The question of whether to trust one’s own gut or to painstakingly analyze any given problem has found different answers amongst different people and in different situations for centuries. On one hand, there is certainly such a thing as “paralysis by analysis.” I myself have seen numerous cases of wannabe real estate investors spend an enormous amount of time (and money) learning, only to never actually buy a property. You can even spot some “seminaraholics” at many events who have been to countless bootcamps and the like but have not locked down a single deal.
Furthermore, as the famous saying goes, “time is money.” So even if a detailed analysis would yield a better result, it’s not necessarily the better course of action because the time spent on such analysis might not be worth the cost.
But gunslingers who just go with their intuition have been known to make plenty of mistakes, including some very large ones. WeWork’s former CEO and certifiable nutjob Adam Neumann was able to convince SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son to invest $4.4 billion in his wildly over-valued company during a 28-minute car ride to the airport. Needless to say, that gut decision didn’t play out too well.
Thus, we’re left with a conundrum, should you trust your gut or do a detailed analysis? There is no perfect answer, but a deeper dive (or detailed analysis, if you will) can offer some helpful guidelines.
The Power (and Danger) of Human Intuition
As should go without saying—the more experience you have in something, the better your intuition is likely to be. But moreover, for any small decision, you should go ahead and use your gut. Should you install a ceiling fan or regular light fixture in this bedroom? Don’t overthink it. Decision fatigue is a real thing too. Just decide and do it.
That being said, you should be under no illusions about how useful your gut can be. A series of four studies from Harvard had the following results,…