September
26th, 1983.
Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, is on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker, a secret command centre near Moscow.
It’s a normal, uneventful shift when suddenly the alarm system
in the bunker starts to blare.
Petrov checks his monitors.
The Soviet early warning systems are reporting that the United States have just launched several nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles.
They’re heading straight for Soviet Russia.
Petrov knows the protocol inside out. He needs to alert his superiors immediately. And once he's done this, the Soviet Union will likely launch a nuclear strike in retaliation.
But something feels off to Petrov.
In that moment, he makes a bold call. He decides not to follow protocol.
In fact, he
decides to do nothing at all.
He's playing a hunch.
A hunch that says that if the United States were launching a nuclear strike, they’d have launched many more missiles than his system was reporting.
So there must be a bug in his system.
The outcome?
Turns out Petrov was right. The Soviet early warning systems had been
triggered by sunlight reflecting off high altitude clouds in the sky.
Crisis narrowly averted.
Which begs the question...
How did Petrov arrive at his decision? And quite possibly save the lives of millions of people in the process?
After all, he had no way of knowing that the warnings were based on duff information.
But he
did know what his instincts were telling him. And he understood, on some level, the importance of his instincts.
So he listened, and he acted accordingly.
And Petrov was right.
Our instincts are important. They do matter.
On some level, they’re all that matter.
This statement might gall the intellectual
types who see instincts as annoying feelings which distract them from whatever outputs their logical, analytical minds have computed most recently.
To them, it’s all about brainpower and IQ.
They might even be too busy weighing up the
contents of this email right now to sense the whiff of truth in what I’m saying.
Ironic, no?
Anyway, I’m talking as much to myself here as I am to anyone else.
Whatever else was going on in my life, I always thought that analysing & rationalising was solid ground.
That my noggin was the place I could hang my hat.
But I don't believe this any more.
And when it comes to navigating your life and making those big, hairy life decisions, thinking & analysing might not be as smartypants a move as many people think it is.
Crunching endless reams of data, options and pros & cons might even be what stops people from arriving at the right decision - or any decision at all.
Whilst, in the process, taking up extreme amounts of headspace and creating a bucketload of stress & worry.
Maybe you disagree.
That's fine. I don't expect you to take this on blind faith.
If you like, you can dip your toe in the water. Test your instincts
on something small and take it from there.
Or, if you'd prefer, we can talk about how I could support you to get more clarity on whatever big decisions you're facing.
If so:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com
That's enough for today.
Have a great weekend.