The Hunch That Changed Everything
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to you is losing everything you thought you wanted.
Five years ago, I was stuck in Sri Lanka during lockdown. My corporate job was gone. My relationship had ended. The life I thought I'd built had completely unraveled. I spent months reading every self-help book I could find, trying to think my way out of the emptiness. Gary Keller, Robin Sharma, Buddhist philosophy: you name it, I devoured it.
But here's what I learned: You can study meaning forever, but you can't think your way to purpose. All those books gave me knowledge, but they couldn't give me direction. I felt more lost than ever.
Then something shifted. Instead of reading another book, I followed a hunch. Portugal. I couldn't explain why, but I knew I needed to go there. So I packed my bags and left.
In Portugal, I took a job in carbon offsetting, thinking impact work would fill the void. It helped, but something was still missing. I kept writing: pieces about life, meaning, the journey I was on. One day, those writings caught the attention of a screenwriter named Becky.
After one of her workshops, Becky asked me a simple question: "Don't you want to write a screenplay about your life?"
Six months later, I was directing my first film in the heart of Lisbon with a team of 14 people. I had zero directing experience, but it felt right in a way nothing else ever had. The script I'd written in solitude in Sagres became a full production. What had started as a desperate hunch had become my calling.
That experience taught me something I couldn't learn from any book: our truest direction often comes not from planning, but from following the quiet voice that says "go there" or "try this." The hunch we're afraid to follow is usually the one that changes everything.
Today, when I sit with founders, creators, and visionaries to capture their stories, I'm looking for that same thing: the moment they stopped thinking and started trusting. The moment they followed their hunch and found their path.
We all have that moment. The question that changed everything. The hunch we almost didn't follow. What was yours?
Trust the hunch. Find the story.
Antoine
