SPI 580: How to Listen to and Follow Your Intuition with Benjamin Yeh

SPI 580: How to Listen to and Follow Your Intuition with Benjamin Yeh

Pat Flynn: Hey. It’s Pat here. You’re about to listen to something a little different on the show today. It’s not our usual Friday format where I follow up on Wednesday’s episode. Don’t worry. Those aren’t going away forever. Just a little break, to bring in something even more special in my opinion. And this episode in the next few are a part of our teaching Friday series, which we do with our SPI Pro members. We have an incredibly talented pool of people within SPI Pro. So we thought, why not give our pros the spotlight and teach you here on the podcast every once in a while? It’s just one of the perks of being a part of pro in fact, is this possibility. With each episode, you get to hear a different pro teach you something special from their area of expertise. Without further ado, I’ll let them take it away. And if you want to find out more about SPI Pro and be a part of it, you can go ahead and apply at spipro.com.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Smart Passive Income podcast, where it’s all about working hard now, so you can sit back and reap the benefits later. And now your guest host, one of his favorite movies is Sneakers, which not only inspired him to be a magician, but also inspired how he created the title of his podcast, Benjamin Yeh.

Benjamin Yeh: How many times as an entrepreneur or throughout your life, have you made decisions that logically made sense at the moment, but your intuition or your gut feeling was saying to complete opposite? And then in hindsight, after the fact, your intuition was the right call, but you didn’t follow it. Do you find this happens to you repeatedly, and yet you still don’t follow your intuition?

Benjamin Yeh: Hi folks. My name is Benjamin Yeh. And I’m a business and transformation coach. I started listening to Pat’s SPI podcast back in 2016 when I left my corporate career as an investment officer. Before taking that leap of faith into entrepreneurship, I was very analytical, left-brained, and 100% logic based. It was a vision that came to me after my son was born, that changed my entire life. That vision sparked my spiritual journey when I started to truly understand just how much everything is interconnected. By combining my investment experience, spiritual growth, and intuitive gift for the past decade, I coach driven entrepreneurs, how to gain clarity and discovering their true north, and start thriving in a life that they’re meant to create.

Benjamin Yeh: Why this is relevant in today’s session? Is that back when I was an investment officer, I invested over $1 billion within a span of seven years; anywhere from real estate to startups and direct private equity deals. After investing and seeing all the successes and failures of CEOs in different business cycles, I realized that the foundation that your business is built on is oftentimes equally, if not more important than the how, the execution. If you have a burning desire to learn how to build success on top of a solid foundation of your mind, body and soul, subscribe to my Boom Vision podcast. If you’re searching for a business and transformation coach that can guide you to discover your true north, if you’re ready to start thriving in your business and have fun doing it, connect with me at www.benjaminyeh.com, that’s spelled B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N-Y-E-H.com. And follow me on Instagram @BenjaminYeh.

Benjamin Yeh: What are we going to cover in today’s episode? How do you learn how to listen and follow your intuition? I got to say, it feels surreal that I’m sharing today’s session with you all on SPI. I am ecstatic to be here. There’s tons to cover, so let’s dive right in. I’ll be covering three topics. The first topic is the why. Before you learn how, you have to learn to why first. Why does it matter to learn how to follow your intuition? This is where I explain the three core pillars of a powerful mindset. The second topic is the how. How do you follow your intuition? And then the third topic is action steps. I’m going to walk you through how to strengthen your mindset. And how to learn how to better connect with your intuition with two frameworks, the CAL method, and creating your ritual.

Benjamin Yeh: So the first topic, why. There’s a quote I want to share. I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I’m right. I do not know that I am. This quote was by Albert Einstein. One of the most prolific intellects of our human history, said that he believes in intuition and inspiration. Why is following your intuition important? As Marty McFly was saying in Back to the Future, “this is heavy, Doc.” Because you know what? This is heavy, because there’s tons to unpack here. The three core pillars of building a powerful mindset is imagination, voice, and intuition. Why are these three things so important? It’s because your imagination is what enables your mind to see. Your voice or inner voice is what your mind hears. And your intuition is what your soul wants you to feel. What you see internally, what you hear internally, and what you feel internally, creates your inner world that magnifies your outer reality.

Benjamin Yeh: So, let’s break this down. The first one is imagination. Let me ask you. Would you ever drive your car with your eyes closed? That’d be crazy, right? You being a driver of your car, your vehicle is no different than your mind being the driver of your physical body, your personal vehicle. If you think driving your car with your eyes wide shut is ridiculous and I’m not including Tesla self-driving here, imagine you being operating or driving your life without any vision. The second core pillar is voice or inner voice. Let me ask. How often do you say to yourself, “I can’t. I don’t know how. I’m not a public speaker. I’m not a content creator. I’m not good enough. Wait, my voice sounds like that? No. No one’s going to want to listen to me. That’s not you. Don’t even try”? I like to share a quote, “whether you think you can or you can’t, either way you’re right.” That quote was by Henry Ford. If you have a tendency to have negative self-talk, where does that come from? Your inner voice is not coming from your conscious mind. It is an output of old programming in your subconscious operating system.

Benjamin Yeh: So, before I lose you, what’s the difference between conscious and subconscious mind? The conscious mind involves all the things that you’re currently aware of and thinking about. It’s when you’re actively using your logic and left brain. Your subconscious mind, that is our programmed mind. This is where our internal operating system resides. Our subconscious mind, our internal operating system, is what I call SOS, subconscious operating system. We get our first installation of software during our first seven years of our lives. Dr. Bruce Lipton has said that 70% of our programs we download for our subconscious minds, are negative and disempowering. That means as toddlers, you hear two nos for every one yes. I mean, it’s no wonder why you might see the world half empty instead of half full.

Benjamin Yeh: I like to share a personal story. When my son first started walking, he was like a little tank. He would find all the corners and the tables in the house. And so, when I see his head about to bump into a corner, I would say, “No, no. Don’t do that.” Within a span of one second, I said five no’s. And so when I heard this quote, it really hit it home for me. It made me more aware of the language I use in front of my kids. Do I say more no’s than yes? And so, the main takeaway I want to get from this is that, if you have a tendency to have negative inner voice, negative self-talk, it’s most likely because you had old SOS programming that you downloaded it as a child. It’s not you. I don’t want you to be hard on yourself. Do you tend to say, I can’t, more often than you say, I can? Do you say that’s not me, more often than, that can be me? The key is after having this awareness, what are you doing to consciously upgrade your SOS? Are you using language that’s empowering you to where you want to go in this next stage of your life? Or are you holding your old SOS programming that might be negative and disempowering?

Benjamin Yeh: The third core pillar is intuition. And a definition of intuition is the ability to understand something immediately without the need for conscious reasoning. It’s when you have that gut feeling. If you recall an SPI episode, two-zero-seven, with Jess Lively, Jess is a very successful entrepreneur that learned early on how to listen to her own intuition in making different pivots in her life. Jess says intuition is a deep, peaceful place where she called a water well. And that it’s within typically our stomachs, but sometimes our hearts too. How I define intuition, it’s that it’s your soul’s GPS. It’s your internal guidance system that’s communicating to you, if you’re on the right track or if you need to course correct. Whether you see this coming from a higher source, your higher self, or simply your gut feeling, your soul’s GPS is innately connected with your soul to help guide you towards your best path forward.

Benjamin Yeh: As a recap of why. Why are these three core pillars important in building a powerful mindset? I like you to use your imagination. Can you imagine driving with your eyes closed, music blasting so loud inside a car, that you’re unable to hear any outside car honking at you if there’s imminent danger. If you have no sense of feeling on how hard or soft you’re pressing the gas pedal, and you don’t know how to use a GPS system to help guide you where you want to go. Can you imagine that? If I only share how to activate your soul GPS, but if your windshield might still be foggy and your music is still too loud to hear any clear signals, I would be doing you a disservice, because I wouldn’t be giving you the clarity you need to effectively move forward in achieving your goals. This is why it’s important to understand how these three core pillars are all interconnected in building a powerful mindset.

Benjamin Yeh: And so, the second topic, how. Now that we established the why, let’s talk about the how. How do I make the distinction between my inner voice and intuition? How do I trust my intuition? Teaching someone how to use their intuition is similar to teaching someone how to ride a bicycle. What do I mean? If you’re teaching someone how to ride a bike, you need to teach them how to experience a balance of speed and balance. Similar to intuition, I need to walk you through the balance of two concepts, and that’s energy and internal alternator.

Benjamin Yeh: So energy. There’s a quote I want to share. Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. This is another famous quote by Albert Einstein. What’s fascinating is that emotional energy works the same way. What we feel, what we think, the state of mind we’re in, carries different energies with it. If you choose to suppress or hold onto your emotional energy, rather than allow your emotions to flow fully through your body, one of three things happen. That emotional energy gets stored either in a different part of your conscious mind, a different part of your SOS, your subconscious operating system, or a different part of your physical body. In this context, once your emotional energy is activated, your emotional energy can only change from one form to another.

Benjamin Yeh: Do you all remember in SPI episode 551 with Marisa Pier? How she describes it is that if you’ve been lying to yourself where limiting beliefs that you held onto is what you believe to be true. Well, that carries a certain type of energy with it. How I interpret this, is that if you store that emotional energy in your conscious mind, SOS, or a different part of your physical body, that won’t get released until you change its form. An analogy I use often is that, if your business is your car, a lot of people focus on just upgrading to a faster car with more horsepower. It’s like when they want to upgrade their Camry to a Ferrari, because they want to go faster. But it’s never about the car. Do you know why? That 10,000-pound emotional baggage that you’re carrying in the back of your trunk, that gets transferred even when you upgrade from a Camry to a Ferrari. By letting go of that 10,000-pound emotional baggage, you will already go faster. It’s never about the car. And so the main takeaway on energy, is that energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. Emotional energy works the same way. If you don’t let it flow naturally through your body, if you hold onto your emotional energy or suppress it, this will make it difficult for your IA, your internal alternator, to work effectively.

Benjamin Yeh: So, what is IA, internal alternator? Let me give you an example of what a car alternator is. An alternator is a type of electric generator used in cars to charge the battery and to power the electrical system when an engine is running. So, an example is that if you’ve ever accidentally left a light on inside your car overnight, have you ever gotten the advice to drive a car around a block a couple times to charge a battery? I remember hearing this from my parents back in the days, and I never understood the mechanics of how that actually worked, but it always worked. That was the alternator. Now, the internal alternator, your IA, is an important piece that transforms your emotional energy in your body. Your IA takes your emotional energy and generates electric energy throughout your body, either recharging or discharging your body’s physical and mental energy.

Benjamin Yeh: A great example of recharging is Michael Jordan. If you’ve ever seen the Last Dance, it’s a great documentary about Michael Jordan’s amazing career in basketball. There were multiple times throughout his career where someone would say something or do something that MJ took personally. And when MJ took a particular incident personally, his IA, his internal alternator converted his emotional energy that would completely recharge his mental and physical energy. This shift allowed MJ to be laser focused, and completely dominate the next game he’s playing.

Benjamin Yeh: Now, what’s an example of discharge? An example is like if you just found out you lost a key client or customer that accounts for a chunk of your revenue. That can just zap the energy out of you. Right? As a personal example, I share a personal story of my childhood in episode four of Boom Vision, where I dive deep into the topic of intuition. To make a long story short, I experience my own traumatic experience in middle school that left me very emotionally hurt when it came to relationships. I told myself that day that I would never let anyone hurt me like that again. As a pure act of self defense, I literally altered my IA so that I would emotionally shut down when I sensed any fear of getting emotionally hurt.

Benjamin Yeh: But what is fear? Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real F-E-A-R. Now why is this relevant by altering my IA, I inadvertently blocked my progress to communicate and trust my own intuition, and became more heavily reliant on my left brain, my logic brain. Can any of you relate to this, where your past experience may have led you to alter your IA, your internal alternator? In hindsight, when I altered my IA, I essentially pushed the mute button of my intuition, and hindered my ability to either see, hear, or feel my soul’s GPS. As a recap, just like how speed and balance are both important to learn how to ride a bike, if your IA is not working properly and you’re suppressing or holding onto negative emotional energy, this can inhibit yourself from trusting your intuition.

Benjamin Yeh: Now, here’s the thing. Everyone, everyone has intuition. Everyone has a soul GPS within you. The question is whether you choose to learn how your intuition, your soul GPS is communicating with you. If you’ve ever had that gut feeling, but choose to ignore it because it didn’t logically make sense, only to find out later that it was the totally the right call, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The thing about your soul GPS is that you have to pay attention to how your soul GPS, your intuition is trying to communicate with you.

Benjamin Yeh: It can come in three different forms. It could be visual, auditory, or a feeling. For some folks, you might see a flash of vision that pops in your head. It’s like an image or a movie trailer. For others, you might hear a voice that sounds different from your own inner voice. The tone is different. That intuitive voice isn’t charged with emotion. It’s usually subtle and neutral in tone. And the third way is through feeling. You might feel sensation in your body. Your heart might feel warm. You might get a tingling sensation along your spine. The one tip I’ll share is that when your soul GPS is communicating with you, it does not make you feel negative emotion like guilt or regret. It’s neutral and calm. It’s a subtle message letting you know if you’re heading in a right direction or if you need to course correct.

Benjamin Yeh: So, the third topic is action steps. There’s two frameworks that I want to share. The first framework is the CAL method, the C-A-L method. This will help you bring awareness to how to tune in and cultivate your intuition. The C stands for calm. It’s much easier to tune in to the frequency of your intuition when you’re in a calm state of mind. So, do exercises that can calm your mind. It could be meditation or breath work exercises. It could be running or doing yoga. Find an easy exercise to calm your mind. The key is to make it simple, so it becomes a habit.

Benjamin Yeh: As a special treat for today’s SPI listeners, let me walk you through an easy one minute breath work meditation exercise. Sit in a relaxed state somewhere that is quiet. The key to this breathing exercise is to take long, deep breaths. So listen to my voice as you close your eyes. We’re going to breathe in through our nose, and then we’re going to exhale through our mouth. Feel free to express a long sigh, so that you’re releasing your internal stress, worries, or anxieties. When your exhalation is longer than your inhalation, you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, and your body enters a state of relaxation, calming your state of mind. Ready? Here we go. Inhale two, three, four. Hold. Exhale. Two, three, four, five. Inhale. Feel the positive life force in your nose and down to your belly. Exhale, and release your stress. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Let the air go down to your belly. Exhale, release your stress.

Benjamin Yeh: How does everyone feel? Do you feel less stress and more calm through this exercise? So, A stands for awareness. Bring awareness to your present moment. In your calm state, ask yourself, “Do I let my emotions flow or do I hold onto any negative emotions? Do I allow myself to trust my intuition? If not, why not?” L stands for language. Listen to your own language. Ask yourself simple questions to establish communication with your soul GPS. What’s the language that your soul GPS is communicating you with?

Benjamin Yeh: A simple exercise you can do is imagine each of your hands palms up, representing something different. So, pick one hand that represents yes and another hand that represents no. When you determine which hands represents, what, ask yourself, “intuition, can you show me what a yes looks like?” If you close your eyes, can you see one hand becoming brighter with light? Do hear the voice yes? Or do you feel one hand becoming heavier than the other? Do simple tests to establish how your intuition is communicating and signaling to you what a yes looks like. You also want to ask the opposite. “Intuition, can you show me what a no feels like?” Once you get a hang of how your intuition is signaling a yes or no, start asking simple questions to start building a relationship with your soul GPS. For example, should I fly or drive in this upcoming trip? Is it my highest and best to go with vendor A or vendor B? Is it my highest and best to buy this digital course now?

Benjamin Yeh: Ask simple questions to start building that relationship. The key is to start with one question until you get a signal. You don’t want to ask multiple questions all at the same time. Just take a moment to sit still with your question, and see what unfolds. Pay attention and journal your experience. And if you sit with your question and nothing comes up, don’t stress about it. Just go by your day and your intuition by signal to you at a different moment. This may be your first time exercising in your mental gym. So, it might feel weird to do that first rep of this exercise. So be kind to yourself.

Benjamin Yeh: The second framework is create your ritual. Creating your own morning ritual is a very powerful way to energize your mindset in achieving your goals. This framework is to help reprogram your SOS. The biggest factor that stops people in progressing forward is self doubt. So, how do you go over that hump? You need to create your own ritual that gets you in your zone of genius. And so, there’s four steps in creating a ritual. The first step is getting to a calm state. As I mentioned before, it could be meditation, jogging, or simply that one-minute breathwork exercise that I went over.

Benjamin Yeh: The second step is set your intentions. The statement I want you to say aloud is, “My intention for achieving X is Y because it makes me feel Z.” My personal example is that my intention for growing my podcast is to empower entrepreneurs that have a burning desire to create abundant success on solid foundation of their mind, body, and soul. Empowering and transforming entrepreneurs makes my soul feel so alive and fulfilled. The third step is, pick a song that raises your energy and vibration to help you get in your zone in achieving your goal. Does feeling higher energy, feeling confidence, or feeling more self love enable you to be in your zone? Hold your intentions you’ve set in step two in your mind, as you listen to a song that raises your vibration. Feel through the song as you play it out in your mind. What does it feel like achieving your goal?

Benjamin Yeh: The fourth and final step is making a declaration out loud. After you listen to your song, I want you to say, “I am.” Find a word that resonates with you. “I am unstoppable. I am worthy. I am intuitive.” Do you know why, I am, is so powerful? I am. I-A-M. I stands for intentions, A stands for actions, and M stands for manifestations. What you put your intentions to, what you back it up with your actions, you manifest. With clarity in your intentions, and when you take actions and declaring out loud, I am, you’re creating such a powerful energy behind your statement. So, for the next three days, do your best in taking these action steps. Go through the CAL method. Journal what comes up to you. And see how your soul GPS is communicating with you. Create your own ritual that gets you in your zone.

Benjamin Yeh: Remember, learning how to activate your intuition takes practice and patience. And if it doesn’t come naturally in the beginning, please don’t stress about it. Did you learn how to ride a bike on your first try? Most likely not. So, please don’t stress about it. You have to give yourself the space to be open and curious. All that I ask is that you don’t give up.

Benjamin Yeh: So, final thoughts. I’d like to share a quote. “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant.” We have created a society that honors the servant, and has forgotten the gift. This is a quote also by Albert Einstein. There’s another quote I want to share. “Be curious, not judgmental.” This was by Walt Whitman. Why I bring this quote up is that, I want you allow yourself to start trusting your intuition. But in order to do so, you have to be curious. If your inner voice, if your SOS has old, pre-programming that’s speaking more from a judgmental tone, be kind to yourself because it’s time to upgrade your SOS language. Give yourself the space to be curious, not judgmental. Quiet that white noise that you can allow your intuitive signals to come through. Your intuition, whether it’s shared by images, a voice, or feeling, doesn’t come with an emotional or judgmental tone. It’s usually very subtle hints, and it comes from a place of love. So, you got to turn off your wind tunnel to allow your message to come through. Your intuition, your soul GPS, is a powerful ability to nurture, if you give yourself the space to be curious and ask different questions. Imagine making better intuitive decisions for your business, and creating a life that you’re meant to create. You’ve got this.

Benjamin Yeh: Folks, it’s been such an honor to serve you today in this SPI episode. I want to thank Pat and the SPI team, in giving me this opportunity to serve you. I sincerely hope you experience breakthroughs as you go through the CAL method, and create your own ritual. As a bonus to the SPI audience, I’ve created several free downloads exclusively for SPI listeners. If you head over to Benjaminyeh.com/spi, I’ve created a free MP3 file that you can download on your phone, which is the one-minute breath work meditation we went over. This makes it really simple for you to bring calmness in your life as you set your intentions. The second freebie is, I’ve created three music playlists that I personally curated, if you’re searching for a song to get you in your zone. Whether you’re looking for high energy, confidence, or healing and self love. I love to hear from you. Send me a DM on Instagram, and let me know how effective the CAL method or what ritual you created that works for you.

Benjamin Yeh: If you’re searching for the right business and transformation coach to guide you on how to truly start thriving in your business and have fun doing it, you can check out my testimonials on my website at benjaminyeh.com. Feel free to book a discovery call, and let me know you’re an SPI listener. I’m happy to connect, and see if we’re a good fit. If you resonate with what I shared in today’s episode, I love for you to subscribe to my Boom Vision podcast. If you have a strong desire to create a happy and abundant life on a solid foundation of mind, body, and soul, I really appreciate you listening today. My name is Benjamin Yeh. And as always, be kind to yourself, be in delight, be you.

Pat Flynn: Thanks for listening to the Smart Passive Income podcast at smartpassiveincome.com. I’m your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sara Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski, and our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. The Smart Passive Income podcast is a production of SPI Media. We’ll catch you in the next session.