Trust Your Intuition: How a Gut Feeling Built Starbucks and Changed the World

I think we all know that breathtaking, electric moment when you randomly think of an old friend and your phone suddenly lights up with a text from them. Or you dream about someone you haven't seen in years, and then you bump right into them by the produce aisle at the grocery store. It is a natural, beautiful gift that we are all born with. So, I have to ask you, why do we treat it like something dark or taboo? Why do we hide this gorgeous inner compass?

I say to heck with hiding it. Let us use it.

After all, massive empires have been built on a simple gut feeling. This is an inspiring story of how a gut feeling built Starbucks. I carry it with me everywhere. And no, my friends, it has absolutely nothing to do with coffee. It is about something much more sacred. It is about having the fierce, quiet courage to listen to your own soul when the rest of the world is telling you that you have lost your mind.

Back in 1983, a young executive named Howard Schultz traveled to Italy and stumbled right into the beating heart of local espresso bars. He watched people laughing, lingering, and standing shoulder to shoulder. The coffee was great, sure, but the connection was the holy water. Right then and there, something beautiful stirred inside him. It was not a spreadsheet or market research. It was a profound, mystical knowing. He envisioned a place of warmth and humanity

back home.

The catch? Nobody else saw it. The experts doubted him, the founders rejected it, and the universe offered him zero guarantees. It would have been so easy, so safe, to just let the dream go. But Howard trusted that quiet inner whisper. He risked everything, faced relentless setbacks, and eventually built the global community we see today.

We celebrate the massive success now because it is visible, but I am utterly obsessed with the messy, lonely moment before the magic happened. I am talking about the moment when one person stood entirely alone with an idea that made sense to absolutely no one else. That is what intuition looks like, my fellow creatives. It does not arrive with a standing ovation. It arrives as a stubborn, quiet truth that simply refuses to leave you alone. The universe drops these little glimmers and shimmers of inspiration into all of our laps, and the only real question is, do we have the bravery to follow them?

When I tell you to take that intuitive hit and do what your higher self is whispering to you, I mean it with everything I have. Do it, no matter what. What do you have to lose? The world may not see things the way you do, but who cares! Feel the fear and do it anyway.

For years, I was a walking antenna for inspiration. I received hundreds of these magnificent, glowing intuitive hits for creative projects and business startups. And what did I do with them? Nothing. I let them sit there until they evaporated, or worse, until I watched someone else pick them up and run with them. Now, those exact endeavors are thriving out in the world, beautifully successful.

Sometimes I try to rationalize it. Perhaps they were never meant for me, I’ll tell myself. Perhaps I just let the skeptic brigade talk me out of my own magic. But if I’m being brutally honest, it was usually just that cold, paralyzing terror of the unknown.

But you know what? It doesn’t make a lick of difference now. Because right now, I am finally turning around to face the one big, stubborn idea that has been sitting patiently in my heart this entire time. It didn’t leave me, even when I ignored it. Of course, the chorus of doubters has already started, people love to tell you why your dream won't work or why you shouldn't dare to try. But I am finally learning how to turn the volume down on their fear so I can listen to my own quiet, unwavering truth. My intuition has never once let me down; it was just waiting for me to finally brave up and follow it.

I will continue to do what I love and follow where my intuition is leading me. It will take me somewhere beautiful, even if the destination is entirely unknown right now. For you, my friends, when that intuitive hit kicks in, remember it is not a rare superpower meant for a chosen few. Everyone has it. Use it, step out in faith, and see how your life changes. Oh, and trust me, how it will change.