Always listen to your gut, it is the only sense that won't lie to you.

You have six senses, not five; and unfortunately, as humans, we often times rely too heavily on the five sense and completely ignore our intuition. If our mind can't believe it, or doesn't like what our gut is telling it, we tend to talk ourselves out of the truth.

I am not very good at taking no for an answer. I don't like to be told what I can and can't do by others, mostly because I'm not an agreeable person by nature but also because I am attuned to my intuition or what we'd call our sixth sense. When my gut is telling me something, I listen. I can say with all honesty it has never led me astray and in fact, it has probably even saved my life a time or two. I have a crazy story of being stalked while I was in college, by a highly bizarre high school class mate with a shoe fetish! But, I'll save that story for another day.

Following your gut instinct is hard because you can't back it up with any facts that you and others want to see. It's difficult to convince yourself and others something is true when you can't see it or touch it. It typically doesn't go over well when you tell people, "trust me, my gut tells me this is the right thing to do." This is especially true in business. When people have money or time at risk, it's not likely they are going to buy into your way of thinking based upon your gut feeling. Thankfully for me, I have an uncanny ability to sell people on my vision and they typically aren't disappointed by doing so.

This week my company, Copow, along with our branding and packaging design agency, Design Womb were awarded a 2022 American Packaging Design Award by Graphic Design USA. It is understandable why we were given the award, because our packaging truly is remarkable but why this packaging even exists in the first place is because I followed my gut and refused to take no for an answer.

Before Copow (which stands for Colorful, Powerful Food by the way) was even a name, I had a vision for revolutionizing the prepared meal business. I know exactly how to do it because of my decade long experience in helping people figure out how to eat, and then by watching what every other company in the home food delivery business was doing wrong. Bland, boring Campbell Soup quality food, stuff you could easily make at home yourself, tossed around in a shipping box with ice packs so by the time it gets to you, the film covering the meals looks like someone barfed in a dish and mailed it to you. Yeah, I could surely blow all these companies out of the water! Which will take time, but just you watch;)

I didn't know what to call it, I didn't know what it should look like but I knew the world needed an upgrade in how they approach food. So, I sought out the people who knew what I didn't know. When I initially reached out to them, the owner of the company kindly replied that she was inundated with work and wouldn't be able to take on the project. I told her I'd wait as long as it took for her to find time for me. I explained to her that when I was researching branding and packaging firms, her company spoke to me. The minute I saw her work, I knew in my gut she was the right person to bring my idea from inside my head out into the world. She said yes only because of my tenacity. We have since created Copow and are currently working on two other projects together. Our energy works so well together, we will continue to do projects together as long as my brain keeps pumping out ideas. I proudly call her a friend as well.

None of this would be possible had I allowed my mind to take the wheel. I didn't; I followed my gut and by doing so, the world will see food in a different light. People will have the experience of eating foodie-quality food they are actually excited to eat, and do so without even realizing they're eating healthy because the food is so damn good!

This project has been full of gut decisions, just as my life is steered by what feels right to me. My mind eventually gets on board, but my sixth sense is usually running the show.

Don't deny your intuition. As humans, we think we are so evolved because of our ability to think and to speak. Sometimes all the thinking and all the talking is keeping us from connecting to things that are greater than ourselves.

Your mind (and sometimes your body) will try to convince you that something is outside of your reach. Quiet your mind and still your body. If your gut is telling you to go for it, go for it!