How My Intuition Guided Me to Make Money
By: Rasheed Hooda
Tags: Investing, Intuition, Making Money, Life Lessons, Stock Market

I. A Little Background

When I was in middle school, I fell in love with “Imran Series.”

Imran was a goofball son of the police chief, who unbeknown to his father, and through a series of synchronous events, ends up being the chief of the secret service. Being the goofball that he was, he had to take on a behind-the-scene persona of X-2 that none of his subordinates ever meet in person.

A new novel came out every month. I grew up wishing to one day becoming Imran, who somehow mysteriously or synchronously found solutions to espionage problems. He was the epitome of Mister Weirdo.

I started to expect things to work out in my life, no matter how impossible they seemed, and somehow they always did.

That’s how I learned to trust my gut feelings.

II. Formal Introduction and Education

In the mid-1990s, while browsing in a bookstore, I came across Practical Intuition by Laura Day. It immediately caught my attention, and I bought it.

For the next several months, I immersed myself in what she was talking about and teaching. I did all the exercises and started applying what I learned to everyday living.

After a while, I lost interest because it became a kind of second nature. I had developed keen intuitive abilities without knowing, and it served me well.

Lucrative employment or business opportunities would show up “out of the blue” when I needed it most. I would hear from or run into people I was thinking of that I hadn’t in years. Most people would agree that it is not something unusual. Everyone has experienced it at some time in their lives.

Most people write it off as a weird coincidence. But that is exactly what it is — co-incidence. Two events that are connected. Our intuition is the connecting agency.

Laura Day does a wonderful job of presenting many examples from her students and clients. She provides exercises to help us develop awareness and trust in our innate ability to use it.

Anita Moorjani, author of the best-selling book Dying to Be Me, says that we are six-sensory beings who are taught that we are five-sensory beings. Not only that but, those of us who are keenly aware of what is known as the sixth sense are ridiculed and discouraged to use it.

We are told that “it’s just your imagination.” Those who ignore the naysayers are then shunned as weirdos. But the fact remains that we all have intuition, and we have all experienced it at one time or another.

For some people, it’s a scary experience; for others, like me, it is fascinating.

III. Present-Day Application

On March 17th, the State issued a Shelter in Place directive and asked all but essential businesses to shut down. That effectively halted my stream of income. I did not panic or worry. I had an upcoming private event and had some payments forthcoming for the work already done.

No one expected this thing to last as long as it has.

I received a text from the church that had hired me for the upcoming event saying that they were canceling the event, but they will honor the contract and send me a check for the remainder of the money owed. Surprised and Delighted.

My Toastmasters District decided that they will cancel all in-person events and hold the area, division, and district level speech contests via Zoom.

Suddenly, Zoom had become the way to meet.

My intuition told me to invest $100 from the Surprised and Delighted check in Zoom stock. I had never invested anything in stocks before. I wasn’t so sure but thought maybe I’ll invest $25 to see.

“If you can’t trust me with $100, then forget it.”

When the check arrived in the mail, I bought the stock. The very next day, I got a call from another church where I had done some pro-bono work. They wanted to pay me $150 for my services. Who am I to argue?

Slowly but surely, the Zoom stock started climbing. This was new territory for me. I had heard all kinds of stories of people losing their shirts in the stock market. (Haven’t we all?) I decided to pull my initial investment out when it doubled in value. I got my money out, and I still had $100 in stock. Even if I lost it, I wouldn’t lose anything. The stock kept rising.

Then the Universe surprised me with a huge gift. I paid off some of my debt and still had enough to last me for a while, even if I didn’t work. It was a great feeling.

By mid-October, I had $172 of “free” Zoom stock. With money sitting in the bank, I thought it would be a good idea to put it to work. Without thinking, I bought another $1,000 in Zoom and $200 in Tesla.

While Tesla earned a few dollars, nothing like what Zoom had done in the previous six months, Zoom was losing ground. Those are the only two moves I’ve made without thinking. I learned my lesson the hard way.

I studied stocks and checked in with my intuition in the next three weeks while hoping that the slide in Zoom’s value was cyclical. Finally, on Nov 9th, I made my move. I sold my Zoom stock. I lost $118 in addition to all the gains I had accumulated.

I also bought $300 of Nio and $500 of Plug Power. At the end of that day, I owned three stocks for which I paid $1000, and they were worth $1,003. Today those three stocks are worth $1271.

Since then, I have reinvested the money from Zoom's sale and invested an additional $3,000 in various stocks. I have invested $5,000 out of my pocket and gained $737 taking into account the money I lost with Zoom.

IV. The Bottom Line

Some people refer to life as the School of Hard Knocks. Anytime you take on a new challenge in life, you are preparing yourself to get knocked a few times. Investing is no different, and it certainly is a new challenge for me.

However, I am bringing the wisdom of lessons learned previously and hoping that I won’t get knocked around too hard. As they say, live and learn.

I intend to make adjustments at the end of the month because I have bought some stocks with the intention of selling them at the end of the month. Others I plan to hold on longer. I am also developing a strategy based on my goals.

I will write a post with my analysis of what I did and what I learned, and share parts of my strategy at the end of December.

Next year, I will also share some of the processes of how I use my intuition in making decisions.

As always, thank you for reading and responding. I hope it was time well-spent.

If you are so inclined, you could buy me some chai.