When You Know, You Know: The Intuition Test
You already know the answer — the pros and cons list is procrastination with a spreadsheet.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 82%
O'Brady describes himself as a very analytical guy who has made pros-and-cons lists a million miles long. His finding is that on the biggest decisions, the analysis is theatre: you already know. The job offer across the country with the two kids embedded in their community; the four-year relationship and whether to buy the ring. No list resolves these, but the intuitive voice does — and it only gets loud in stillness. This is precisely what the 12-hour walk manufactures: strip out music, podcasts, and to-do lists for a day and the gut voice becomes the loudest thing in your head. It's the component he says Carol Dweck's growth mindset doesn't cover.
Origin
O'Brady credits intuition with quite literally saving his life on K2, where he experienced significant tragedy on the mountain and an inner knowing changed his decision. That chapter of the book is his case study for why the inner voice is not a soft skill. He generalized it after noticing the same pattern across his big life decisions — including quitting his Chicago commodities trading job the Monday after a sponsor offer, without a business plan, purely on gut.
Core principles
- 01On genuinely big decisions, you already know the answer.
- 02Analysis is useful at times but often becomes a way to kick the decision down the curb.
- 03The intuitive voice needs stillness to become audible.
- 04When you know, you know — then act on it.
- 05Intuition is a core component of possible mindset that growth mindset omits.
How to run it
- 1
Notice the list has stopped working
When the pros and cons list is a million miles long and each new entry changes nothing, the analysis has become avoidance.
Pro tip Ask: has any item added in the last hour actually moved the decision?
Watch out Being analytical is not a defence. O'Brady is analytical and says the list still doesn't answer the big ones.
- 2
Manufacture stillness
Strip the input. Extended time alone with no music, no podcasts, no phone — long enough that the surface chatter exhausts itself and the deeper voice comes forward.
Pro tip This is exactly what the 12-hour walk is engineered to produce; bring your big decision into it deliberately.
Watch out Modern life doesn't allow this stillness by default. It has to be scheduled.
- 3
Ask once and listen for the loud one
Pose the decision and note which voice gets loudest. That's your gut. When you know, you know.
Pro tip The answer is often the one you've already known and been avoiding naming.
- 4
Act on it
Intuition without action is just another form of the list. Once you know, move — O'Brady quit his job the Monday after his gut said yes.
Pro tip Trusting the instinct without the full business plan is the point; the plan iterates afterward.
In the wild
After winning the Chicago Triathlon, a fellow commodities trader at a barbecue offered to sponsor him — some plane tickets, couches to sleep on, peanut butter and jelly. He explicitly noted O'Brady was on a bright path with a Yale economics degree and a finance career that would pay for 30 years. O'Brady walked into his office on Monday and quit, not knowing how the business plan would work.
→ Five or six years racing triathlon professionally in 25 countries across six continents, and the platform that eventually led to ten world records and an eight-figure business exit.
O'Brady's illustration: you're lying in bed at 30, four years into a relationship, wondering whether to buy the ring. You could build a pros and cons list. The answer might be a resounding yes, this is my person — or it might not be.
→ His point is that you already know which one it is, and the list is only delaying the acknowledgment.
Common mistakes
Using analysis as a delay mechanism
Pros and cons lists and to-do lists let you kick the decision down the curb indefinitely while feeling productive about it. The decision never actually gets made.
Expecting intuition to speak over noise
The intuitive voice only gets loud in stillness. Trying to consult it while scrolling, commuting, and half-listening to a podcast guarantees you won't hear it.
Is it for you?
Best for
Self-described analytical types facing an irreversible life decision — a cross-country move, a proposal, quitting a job.
Not ideal for
Technical or financial decisions where the answer genuinely depends on data you haven't gathered yet.
From the transcript
“The fact of the matter is what I've realized in many, many big decisions in life is you actually do know. You do know the…”
“Go spend 12 hours by yourself. When you have a big decision that you think you're gonna weigh, I'll tell you the voice that gets…”
“The stillness that we don't allow ourselves too often, this modern society, that stillness allows that intuitive voice, a voice that quite literally saved my…”
From the episode
Colin O'Brady: Conquer Your Mind
Colin O'Brady