By Glenn Laumeister
CEO and founder of CoachMarket
YPO member
It’s often said, especially by entrepreneurs and those who would like to be entrepreneurs, that you should “go with your gut” when making big decisions. In my experience this is the worst possible way for entrepreneurs to make big decisions about your business, here’s one big reason why.
As an entrepreneur, if you are a successful one, you possess a level of willpower far beyond that of mere mortals. It is this willpower that allows you to overcome obstacle after obstacle in launching and growing your business. A large part of this willpower is a result of your desire to achieve something and to do it before you run out of money, time or energy.
Typically, strong desire and strong willpower enable entrepreneurs to convince employees to follow them, investors to bet on them and early customers to trust them. Okay, then where’s the problem?
The problem arises when your desire and willpower overwhelm your instincts, sense of reality and ability to follow a rational decision making process.
When you want something so badly and your entire world revolves around making it happen, your emotions take over. You are now running a decision making process that is no longer based on facts but on a false reality.
I myself have made, and almost made, some really bad decisions because I simply wanted something to happen so badly that I was blinded by any other inputs.
You cannot will a customer to buy something they don’t want; you cannot will an employee to create a piece of software that they don’t know how to code; and you cannot will a supplier to work with you who sees the world in a different way.
I could not tell the difference between my gut (instincts) and my desire to make something happen. My desire simply told my gut what to do.
On a good day, you feel instincts in your gut that are a mix of experience, intuition, judgment, subconscious sensing, and that magic X factor. But on a bad day, your gut is simply taken over by your desire, your willpower and your incredible drive to make something happen in the way you envision it.
Ask for a reality check
How does an entrepreneur solve for this? While often a leap of faith is required in many decisions, one must differentiate between not having all the information and taking a decision based on desire alone.
To address this, I write down the decision and a list of five key pros and cons on a piece of paper that support or argue against making this decision. The pros and cons must be fact-based and cannot include words such as want, need, hope, if, then, sure, etc.
I then show this list to someone I trust, who has no skin in the decision, and ask for a reality check. Are these facts or opinions? Are they educated guesses? Are they my hopes, dreams and desires?
Every entrepreneurial journey begins with a dream but, in my experience, dreams don’t pay the bills. Make sure your gut is based on the reality of the world around you and not the world as you want it to be.
YPO (Young Presidents’ Organization) is a not-for-profit, global network of young chief executives connected through the shared mission of becoming better leaders through education and idea exchange. For more information, visit www.ypo.org.
