Intuitive Decision Making: From Filmmaker to Soul Reader with Yvonne Arnold
What if the most important decisions in your life aren't always the ones that make the most sense on paper?
Imagine working hard to earn a place at medical school, getting accepted, and then deciding not to go. Not because you failed, and not because you weren't capable, but because something about the future you'd been working towards suddenly didn't feel right.
That's one of the many unexpected turns in the story of my guest on The Freedom Pivot, Yvonne Arnold. Yvonne is a filmmaker, author, intuitive coach, and someone I know personally as my teacher in reading the quantum or morphic field. She's also someone who has built an unconventional career by refusing to reduce herself to a single interest, profession, or identity.
In this conversation, we explore intuitive decision making as a different relationship with uncertainty, fear, possibility, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we're allowed to become. We talk about trusting your intuition when logic points in another direction, the limiting beliefs that quietly shape your choices, and what happens when you stop trying to force your life into a predetermined narrative. And perhaps most importantly, we explore the difference between having an intuitive insight and actually doing something with it.
Trusting your intuition: when the logical next step isn't the right one
Yvonne grew up in a small village in southern Germany, close to Lake Constance and the Alps. She remembers spending long stretches of her childhood alone in the woods, deeply connected to nature. She was also fascinated by the world beyond her village and dreamed of travelling.
After school, she decided to pursue medicine. Inspired partly by a school friend who was passionate about becoming a doctor, Yvonne worked hard to secure a university place. Her grades alone weren't enough, so she took an additional examination to improve her chances, and she succeeded. By conventional measures, she had achieved something significant: she'd worked towards a difficult goal and earned the opportunity she'd wanted.
Then she spent six months working on ambulances. She witnessed accidents, suffering, grief, and death. As someone who describes herself as highly sensitive and empathetic, she found the experience overwhelming, and she realised that she didn't want to spend her working life surrounded by pain and illness. So she gave up her place at medical school.
When I asked whether that had been difficult, considering everything she'd done to get accepted, her answer surprised me. For Yvonne, the decision itself was relatively easy. She had discovered something important about the life she didn't want.
I find this such a revealing example of trusting your intuition. Sometimes the evidence that matters most doesn't appear until you've already committed to a direction. And sometimes the most sensible thing you can do is reconsider a decision that once made perfect sense. The work you've invested in reaching a particular destination doesn't necessarily mean you have to stay on that path.
Multi-passionate? Why you don't have to choose just one passion
After leaving medicine behind, Yvonne moved into an entirely different world. She studied history, art, media, film, and literature at universities in Germany and England, and later trained in filmmaking at the New York Film Academy.
Instead of narrowing her interests, she followed them. She loved studying, and she loved the connections between different subjects. Along the way, she began to question another assumption she'd been carrying: that having many interests was a problem to solve, and that she had to choose one passion and abandon the others. Being multi-passionate, or what some call a multipotentialite, didn't have to be a flaw.
During our conversation, Yvonne described how she eventually created a job by choosing all of her passions.
We're often encouraged to define ourselves through one profession, one area of expertise, or one coherent career story. Especially when we've invested years in building a particular identity, changing direction can feel like losing something. Yet the different chapters of your life may not be competing with one another at all. They may be contributing to something you couldn't have imagined at the beginning.
Yvonne's path from filmmaking to intuitive work wasn't a straight line, and that's what makes it interesting. Her story invites a different question from the one we usually ask at a career crossroads. Instead of Which part of myself should I choose?, we could ask: What might become possible if I stopped assuming these parts of myself don't belong together?
Limiting beliefs examples: the thinking filters that shape what feels possible
One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was Yvonne's description of what she calls thinking filters: the assumptions, beliefs, and expectations through which we interpret the world. Some come from our families, some from our education, culture, or professional environments, and others emerge from our personal experiences. Many operate so silently that we don't recognise them as assumptions at all. We experience them as reality.
Yvonne shared several examples from her own life. For a long time, she believed she needed to choose one profession. She also believed that before working internationally, she first had to become successful in her home country, in her native language. Neither assumption turned out to be necessary. Today, she works with people in different countries, bringing together experiences and interests that once seemed unrelated.
Not every belief we hold is wrong. The risk is mistaking a familiar interpretation of the world for the only interpretation available.
This matters enormously when we're making decisions. Imagine you're considering a career change, starting a business, or pursuing an idea that doesn't resemble anything you've done before. You might tell yourself:
I can't change direction after investing so many years in this career.
I need another qualification before I'm ready.
I should establish myself here before trying something internationally.
I'm too sensitive to succeed in business.
I need to become a different kind of person to make this work.
Some of these thoughts may contain practical concerns worth examining. Others may be inherited rules that you've never consciously chosen, and if you never question them, they can decide which possibilities you allow yourself to consider.
This is one reason I find intuitive decision making so fascinating. Choosing between a rational answer and an intuitive one is only part of it. Sometimes it begins by noticing that the question itself has been shaped by assumptions you haven't examined.
Intuition vs logic: what happens when you let go of control?
After studying filmmaking, Yvonne began working as a self-employed filmmaker with television stations and productions, and some of her most memorable professional opportunities arrived in unexpected circumstances. She described receiving calls about work while enjoying time with friends or travelling in New York. On one occasion, a planned short visit to New York turned into a stay of several months because of a professional opportunity.
For Yvonne, these experiences reinforced her sense that she didn't have to push and control every outcome. She could make choices, enjoy her life, and remain open to opportunities she hadn't planned.
It's a perspective that challenges much of what we're taught about building a career or business. We're often encouraged to have a detailed plan, anticipate every obstacle, and keep pushing until we achieve the result we've chosen. Planning can be useful, and persistence can be valuable. But taking purposeful action is different from believing that everything must unfold according to our original plan. Leaving room for the unexpected can also be a way of making decisions.
I don't think intuition and logic need to be enemies. Our analytical minds help us evaluate information, recognise risks, and understand consequences. But analysis also works with what we already know, what we can measure, and what we assume to be relevant, so it doesn't automatically reveal every possibility.
Intuition can invite us to pay attention to something we haven't yet fully articulated: a feeling of curiosity, an unexpected sense of clarity, a persistent interest that doesn't fit our existing plans, or a recognition that a seemingly perfect opportunity doesn't align with the life we want to live. That doesn't mean every feeling should be followed unquestioningly. It means that intuitive decision making can be part of a wider process of understanding ourselves and our choices, rather than something we dismiss because we can't immediately explain it.
For entrepreneurs in particular, this opens an interesting conversation about intuition in business. Your business strategy can include both rigorous thinking and attention to your own experience. You don't have to choose between a spreadsheet and your inner sense of direction.
Fear vs intuition: how do you know what to listen to?
At one point in our conversation, I asked Yvonne how she distinguishes fear from the part of herself that wants to explore something new. It's a question I hear often in my own work. How do you know whether you're sensing a real problem or feeling afraid of change? How do you distinguish intuition from the discomfort of stepping outside what's familiar?
Yvonne offered a provocative perspective. She questioned whether fear is always a useful guide when deciding what to do. In her experience, fear has sometimes accompanied the very possibilities that later brought her joy, freedom, and growth. She described fear as something that can arise when we're approaching the edge of our comfort zone, and she encouraged curiosity about what might exist beyond it.
I think there's something worth exploring here, with an important distinction. Fear can be a meaningful response to real danger, and it shouldn't automatically be dismissed. But feeling afraid doesn't necessarily mean a decision is wrong. Sometimes fear is telling us that we're approaching something unfamiliar. Sometimes it reflects the possibility of losing approval, certainty, status, or an identity we've worked hard to establish. And sometimes it points to a real risk that deserves attention.
So the useful question is what the fear is responding to, more than whether it's there. Are you afraid because something is unsafe, or because the choice would require you to question an old belief about yourself? Are you sensing that an opportunity isn't right, or are you uncomfortable because you can't guarantee the outcome?
Those are different questions. Learning to distinguish between them can change the way we approach career transitions, entrepreneurship, and other significant life decisions.
Overcoming limiting beliefs: when achievements become a way of hiding
Another moment in this conversation moved me. Yvonne talked about how she used to introduce herself by listing her achievements: her studies, her qualifications, the places she'd lived, the clients she'd worked with. On the surface, these were all legitimate accomplishments. But she eventually realised that the list had become a kind of protection. She was using her achievements to demonstrate that she was worthy of being taken seriously. Underneath was a fear of not being enough, of being excluded, of not being loved or accepted as she was.
I think many accomplished women will recognise this. We can become extraordinarily good at collecting evidence that we're capable: another qualification, another successful project, another professional title, another achievement that should finally make us feel secure. And still we find ourselves wondering whether we've done enough.
Yvonne's reflection raises an uncomfortable question: what if the things we use to prove our worth are also the things we hide behind?
Achievements still matter. They just can't always answer the deeper question we're asking, because being impressive and being seen aren't the same thing. Sometimes trusting your intuition begins with allowing yourself to want something that can't be justified by another impressive line on your CV.
Intuitive decision making still requires action
Towards the end of our conversation, we talked about Yvonne's current work. She describes herself as working with people who are curious, sensitive, and willing to explore unfamiliar possibilities. Her approach includes intuitive field readings, which she understands as a way of accessing information beyond conventional analytical processes. As someone who has worked with Yvonne for years, I've experienced her approach personally.
One of the most interesting things she said, though, was about what happens after the readings. Yvonne emphasised that insight alone doesn't create lasting change. People still have to make decisions and take action. They have to do what she calls the homework.
That homework is often surprisingly simple. It might involve trying a different response, paying attention to a particular thought, or making a small choice that challenges an old pattern. Simple doesn't necessarily mean easy, though. Sometimes the smallest action requires us to confront a belief we've been living by for decades.
This part is often missing when we talk about intuition. Trusting your intuition isn't the same as waiting for life to happen. You can have a powerful realisation about your career and still need to make a difficult conversation happen. You can recognise that your business no longer fits your values and still need to change how you work. You can become aware of a limiting belief and still need to practise choosing differently.
Intuition doesn't remove the need for responsibility. It can help you notice possibilities, but what you do with them remains your choice.
Not knowing what comes next? Your next chapter doesn't have to make sense yet
I keep returning to one thing after this conversation with Yvonne. She could have become a doctor. She could have defined herself exclusively as a filmmaker. She could have decided that her many interests were evidence of a lack of focus. She could have continued introducing herself through her achievements, protecting the more sensitive parts of herself behind an impressive professional story. Instead, her path unfolded through a series of choices that didn't always fit the conventional narrative of a successful career.
We often want to understand our next chapter before we're willing to begin it. We want the complete plan, the logical explanation, the reassurance that everything we've done before will still make sense afterward. But sometimes a new direction only becomes understandable once we've started moving.
Perhaps the question isn't whether you can prove that your intuition is leading you towards the perfect outcome. Perhaps it's whether you're willing to become curious about the assumptions that make certain outcomes seem impossible.
What have you been taught a successful career should look like? Which parts of yourself have you treated as inconvenient? Where might you be confusing familiarity with certainty? And what might you choose if you didn't need the whole story to make sense in advance?
You don't have to abandon logic to ask those questions. You only have to allow that logic may not be the whole story.
Listen to Episode 25 of The Freedom Pivot
From Filmmaker to Soul Reader: How to Trust Intuitive Decision Making Over Logic in Business with Yvonne Arnold
In this conversation, Yvonne and I explore her unconventional path through medicine, academia, filmmaking, and intuitive work. We talk about thinking filters, trusting your intuition, the relationship between fear and possibility, and why the most meaningful changes often begin with surprisingly small actions.
If you're questioning your career, business, or the direction your life is taking, I hope this conversation offers you something valuable: not another formula to follow, but permission to question the formula you've been following.
Listen to the full conversation on The Freedom Pivot podcast. And if someone comes to mind as you listen, someone who feels they should have their next chapter figured out by now, consider sharing this episode with them.