Over the long weekend, I read a quote by Indian entrepreneur
Naveen Jain, about instinct. I have
pasted it below -
"Trust your gut
instinct over spreadsheets. There are too many variables in the real world that
you simply can't put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from
your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases,
your heart and gut are still your best guide."
I read this quote with a wry smile. In the last couple of weeks, I have allowed
myself to be wrapped in the safety blanket of numbers, statistics and
analysis. I looked at some indicators,
always knowing in the back of my mind, other factors were in play, but I chose
to ignore these 'sixth senses' because I wanted to believe what the numbers
were telling me - numbers don't lie.
They don't lie, but they can be used to trick ourselves! I learnt a tough lesson, ignore your
instincts at your peril. Face up to
them, if they are telling you that something intangible is going to affect your
situation, listen, and taking some action, or at least prepare yourself for
what you instinctively expect.
After all, if you trust your instincts and they are wrong,
the numbers didn't lie. If you ignore
your instinct and it was right, you've wasted an incredible ability to predict
an outcome.
Don't under estimate your instinct, it is essentially your subconscious
bringing together every related past experience and using that data to project
and predict a probable outcome. If your brain was a spreadsheet, we'd call that
a forecast, and numbers don't lie!!!
