A Quick Primer: When to Trust Your Gut

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Most people who avoid disaster or tragedy have a part of them that knows something is wrong even before they “know.” A tone, a signal, something in the environment. Something that seemed…off. And if you listen for it in interviews, you’ll hear it over and over again. Gut is instinctual, and important.

The people who trust that internal signal seem to have a greater chance of survival…or avoiding the challenge altogether. 

In business, you’d be surprised how many people I’ve worked with know when things are off before they *really* know. They’ll get a gut sense…

• When a deadline won’t be hit

• A hire was not a good one, or 

• That something is wrong and needs to shift in the approach to making their business goals successful

They might not know the reason why (yet), but they’ll have that gut feeling…and, more often than not, they’re right. 

There are endless examples that I could give, and I’m sure you could add to, of the ways that gut instinct takes shape…how it feels, and how it nudges at people. 

I can’t tell you how many of those I work with will say things like…

• “I knew from the second week I hired him that I had made a mistake.”

• “I didn’t trust when X told me we were on track toward the targets this quarter.”

• “I saw us losing market share and knew it wasn’t just a blip — something felt wrong.”

We have an internal fast processing system that we learn to ignore, but this edition is about tapping into it…and leaning into it, with a few guiding principles. People struggle with this because it goes against a lot of things we learn to do — but I watch the best double down on gut instinct all the time. Here’s how to begin to set up a way of listening to it for more effective outcomes.