Episode Details

Did you ever get a big, bold sign you didn’t request and had no idea what it meant? Such a sign can help you make a good decision.

I’ve Never Seen Anything Like This

A hawk slammed into my sliding glass door, holding a woodpecker in its talons. They struggled and tore the screen. I was so disturbed that I banged on the door to make it stop.

The hawk flew onto the deck, prey in its grip, sitting there as the life drained out of the woodpecker. I stood there stunned, asking myself, what could this possibly mean?

The Background

Before getting into the symbolism, it helps to know where I was emotionally that day. I had been deep in the process of reworking my branding for the past couple of months, which capped off a long 14 months of rethinking what I offer and who I’m best positioned to help.

There’s no single “right” answer when it comes to branding, but I desperately didn’t want to get it wrong. That fear led to a kind of freeze with overthinking and no forward movement.

Ironically, that same morning I finally made a decision. By the afternoon, I was relaxing for the first time in a while, reading, when the commotion outside my glass door happened. I wasn’t looking for a sign, which made it all the more unsettling.

The Backstory

To understand what I witnessed and why, I first looked inward. The message that came through was clear. “The time for struggle and indecision was over. It was time to rise above, take action, and engage.” Later, I looked up the symbolism.

The woodpecker is often associated with persistence and attention to detail. Birds of prey, like hawks, represent vision, decisiveness, and the ability to see the bigger picture. Hawks are also widely seen as messengers from spirit and intuition.

When these two show up together, the message becomes hard to miss. For me, this was a dramatic signal that I was entering a new phase. One of transformation and divine timing. Stop getting lost in the details. See the bigger picture. Move on.

That hit home. I had been lost in the details. From a logical standpoint, I was asking all the “right” questions. Would people resonate with my work? Was I making a smart business decision? Did this align with my skills and solve real problems for clients?

When Logic Is a Dead End

From an intuitive perspective, the questions were different. Does this feel aligned with my highest good? Does the energy feel expansive? Does it make me happy?

Logic is useful, especially in business. Lists of pros and cons have their place. But at some point, logic had taken me as far as it could. What I needed next was inner knowing.

Turns out branding is more of an art than a science and it left me feeling raw and vulnerable.

The key realization was there’s a big difference between strategic branding and energetic alignment