resonance. Whether it's positive or negative. It's a profound resonance. I'm like, holy, okay. Are you going to lay some more on me?

Sunil Godse: I've got one more, which is a creative intuition.

Clare Kumar: Creative intuition. Okay. Let's go.

Sunil Godse: Okay. Let's go. And that is the last four that's the last, last. And so creative intuition is the actual risk level that you tolerate when you make a decision. And so if you're eating a sandwich, you're turning left of the lights, your creative intuition's pretty low.

But in John's case, not only did he trade away a three to 4 million career, he was given this tiny bankrupt restaurant. And you would think his intuition says “No, no, here's, here's a healthy company. You can take over. You've got the cash. You can get loans. You can take over this nice healthy cash flow, good balance sheet, strong revenues”. Nope. Tiny bankrupt restaurant. That restaurant was Eastside Mario's location, number one. And he walked into it and turned it around and grew it to over a thousand locations, including things like the Beer Market, they had the red devil, they had a number of steak places in the US. So over a thousand places, $2 billion in revenues by the time you're retired and it all started because it felt right. 

Clare Kumar: That's an amazing case study. You've really brought intuition to life, through understanding signals in some depth, which I really appreciate. And clearly I lived the experience as well. And then bringing these, these four types to life. My hope is that the listeners or HSP friends out there are going to think about how this reflects and shows up in your life and will take these tools, will pick up a copy of the book to understand it even more deeply and use this power tool of noticing to really be a guide that you can trust in your life. You have such a force if you're able to tune into it.

Sunil Godse: Absolutely. And remember, as HSPs, we are much better at sensing those signals and so we have a better chance at becoming an expert in this, and there's nothing wrong with it. And with those expert signals sometimes comes some tough decisions that we have to make about the situations we put ourselves in, the types of decisions we make, the people in our lives. But if your intuition is guiding you to make those decisions, they are the right ones for you. And so they could be fearful, but remember we were talking earlier, if that fear is paired with a positive, intuitive signal, that just means that it's moving you in a direction where there are doors of opportunity, there are people that will support you, and it may seem lonely, but it's not really because you still have one or two people that are the true supporters of you. So enjoy being an HSP because you're already much better at listening to intuitive signals than others. 

Clare Kumar: What a beautiful way to end this episode. Thanks, Sunil. Everybody out there: enjoy being an HSP. Thanks again, Sunil. Thank you. 

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