Let me back up a second. During my coach training sessions several years ago, we soon-to-be-coaches were instructed and encouraged to blurt out whatever popped into our minds as our clients shared. During our pod calls–where 3-9 of us were on a bridge line together, I witnessed other would-be coaches experimenting with this and was surprised at how often their intuition matched my own. But I was hesitant to articulate mine out loud.

As a result of 100+ hours of practice coaching on lower-paying clients,  and ‘swinging out’ with our newly acquired skills, I became more and more comfortable with the blurting process and more and more rewarded by the astonishing results. A big part of coaching is letting go of the expected outcomes and being completely in the process of deeply listening to one’s client, i.e. trusting the Universe to supply the answers. (If I’ve lost you by now, you weren’t meant to be reading this anyway.)

So when my client mentioned having to prove her capabilities during an upcoming high stakes presentation, I flashed back to hearing the founder of SPANX tell her memorable story at a women’s conference many years before. Sara Blakely described calling her local FedEx office to send over Debbie and Sue (I made these names up, but you get the idea), two of their employees with whom she had an ongoing relationship. She had her own high stakes opportunity (to be on Oprah?) and needed to show the depth of her establishment. Debbie and Sue represented her Shipping Department.

We entrepreneurs have the resources the bigger guys are seeking, but they show up in different ‘formats’ than the bricks and mortar establishments are accustomed to seeing.

As a result of that referral–to Sara’s SPANX story–my client wrote back to say how fortuitous that intuition proved to be. Turns out that the SPANX sponsors an opportunity for which this new client is ideally suited. Had I not had that gut hit to mention SPANX, this connection would never have been discovered.

Your intuition knows when it’s right.Every time. Trust it!

There’s a unique sensation that occurs. For me it feels like a swelling of my cells; a joyful bursting of energy throughout my body, and I know that I need to say whatever words I ‘heard’ intuitively out loud. Sometimes the result of following your intuition is a subtle shift. In this instance, it was more of a ka-boom!