Trust Your GUT! Improve INVESTING Skills

I listen to my gut. It's not an emotion, it's an index of risk.

If you're making decisions only based off logic, you're living in the past.

Trust your gut. It's so important to trust your gut.

Rise and shine, it's Enspresso time. Good morning, Believe Nation, it's Evan. My one word is believe, and I believe in you. I believe you have an amazing gift inside you that I want to see explode out onto the world. So let's start your day off right together. Grab your coffee and sip on today's message: Trust your gut. Over to you, Kevin O'Leary.

I wake up every morning and spread it so it keeps me going.

I wake up every morning.

Recently, I was with a bunch of other investors who I respect, and they brought me a deal, and I wanted to be part of it. But it didn't feel right. And I wrote millions of dollars on that one. And it just didn't feel right, and I lost it all within 2 years.

So should investors trust their gut then?

Absolutely, and trust your gut.

Well, what about you said earlier, don't be emotional, and sometimes the gut is emotional?

No, this is a barometer of risk. It's something internalized for an investor that says, I don't feel comfortable. It's not about emotion. It's just, don't write that check. Recently, the first time I didn't listen to that and I lost everything. So now my, my radar is up. I listen to my gut. It's not an emotion, it's an index of risk. And you get it as you age. You become a better investor every year. If only I could live to 200, I'd be really good.

Making smart decisions is a result of getting experience. Getting experience is a result of making a lot of stupid decisions. And so I love when he was talking about in this video that the experience that you get— gut is a barometer of experience. It's not just an emotional thing. It's something that comes from the ongoing experience that you get from doing the thing that you're trying to do. I love using my gut as a factor in me making decisions, especially the big ones, because logic, yes, has its place. But if you're making decisions just based on what's logical, then you're living in a world that currently exists. And part of what we do as entrepreneurs is we're trying to create something new, right? The world will evolve and change without you. The logic that exists right now will not be in place in 25 years, in 10 years, in 5 years, maybe even next year. And so if you're making decisions only based off logic, you're living in the past. And that can serve you, but it's definitely not the complete picture. With every especially major decision that you make, you want to make sure that you feel it, that even if it doesn't work out, even if you fail, it's worth knowing. I had this experience when I was 18 years old that fundamentally rocked my life. I was in Paris. I wanted to ask this girl out. End of the day, I was too afraid, and I took a picture and I posted on my wall of the scenery, and I looked at that every day as a reminder to myself that the next time I wanted to do something I would have the courage to push through the fear, push through the potential failure, and do it. And that inspired me to the next year when I had my chance to have my own software company or go get these super high-paying jobs. Which one would I regret potentially not doing? What does my gut tell me to do? And my gut told me I need to at least try this thing. And maybe it'll work, and maybe it'll be amazing, and luckily it worked out. But maybe it'll flame up, maybe it won't work, maybe it'll just be a terrible decision, maybe I've just wasted a year of my life trying this thing. And I was okay with that because at least I knew. Where I think a lot of people, we have a gut feeling on something. You have a gut feeling what you want to do, you have a gut response to how you want to deal with the situation, but you don't listen to it and you do the only logical thing to do and you live your entire life in the safe lane. You're never going to accomplish anything great because again, you're just living according to the rules of the past. And so the next time you get that feeling, do the thing that your gut tells you to do. You could do what I did where I had that failure moment, right? That not listening to my gut, not listening to my intuition, taking a picture and putting on my wall as that visual reminder. You could do something similar. Think of an opportunity missed, think of a chance of an idea that you had, and put that visual on your wall somewhere so you look at it daily as a constant reminder. Because these ideas that you have, somebody else is going to make millions of dollars off of them if you don't. And you have no right in 5 years to say, that was my idea, he made millions, she made millions, and I'm still stuck here where I was in the same place 5 years ago. You have no right to complain about it because it's your fault, because you didn't take the action on it, because you didn't listen to your gut. So whether you have a visual reminder, whether you write something down on a piece of paper, whether this video just inspires that for you, the next time you have that feeling in your gut that this feels right or that this feels wrong or that you just need to know, then learn to listen to it. I use the heart. Gut, heart. You can talk yourself into or out of anything. Your heart knows. You gotta listen to it. Now I have a special bonus clip for you, but before getting to it, I want to know what was the last thing decision that you made with your gut instead of when listening to logic, and did it work out or not? Because a lot of them may not work out, but you learn from it. Let me know, leave it down in the comments below. Thank you guys so much for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso, and enjoy the bonus.

Trust your gut. It's so important to trust your gut. You know, I saw a man speak one time and he said, "I'll prove to you in 4 words there's no such thing as a bad idea." And he said, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." So I'm here today to prove to you in 2 words there's no such thing as a bad idea, and that's "footless pantyhose." So no matter what your ideas are, you're doing something better than your competitors. That's why you're in business. Thought of an idea, that's why you're here, and then be prepared for the opportunity.

As a young entrepreneur, I learned several valuable lessons, but I think the most valuable lesson I learned was trusting your own gut instinct. It's not about the spreadsheets, it's not about the numbers, it is about what you feel in your heart. Just remember, there are so many variables in the real life. A spreadsheet can never capture them. The brain only works on the logic of zeros and ones, and it doesn't know how to deal with a lot of the gray areas. Your gut, your heart is a chemical computer. It computes things on a fuzzy, fuzzy magic, fuzzy logic. That means a lot of the times you will start to feel that something doesn't feel right, even though the numbers do add up.

It's, you know, it's just a gut feeling. I think I always trust my gut. That's all I have. Even when I'm working and you're thinking about the shape of a scene and how it should be played, and your head can often get in the way and you've got to trust your gut. And it's just if I'm inspired, if my curiosity is piqued and I want to chase this possibility down. That I see in front of me on my desk. You know, it's— some of you may have heard me say this before, but— and I always— I'm embarrassed to say I always speak in metaphors. I don't know how to speak in any other way. And for me, acting is kind of like playing the piano. And if the piano is the human condition, and we all have every single note, on that 88-key board within us. And for me, every role— I want to be able to play every note. And sometimes, if a character or a story seems to stretch me in some way, seems to offer up an experience that is new, that is a different chord or a different tune, that is real and true and human, and accessible, and no matter how joyous or loving or warm or how dark or painful, if it seems like an interesting shape to inhabit, I'm running— I know if I'm running towards it already.

Raise your standard.

Apple, at the core, its core value is that we believe that people with passion, hands, change the world for the better.

Not one drop of my self-worth depends on your acceptance of me. I don't ever give up. I'd have to be dead or completely incapacitated.

Hey, Believe Nation, if you want to see my all-time favorite top 10 rules of success, I have a very special secret video for you. These are the individual clips that I have personally learned the most from and applied to my life and my business. Check the link in the description for details.