To trust your head or your gut? Undoubtedly one of the most confusing yet pertinent questions in business! The rich trust their guts and they are rarely wrong. If you survey rich people all over the globe, you will find that they are rich for this sole reason in the first place! Steve Jobs for example had that amazing quality of going by his gut feeling and it was rarely wrong. While numerous experts advised him against Apple going into the phone business, he was the only person who had a gut feeling, an intuition that it would work!
Brain Vs Gut – Where’s the contradiction?
So what exactly is the difference? What exactly is a gut feeling and how is it a ‘different feel’ than when your brain is telling you that something would work or wouldn’t? Well, there lies the difference really. Your brain will always tell you that something ‘should’ be right or wrong, it has a dataset and analytically assesses it to reach the logical conclusion of what ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ work.
However, the world or destiny isn’t always logical. Your gut feeling is not based on any data, not about what you should do given the circumstances. Its simply the ‘inner feeling’, an intuition you have about something. The feeling you ‘feel’ and not arrive at, the inner whisper to your heart that something will work or something is odd or some imminent danger in something.
Rich people are rich because they managed some kind of a breakthrough that others could not, and usually most of this breakthroughs are based on gut feelings. If they were thought out from the brain then many other people would have also done it since the data set existing is the same for everyone. It needs someone’s gut feeling and more importantly the courage to not listen to anything or anyone and go just by that gut feel to make it big in life.
The Gut Feeling – Scientifically Explained
Now that we have understood that the rich trust their gut, lets scientifically see how it actually works.
Experts say that humans have two parts to their memory – the explicit and the implicit. The former is the kind where you remember stuff that you actually make an effort to learn and remember. The latter on the other hand is mostly the indirect things that we remember unconsciously, and our brain hasn’t really made a direct effort to remember them.
For example, the explicit memory is when you study before your exams and try to remember things with an effort, or when you make an effort to learn cycling lets say. Implicit memory would include remembering a quote or a movie song that you have never really made an effort to remember but somehow got absorbed by your brain. Or let’s say how you remember that the stove is hot and you shouldn’t touch it. These implicit memories are the ones which act behind your gut instincts, help you make decisions based on some past triggers that otherwise your conscious brain doesn’t remember.
Personality Traits that go along with your ‘gut’
It’s never enough to simply have a gut feeling if you do not do anything about it. Gut feeling and risk goes hand in hand and for all rich people this combination has basically called the third friend called success along. So next time you have an inner feeling that something would work, have the courage to take the leap of faith. Best luck!
