(podcast available at BeAwesome365 wherever you get yours)

I almost always work out at lunch. if it’s a nice day out I’m going to go outside. I’ll either take a set of Weights like Grandma at the mall,  a heavy sandbag, or sometimes it will be a resistance band. I can go for a walk or run before I cross the street I will do a workout set.   

 it’s one of my favorite workouts and it’s one that I’ve named, “Pay the Toll.” I even have a couple of articles about how to “pay the toll” in your own neighborhood.

Throughout the last decade and a half, the neighbors of the particular neighborhood that is close to my office have seen me do all kinds of crazy things. Carry a tire for 3 miles. drag a weight bench to the park to jump on and over. They’ve even seen me push and pull my pickup.

Today, despite having an idea all morning long of what I was going to do I had the urge to do something completely different. To start in a completely different direction from my norm.  For the most part, I always start out the same but this urge was undeniable and something in me wouldn’t shut up. it was pushing me to go in the other direction.

This, in some aspect happens to each of us.   This internal urging to avoid an area, or drive to work via a different route, or even just call an old friend you have not talked to for a while.    Where do these ideas stem from and what do they mean?

The base of today’s article came from episode 349 of the hugely popular podcast, “Feel Better Live More” In this episode, the host, Dr. Chatterley talks with guest and author Light Watkins.

The gist of what was discussed is that we get all of these little clues about what we should be doing at any given time.  This happens automatically, an internal dialogue for some, an idea for others.  It is happening all the time and throughout our lives.

Throughout the recording, he mentioned terms like “tugs” or “being pulled” and ideas that “pop” in our heads.

I thought about this a lot.   I loved this episode, and what Light Watkins suggested really resonated with me.    I’ve written and podcasted on a similar idea several times- most likely, my point was missed.   

 Probably because I hadn’t considered it enough to come up with a fantastic term like a “GPS.” 

That’s what Light Watkins calls it.   His internal or “divine GPS.” 

Genius.

The followers that have listened to me for some time know that I love the term “sticky ideas.”

 Is there a way that we can look at these vast, often life-changing concepts that typically take a book to explain or an hour podcast to review and switch things up to make them simple and easy to understand?  Of course, there is. It’s the old adage of, “Teach a kid to fish….”

It’s an explanation, intel.  That’s a sticky idea.

Often this is best accomplished By giving it a creative name or some silly imagery that stands out…the more profound, the better. Then, an entire volume of ideas can be related in just a few words. 

Light Watkins calls this particular lesson his  “divine GPS.” And it fits so well.    It’s a perfect sticky idea.

I will give you my take on this idea and even some alternate terms or thoughts if you’re not into the whole divine thing.

Here’s how it works in your life.

There may be a time in your life when you feel compelled to drive to work along a  different route for no reason you can put your finger on.   You just think you should, as if your brain is being tugged.  

Most often, though, you don’t.

This happens to nearly all of us because, as humans, we are creatures of habit. As a result, we often ignore or even dismiss the idea.  And it’s easy to dismiss it. Indeed, and because humans are geared to adapt, the thought or “tug” goes away in just seconds.  Similar to a real-world GPS.    When you miss a turn, just wait 2 seconds. Then, instant recalculation happens, and you continue away.  

Perhaps it’s something different.  For example-  you get (almost inspired) to just sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee at Scooters with your buddy Troy rather than being in your typical hurry to get…somewhere.

To get on with “being busy.”  You know you want to catch up with Troy.  He’s a great dude.   But life gets running, and five minutes…well, you can’t spare that today.  

This is a problem I have trouble with. I often get caught up in this idea that it’s always “go time.”   Speed, production, efficiency- I THINK that’s making me better. That if I’m not being productive, I’m being lazy.

Science shows the opposite.  There’s a Podcast article I’ll record here in a couple of weeks about wasted time /productivity and an inverse curve of what we think is happening as compared to the reality of being busy. 

In this ever-increasing complicated world of feeling like we have to be ultra productive with every second we have, we simply don’t hear the little signals given to us.  It may be that we’re not acknowledging our own internal GPS, but I think more often, it’s more likely that we’re not hearing it.    It’s obliviousness.

Again.  I like the analogy.  

This is similar to us not hearing our car’s GPS because the volume of our favorite Beastie Boys song is currently too loud! 

Divine GPS.    Internal GPS.   YEAH.  I like it.    That is why I chose to share it with you today.

It’s a super cool term that is a true sticky and easy to recall idea.   I’ll use it forever now that I’ve got it.  A Simple term that opens our awareness.

 Awareness changes perspective.   

So Get the idea even if you struggle with the term “divine.”

That’s fine if you don’t like it..  I’ll give you options from others I know.

Because, like everything that is done in the world, this has tie-ins, and the idea is not 100% unique in and of its own. Deepak Chopra and a huge part of Indian/Asian ancestry have views like this…that we should be listening to our inner voice.  

This has been a common theme for thousands of years with humans, just not so much in the US. So, as modern psychology and ideas that work towards getting your mental life right, ideas like meditation, cold exposure, and breath work, which have gone exponential in popularity over the last few years, become used and experimented with, and as expected- it works. 

  At this point, when we realize we don’t know everything, we start to evolve into a second learning stage of our lives.    Nobody lives this more than I do.   The typical stereotype jock kid that thought he knew everything- then learned I know …not very much.   

So I experiment in life. And a lot of it worked and made my life better.   I experimented with things I thought to be ludicrous.  And so should you.

Many of these ancient ideas are being re-branded and re-packaged, so find the version that works for you and run it, even if it’s just as an experiment at first. To See if it doesn’t prove workable in your life.

The entire idea of the Awesome 365 is tips and tricks that may work for you to increase and better your life.

This is my episode to push you to just “listen.”

Acknowledge and even play with the outcomes.    What happens to your life when you listen and act on it?    When you DO put on your signal and go to work a different way.   

 ok. Don’t lose the lesson just because of the name. Maybe you’re more of a subconscious guy. 

There are literally 1000 books and 1000 Podcasts on the subconscious versus conscious mind right now. It’s very popular. 

 Perhaps you prefer… it’s “the way the universe is pulling you.”  rather than your guardian angel.

 Or you may want to go straight science. 

Or tactical, because if you know me, I love the tactical stuff. This one really should jive for my pickup-driving, skoal-dipping Texas friends.   Yep, I just profiled you. And because of this profile, you could fit better with a tactical answer rather than something like the divine GPS.

Because the internal GPS is the same idea as the “Three I’s” you hopefully learned about in one of your self-defense gun courses.  

The three I’s is an idea that my friends over at the “Left of Greg Podcast” came up with.

Instinct.  Intuition. Intelligence.    

Two of these I’s happen at the subconscious level for the most part. Instinct and intuition.    Your brain is picking up and seeing things from a different perspective and calculating the world faster than we can even imagine, while we’re stuck plodding along in the conscious realm, thinking “this is it.”  That what we are solely paying attention to is, in fact, the actual world.   Oblivious to the cars behind you, the bad guy that’s been watching you from a hidden corner, or the runaway horse and carriage barreling down the main street.   

The subconscious part of your brain will help you. It’s wired to be on all the time as a survival mechanism, so it works.  It’s real-world science and actionable even if you don’t like the idea of a universal divine spirit, or your gut instinct,  the way or if Light’s and Deepak’s opinions are too hippy-dippy granola.   

The three I’s… get this. Let the first two happen – they are automatic and are working even when you’ve checked out. They influence the Intelligence I.

     Holy crap – the third eye???    Whoa!  

 That came around fast!

Me?   I like them all.   All the names.   I pick which one I use and think about based on my circumstances, surroundings, and needs. But I use it.   Much more often than I used to, probably only because I was never listening before.

I love to learn from different people and tend to give a lot of credence to ideas that “spring up” from multiple people that have never met each other and originate from different walks of life work realms and focus on different situations.    

When multiple people arrive at the same conclusion while going about it entirely differently, it counts and means something.   It increases the chances they’re on to something real.  

I’m comforted by my internal subconscious GPS helping steer my ship- it’s a phenomenal mental image. 

 I’ve got a real life going on here, man.  I’ve got more than I can handle in real life to allow me to focus on everything.   It’s impossible to see and act on everything.  I’ll let the internal

GPS run the monotony and scanning of the day-to-day.  

But one last shout-out. This article’s key takeaway isn’t to believe it happens but to “Listen to it” when something deemed worthwhile is whispered to your conscious mind.

The narrators of this particular podcast used some great examples that helped cement this GPS idea while discussing its points and relevance.

One of the ones that I think made the most impression was trust.    It’s crazy how much we TRUST the GPS in our car when using Google Maps.

It truly is incredible – how much we trust a computer on our console yet won’t trust our instinct, gut feelings, and subconscious- that is, picking up details millions of times more fluid than our conscious minds that, for all practicality, can only hold two ideas at once.

Trust. 

If I’m driving down the road and I have set my GPS at a particular destination in a city I am unfamiliar with, and the GPS tells me to take a left at the upcoming street, I have complete trust that is the prudent turn to make. 

I may not know where it is taking me, but I trust that the algorithms programmed inside the GPS will get me where I need to go. 

It’s real science that our subconscious is also doing this to us. 

And, At a billion times more capacity than the satellite-fed GPS algorithm, Google came up with.

Trust what our minds are telling us based on thousands of instantaneous data points.  

I play in the tactical world as a hobby and practice of mine.   Guns, scenarios, being aware of dangers.  It’s 100% ingrained and taught as an absolute to trust your spidery sense to get out of trouble – the subconscious sees what we don’t. 

So why would anyone consider it strange to use the same ideas- the subconscious or their divine GPS- for the ability to make suggestions that we aren’t 100% certain of why we’re being pulled that way?

In the tactical world, we’re always taught that if you ever are in a real life danger situation,  Stop asking “Why” this is happening and Move, dammit.  Get away from danger! 

All I’m suggesting is to stop asking “why” in your everyday life.

I live and surround myself with the sports world.  Nearly every second of my life and career revolves around sports.

It’s automatic that we allow this to happen we play sports. My oldest son is very talented in basketball. When he gets the pill in his hands, he doesn’t think, “ I’m going to dribble twice and make a move to the left and then cross over halfway through, turn Sideways, enabling myself to become skinnier- then come down on both feet thereby allowing my body the best ability to take off vertically.”

He doesn’t ever think like that.    It’s autopilot.  

Practiced, rehearsed, and adapted thousands of times but happening at a nonconscious level.

This is the same idea.    Practice, rehearse, and play with improving listening and acting on internal cues.   

It’s not luck, superstition, or nonsense in sports. The author of Divine GPS says that it’s not any of these things in our daily life either.  

I don’t know why your brain would tell you to cancel a trip, keep your kid home from school today, or change your plans. It’s straightforward to understand why your brain screams at you not to walk down a dark alley in a strange city after midnight. We all get that. We trust our instinct for that idea.  Like the Triple I’s, enough experience has given us Intelligence for this example.

But when it happens in broad daylight on our routine commute to work, we often ignore it or lose it altogether by asking ourselves, “Why?”

Trust rather than ask why.    And let’s even step back from that.   Just hear it first.  Listen for it.  Pay attention.   

We have all heard these amazing stories of people that have done a real-life “final destination” catastrophe aversion. 

Some friend missed a flight that ended up having problems, turned the wrong way on a drive and avoided a 17-car pile-up or had a stomach bug, and stayed home from work, and it somehow saved the day!  

I think it’s real.   It is authentic.  

You can chalk it up to “things happening for a reason,” but I think it’s even more solid than that.    

So if you have that small itch to sit at a park bench and take five minutes of deep breaths or “not waste time”  just watching the disc golf guys doing their thing. If that’s what your brain and body are telling you to do, trust that it will get you Into the right spot. Who can you trust if you can’t trust your body and yourself, even the inner dialogue and “feelings?”

Light, the author, goes on to summarize it perfectly and I can’t wait to grab his book as it’s full of examples of real-life, actionable events.   Check out his two on this idea…

“Bliss more”  as well as “Knowing Where to Look.“

On the podcast, he said one of the big aha moments came for him when he started Asking himself, 

“Why is this happening FOR me rather than Why is this happening TO me?  “

A word swap.  Yes!   Sticky ideas!  Yes!   I love these! 

Like many things on this website, I’d like to take the ideas others are giving me and share them while putting my own spin on them.

 I would always encourage you to experiment with things in your life that may work better than what you are currently doing. 

That’s a path to a better life and self-improvement, which we should all strive for. 

I’ve noticed that in my personal life, especially in the last two decades,  I had this idea that self-improvement had to happen, similar to how my generation was taught business and financial success had to happen. By grinding- by working harder.  Longer.   Nonstop alarms and attention.

But as I age, much like I’ve realized with my finances, family life, and stress… so much improvement is automatic.  Just having awareness is the fundamental idea.  I truly believe the universe, especially the one we inhabit, meaning “our personal universe,” is looking out for number one. 

The world wants you to be better. You just have to hear the clues; often, the hints are whispered instead of shouted. This idea of an internal dialogue happening between my subconscious as an internal GPS is fabulous.

Practice using it more!