Episode 102: Should You Really Follow Your Intuition?

We’ve all heard the advice: “trust your gut” or “follow your intuition.” It sounds simple enough until you realize that sometimes your gut feeling is the very thing keeping you stuck. In this episode of the Babies and Business Podcast, Avram and Rachel dig into a mind-bending idea they picked up during a recent training in Texas: what if intuition isn’t meant to guide you at all? What if it’s really just feedback?

In this conversation, Rachel shares her personal story of breaking old patterns, while Avram reflects on business struggles, showing how rethinking intuition can open up a world of new possibilities.

 

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• Avram and Rachel are back recording after a busy season that included a trip to Texas and moving into a new house.
• They introduce a thought-provoking topic: what if intuition isn’t a guide but actually feedback?
• Discussion on how intuition often signals what feels safe, familiar, or uncomfortable—keeping us in our comfort zone.
• Rachel shares a personal story of leaving an unhealthy marriage, recognizing repeating patterns, and making bold, opposite choices that led to growth, love, and family.
• Avram reflects on how treating intuition as a guide held him back in business—avoiding calls, putting off content, and staying “safe.”
• Together they explore how intuition shapes parenting, revealing that many “gut reactions” come from inherited beliefs rather than true instincts.
• Key takeaway: Intuition isn’t bad—it’s a feedback tool. It shows where your limits are, and growth begins when you step beyond them.

Mentions & Resources

Peri Shawn & the Demartini Method – Introduced during the Texas training Avram and Rachel attended, this method helped them see intuition in a new light.

Made in Manhattan (film) – Referenced by Rachel as an example of breaking out of generational limitations and choosing a different path.

Episode Transcription

Below you will find a transcript of this entire podcast episode. Enjoy!

Avram: We’re back. I mean, you wouldn’t know because you heard an episode from us last week.

Rachel: And every week, for the last five or so.

Avram: We recorded, the last time we clicked record was over a month ago.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And we knew that we were going away for this week long thing in Texas. We also knew that we were potentially gonna be moving as soon as we got back from Texas, which we did. Yeah, we’re sitting in our new bedroom with a new house right now and it probably sounds a little bit different than our other studio.

Rachel: A little echoey, but it at least it doesn’t have the air blasting you in your ears right now.

Avram: Yeah. So we’re excited to be in the new house. We’ll share more about that in the future. We have a really fun, interesting, mind-bending topic to share with you today that definitely stretches into both parenthood and business

Rachel: Yeah, absolutely.

Avram: and,

Rachel: I think parenthood business life and being a human.

Avram: and the topic is everything you’ve been taught about intuition might be wrong. Ooh, what does that mean? So how did we hear about this topic, Rachel?

Rachel: So, like you said, we went to Texas and as part of that training that we attended, Peri Shawn was there and she taught us the Demartini Method. And the things that we’re gonna talk about today are some of those things that she had said. We’re not gonna go over exactly any of this stuff per se, but, we’re just really excited to find the answers to what we had been suspicious of.

You know, you, you go through life following your intuition quote.

Avram: Trusting your gut.

Rachel: Yeah. And what is that and what does it get you? And I’ve had, we’re gonna talk a little bit later about an experience in my life where I actually looked at my life and didn’t like what it looked like and I wanted a change. And, we’re gonna talk about how I did that.

And it wasn’t by following my intuition.

Avram: Yeah. The nuance we’ll share with you will unlock the superpowers of your intuition.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: And what we’ll share is not a discrediting of your intuition or your gut.

Rachel: Right. It, it actually places it, uh, in the correct position and importance gives it the specific job that it, it has in your life and the decision making process.

Avram: Yes. Rachel always says this thing and she said it on the podcast several times. She has said, if you always do what you’ve always done, you will get what you’ve always gotten. And I think that that marries perfectly well with how we typically treat our intuition. And when folks say trust your intuition, what do they usually mean?

They mean, this is my interpretation of it. They mean that you have this sense of when something is right for you or when something is off. You know your spidey senses are tingling.

Rachel: Yeah. Or like you can tell that someone’s lying or like there’s something amiss or you know, you can tell these things like the spidey senses, however that applies in your life in whatever circumstance.

Avram: Yeah, and you may not see or experience any physical evidence,

Rachel: Sure.

Avram: but you might still have these feelings.

Rachel: Yeah, and just something feels off I think that’s a good way of describing it or something feels very right.

Avram: Yeah. What we learned this, week in Texas from Perry, was that people often treat intuition as their guide

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: when what intuition actually is, is feedback.

Rachel: Yes,

Avram: So treating intuition as your guide would mean that if you think about like a river guide.

Rachel: sure.

Avram: Whatever the guide says you do. Because if you don’t do it, you will die. Danger, right? And if you do what they say, you’ll be safe. You’ll have a good time.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: So when you apply that to intuition, what is it really that intuition is doing? If it’s not the guide,

Rachel: Sure. If it’s not the thing that’s indicating danger or right or wrong, you know, if it’s not that, then yes. What is it?

Avram: It is feedback.

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: So what does that mean? It means that your intuition, your gut is very good at telling you the things that you are scared of and the things that are comfortable.

Rachel: Yep.

Avram: Very, very clued into that concept. So when you look at your nervous system and how your nervous system is designed, what’s it do for you?

It’s meant to keep you alive. It’s meant to keep you safe. When you’re in uncomfortable situations

Rachel: It makes you pull back or draw, you know, it, it, it wants you to change directions. Like don’t do that, you know,

Avram: and when you

Rachel: It keeps you in the same space,

Avram: same space, and so like when you think about the human experience. You have been through a number of things that you’ve now internalized and made meaning out of, based off of what’s happened.

Rachel: Yeah. Well,

Avram: Did you have like something that came into mind

Rachel: well, I, I had a really funny thought, actually as you said that, so I had, I have this sister that growing up, she’s like, oh, all Johns are terrible. I was like, oh. And then she goes on to name all the Johns that she had ever dated, and they were all bad. So then moving forward, she would not date John for the sheer sake of all the past ones having been bad. I think that’s a good example

Avram: Very good example.

Rachel: of making meaning from something that is actually relatively meaningless. What, what’s a name?

Avram: What you would find in that case is a manner of coincidences and and the meaning that was assigned,

Rachel: Correct.

Avram: right? So it’s their name, John. It’s these Johns that are bad, right? So applying this label, this very easy label, people apply labels to good or bad. This circumstance went well for me. This one did not go well for me.

Rachel: yes.

Avram: Right? And then we decide that based off of the evidence moving forward, we’re going to avoid this and we’re going to go towards this, right? And so you can think of situations that involved money and maybe you feel like you made a mistake with your money.

Rachel: Sure.

Avram: I put faith in the wrong person. I shouldn’t have done that.

Rachel: All landlords are crooks or, you know, used car sale businesses are crooks. There’s these different professions that have earned those titles because of other people’s experiences.

Avram: Yes.

Rachel: So we use those to stay away or be aware or prepare for it.

Avram: And so what happens is we put all these labels together, these judgements about our entire reality and the people that are in it.

Rachel: Well, and I think what we do is we take this whole world. So if we think about our globe, just the globe, just earth. And we think about that just, just for a moment, like that’s the possibility that we have. We have all this possibility, this gigantic, enormous space, and we, because of all of these prejudgments and all of these examples and all the evidence that we’ve collected and all this stuff, we have the size of our house, maybe even the size of our master bedroom of the options.

Avram: That is now the possibility.

Rachel: These are the possibilities and we’ve limited ourselves so much and we’re so terrified to step outside of that door because there might be discomfort or there might be something else, and, but we never think of the upside of stepping outside of that door.

Avram: Right, and our nervous system and our intuition has based off all the evidence, decided that the house, the master bedroom, is now safe and anything that’s outside of it is not.

Rachel: Yeah. And then, and then I think we associate feelings too, like, like nausea. For me, I would be like, oh, I’m feeling I, I have this body sensation going on. This is bad, this is bad. And, and put breaks on.

Avram: Mm-hmm.

Rachel: So we can have body sensations that tell us these things. Like when we’re doing something that’s uncomfortable, our body is literally trying to give us, giving us symptoms

Avram: Yes.

Rachel: to say, Hey, hey, hey.

Get back in here.

Avram: Stay in the room,

Rachel: Stay in the room.

Avram: stay where it’s safe

Rachel: Stay. Yeah, exactly. Stay where it’s safe.

Avram: And so that’s what it means to say that intuition is a feedback mechanism

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: because what your intuition will tell you is exactly where the edges of your current reality are.

Rachel: Yes, yes,

Avram: Absolutely.

Rachel: And what, what your nervous system and this reality will not tell you is all the possibilities outside of that comfort zone.

Avram: Yeah.

Rachel: And there are so many, I’m so excited to tell the story about what I discovered was beyond my comfort zone.

Avram: Yes. So this will tee it up for you perfectly. Okay. When your intuition is telling you like, this is right, you know. And you’re treating it as the guide. Okay. That’s making that distinction. You’re treating it as the guide, as the answer, as you know, what my intuition says is what I need to do, what I should do.

When you’re getting those good feelings, what what you’re actually getting is the feedback that this is inside my comfort zone and what I know as you know,

Rachel: Yeah, let’s properly label it possible. These feelings mean this, right? Yeah.

Avram: And then when you get the bad feelings, the Spidey senses quote that is giving you feedback that you have now bumped up against things that you have judged or decided are unsafe, hard, difficult, beyond you.

Rachel: I can’t have this.

Avram: right? And so that’s why it’s important to say that like this is not a discrediting of intuition.

Rachel: Yep.

Avram: It is a proper alignment with what its job and role actually is. So I would love to hear your story about how you decided you were going to completely flip the script on your intuition

Rachel: Yep. Yeah, and, and, uh, I’m so excited to tell this story because, um, now I understand what I did in the, in the moment. I just had this, this theory that if I’d always done what I’ve always done, I’m always going to get what I’ve always gotten. So. If I changed what I do, then could I get something different?

That was my hypothesis. And let me tell you the story.

Avram: I was in an eight year marriage and I was miserable and I left Montana, which is where my ex and I lived, and I chose to return to New Mexico where I grew up. I really didn’t wanna go back to New Mexico, but I did. And I was living with a younger brother that had a small boy and another on the way, and I had in my marriage, um, to my ex basically conceded to not having children is okay. And uh, as I was there with my brother, I realized, you know what, that’s not true. I, that is a deal breaker for me. I want children. So I left Montana and I then proceeded with divorce proceedings and, um, I was just, one day I was thinking, okay, so, you know. I am the common denominator in this.

Rachel: I was with this man that was abusive and mean and unkind and all these different things, and I want another relationship and I want children. How can I find someone that would treat me like I treat people and what can I change to have that? And so I realized I was the common gen denominator. And I would change what I chose to do in situations.

So when I came up against anything really.

Avram: Well, you, you, the way you shared it with me was that you got here to New Mexico. And you did what you just said, but then you found yourself in another relationship that was eerily like,

Rachel: Yes.

Avram: that’s when you had this big wake up

Rachel: That was probably the see it all. I’m in this great relationship now, so some of it goes away. Yeah. So yeah, I did find myself in this. Actually eerily familiar situation. And what was really cool is I recognized and stood up for myself right then and there, and I got out and I, I didn’t apologize to the guy I just left.

I, I didn’t drag it out. I was just done. And I didn’t care about his feelings. And that was a, for a first thing, first thing for me, for first time in my life ever doing that. And I started making decisions opposite from what I normally would. And I did things that were uncomfortable. I stayed. I actually, roomed with a friend.

I stayed at her house with her and her husband and her little son. And, um, she was such a blessing in my life because she helped me get out of my comfort zone. She helped me do things that I would never have done and I just continued doing opposite things. And I have told the story a hundred times, probably it feels like about how I met you, but, um.

There was this one time just you had told me, you know, you were just talking to me outside of a restaurant and you told me that, um, you know, I, I had told you my ex didn’t choose me and I was really mourning that and I’d given him eight years of my life and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you just looked at me and you just really, you, you kind of connected to my soul and you said. I may not, I’m not your forever person and you’re not my forever person, but I’m choosing you right now. And those words changed me because I had realized that I had been putting off actually committing to a relationship

Avram: with you. That I actually, to be honest, felt like you were out of my league, but I was keeping an open mind and.

Rachel: In that moment, I realized that I had been holding it back. I had wondered why our relationship maybe hadn’t advanced or we weren’t together, and uh, I realized that I was the person holding us back because you told me we weren’t our forever people in that moment. But I realized with the conversations that I’d had with you, that if my decisions changed, that reality could change.

And that’s where I, uh, I just changed so much. And, uh, but I did the opposite and I didn’t know what I was doing. But what I was doing is I was stepping before I knew where my foot would land. And that is a first for me. I would always follow my intuition. I would follow my gut. I grew up Mormon.

I felt like, you know, I needed to listen to someone else and someone else had the answers, but really, I had the answers all along and I got you. And now I have two boys, two beautiful boys.

Avram: Yeah, it’s a powerful story about getting outta your comfort zone.

Rachel: Yeah,

Avram: Uh, which is cliche,

Rachel: right, right.

Avram: Right. But it is also flying in the face of what we’ve been taught about intuition,

Rachel: Absolutely.

Avram: Right? Because if intuition was your guide and you followed everything that it told you to do, you would have stayed in that second relationship.

Rachel: Absolutely. Well, and and I, I think that’s also the thing that, that makes for generational stuff. Yeah. Like if your parents are poor, you’re gonna be poor. If you are poor, your kids are gonna be poor. All that stuff stays the same. You know, I think about the movie made in Manhattan. Heaven forbid Jennifer Lopez wants to be a hotel manager management, she’s supposed to be a cleaning lady.

And when she gets fired from a job, she comes home, she’s gonna shower her mom here. She gets fired from the job and she’s like, what do you think you’re doing? I’m gonna call this friend and she’s gonna get you on and you can start cleaning immediately. And she said. No, I am going to be management. I’m going to get hired at this hotel and I’m gonna work my wallet way up and I’m gonna be management.

And it was like her mom was like, who? I think she actually said, who do you think you are? We are cleaners. We are nothing more. But we are so much more. Just because our parents did it doesn’t mean that we have to do it. We can change things.

Avram: So when you listen to intuition as a feedback for defining the walls of your current reality, it’s a powerful tool to expand your life.

Rachel: Yes,

Avram: So that’s what we wanted to share.

Rachel: if you, yeah.

Avram: when you, when you think about this for, for your children, you know, some of your instincts, your knee jerk reactions might simply be founded on belief systems that were passed down to you by your parents.

Rachel: Right. They may not even be yours.

Avram: They may not even be yours, right? And so they’re worth examining. It’s like, why do I feel so worked up about this thing with my kid?

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: That’s a great, great place to start. Why?

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: Where did this come from?

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: You know, you’re gonna have a strong feeling about how you should or shouldn’t parent. Parent your child.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: You know, and, and all that stuff is going off inside of you. You know, it’s like your intuition is begging you to explore where this stuff actually came from.

Rachel: Right,

Avram: It’s not telling you to not do a thing. It’s not telling you to that you should do a thing. It’s just telling

Rachel: not saying good or bad either.

Avram: not saying good or bad either.

It’s just

Rachel: simply telling you this, this is the, this is the thing,

Avram: right.

Rachel: right?

Avram: That’s it when you look at it in business. I think the one thing that I’ve been experiencing in a very massive way since coming back from Texas is that my intuition was when I was treating it as the guide, when I was taking it too seriously, I allowed it to talk me out of my greatness on a daily basis.

Rachel: Absolutely. And you, instead of stepping into the power, the powerful person that you are, just feeling that intensity and and backing away.

Avram: Yeah, yeah,

Rachel: I know that it’s been really incredible to watch you on that side.

Avram: Yeah. I would, I would do things like, um, make up, make up reasons why not to call the prospect back,

Rachel: Yeah, or, or make up a reason to not create this video or create a simple reel and say something, whatever that is

Avram: Mm-hmm.

Rachel: that is brilliant. You’d just be in the, you’ve told me that, you know, you would be so much in the, well, maybe it’s not important. Maybe no one would care, but it doesn’t really matter.

Avram: And that was all just like very disguised re
sistance and all of that, just trying to keep me safe in the bubble and the construct that I created and decided was better than everything outside of it.

Rachel: Yeah.

Avram: But you’ve never heard a story about breakthroughs or transformation that existed inside the box Have you?

Rachel: Yeah, I think it’s called a breakthrough for a reason.

Avram: Yeah, yeah. ’cause you bust through the damn box.

Rachel: you, you break perceptions. So very, very excited to have shared this and I hope that you got something from it today because we sure did. With our experience learning that intuition is not the guide, that it’s not its proper position in our life and to achieve what we want and to achieve really anything it is.

Feedback. It’s telling us where we are.

Avram: Yep. Super cool Revelation. We appreciate you for listening today. If you got something out of it, simply let us know. You can always email us at hello@babiesandbiz.com. We’re taking show ideas, questions, submissions for our next 100 episodes, right? I think this is like 1 0 2 or something like that. Can’t believe we crossed a hundred here.

So we’re just grateful that you’re here to listen and we’re always gonna be here to share and guide, guide, share with other entrepreneur parents. Just the things that have worked for us, not worked for us, and anything that might help you build a business while raising a family. Yep. So with that, we’ll catch you in the next episode.

Rachel: Bye for now.