Follow Your Gut Feeling

My 14-year-old daughter Amazon’s English homework on following your gut feeling for success in life is inspiring. She is writing about Magnus Walker, who is about my age and nicknamed Urban Outlaw. This time, for a change, I’m embedding my comments into what she wrote. 

Magnus Walker has a successful clothing business and a film location company. It’s located in California. He raced, restored and collected quite a few classic Porsches. Porsche is a brand of luxury car. He didn’t have any training in any of these subjects.

Have you wondered too that his jobs were all over the map?!! A quick Google search tells me he comes from humble backgrounds. He is a British fashion designer, creator of Serious Clothing, a brand worn by the likes of Bruce Willis, Madonna and Alice Cooper. He is also a car collector.

He grew up in a small town in England. It was nothing fancy. From a young age he had a love for Porsches. When he was ten he wrote a letter to Porsche. It said that he wanted to design for them. He got a reply. They said “Maybe when you are older.”

He must have been a child with great aspirations and high confidence.  And, a Porsche employee made time to write him a reply!

He left school when he was fifteen. He did the odd job. He started hearing “Cut your hair. Get a real job.” comments. He worked on construction sites.

Yet another name who attained success in life without following the academic route!

This “Cut your hair. Get a areal job,” approach resembles “Get a government job so you have a steady income and job security,” approach we have in our culture. But when you shut yourself to your gut feeling for security, you don’t really live!

Have you read my article about Why Do You Care So Much What Other People Say?

When he was seventeen he hadn’t cut his hair but he was thinking of getting a job. A year later he heard of something called Camp America. It was a real summer camp in America.

Walker’s relationship with America was based on TV shows. It was idealistic.

He took a leap of faith. He applied to Camp America. When his gut tells him to do something it generally has a desirable outcome. He was accepted. He went to America and quickly adapted.

This guy is flexible and does not seem to stop with fear; which is the precursor of being able to get in touch with gut feelings to follow!

The camp was over. He went to Los Angeles. He found himself buying a pair of trousers. A few streets away he saw a retail shop. The person working there asked “Where did you get those pants?” Walker jokingly replied “Why? Are you going to buy them?” The guy said “Sure. How much?”  Walker hadn’t planned on selling the trousers. He said the first number that he thought of “twenty five dollars.” The other guy said “I’ll take eight.”

Life offers opportunities. The question is, are you there to follow?

Walker went back to the shop that he bought the trousers. He bought more. He returned to the retail shop. He made a profit of fifteen dollars per trouser.

In 1988 he started selling secondhand clothing. Little by little this became a business. It was called Serious Clothing. In 1994 he realised that the location he was in was putting him at a disadvantage.

Walker and his wife were business partners. They moved to downtown LA. They bought a building in an industrial estate. People asked “Why would you want to live there?” Walker answered “Because it felt good.” It was his gut feeling.

Gut feeling does not follow logic. When you have a gut feeling it is better to follow it rather than to try to convince others why you do what you do. I know you might get hurt and you might be criticized for your failures. But they are your failures and you are supposed to learn the right lessons from them, not loose confidence.

A year later he got a phone call. Someone wanted to rent the building for a music video. Walker found himself in the film location business. He has been in the film world since 2001. Low budget films, stills, high budget movies were shot in that building. Even reality shows were filmed. He met a lot of unique people.

What! He went into film too?

He hadn’t intended to start a film location company. He was in the process of constructing his dream. He was living on the top floor of his house.  He operated his clothing company from the first floor.

Walker fell into success. How did he do it? He followed his gut feeling.

He does not fall into success; he achieves success because he is not afraid of failing, learns from his mistakes, does what he likes and lives a passionate life.

We mentioned that he had a passion for the Porsche. He bought his first Porsche in 1992. He started racing them. After doing that for a while he started restoring them. He had no mechanical training. Yet he had passion.

Passion goes a long way. If you have the will, desire, the correct motivation and focus you will see results. A little luck and a few leaps of faith will also help.

I could not agree more! Intention, motivation and focus are the fundamentals of a happy life. Success is only the result of a happy life.

Walker had pivotal moments in his life. They led to new business opportunities. He always did what he loved to do.

A fellow Porsche lover got in touch with Walker. He wanted to make a documentary about them. Walker agreed to make it with him. This project was on a complete whim. It was thirty two minutes long. They filmed it in four days.

Everyone who worked on it was volunteering. They were doing it as a side job.

The trailer was published in June 2012. No one knew what had happened. The trailer got picked up by Top Gear. In the first day of releasing it had fifty thousand views.

Because of this film Walker was approached by Porsche. He ended up being featured in their Porsche Classics seminars. He was approached by Nike and Oakley. Nike is a famous shoe brand. Oakley is a popular sunglasses company.  He was visited by Bentley’s chief designer as well as people from BMM and Volvo. They make luxury vehicles. They asked his opinions.

After Walker had run Serious Clothing for twenty years his enthusiasm started to wane. He decided to let it go. This gave him more freedom. He didn’t know what to expect. He knew it would be something good. He just let his life unfold.

Here is an important feature of successful people; ability to let go of the old to open space for the new!

Walker is a man who does his own thing. People have a positive response to him. He follows his gut feelings. When things feel awkward he takes leaps of faith. This generally means that he is on the right track.

Do what you love. Allow yourself the freedom to do it. Live your life to the fullest. If you have a good feeling about something, take it. Don’t be afraid to take chances. Trust your dreams. Always run after them. Your dreams might change. That is okay. Just remember to learn from the experiences that they provide.

People can’t tell you what to do. They can only advise you. It is your choice to take that advice.

Remember you are your own boss! He is the one who did not get his hair cut to get a job, although he could have done. Be selective about following any advice. Do not throw the baby with the water though.

Be sensible. This document doesn’t tell you to senselessly do stuff. Don’t do idiotic things on the basis that it was your gut telling you to do it. You still have to work and put effort in to life. Success requires the correct type of work.

Yet you can still take leaps of faith.

This is not the first post of Amazon’s I am sharing with you!  Life Changing Decisions was the first one.

Here is the link for the Ted Talk Walker delivered, Amazon studied.  It is a brilliant piece of writing; I might take after her style style!

https://soundcloud.com/irem-bray/follow-your-gut-feeling