I've hired people my gut said no to, because their CV looked right and someone I trusted vouched for them. I've invested in projects that felt off from the start, because the spreadsheet looked good and the logic was sound on paper. I've partnered with people who ticked every box except the one that matters most: the feeling in your chest that says something isn't right.
Every time, my gut was right. Every single time.
I'm not saying data doesn't matter. I'm saying the order matters. Your instinct is your first filter. Data is what you use to confirm or challenge that instinct. When you reverse the order, when you lead with data and ignore what your experience is telling you, that's when you make the expensive mistakes.
Where instinct comes from
People talk about gut feeling like it's mystical. It's not. Your gut is the accumulated pattern recognition of every experience you've ever had. It's your brain processing thousands of micro signals that your conscious mind hasn't caught up with yet. The tone of voice in a meeting. The way someone avoids a specific question. The gap between what a person says and what their behaviour tells you.
After 20 years of building and running businesses, of hiring hundreds of people, of sitting across the table from clients and partners and regulators, my pattern recognition library is enormous. And so is yours, if you've been doing this for any length of time. The problem isn't that you don't have good instincts. The problem is that you've been trained to override them.
We live in a culture that worships data. Metrics, dashboards, KPIs, analytics. And all of that is valuable. But somewhere along the way, we started treating data as the primary source of truth and instinct as unreliable noise. That's backwards.
The hires that went wrong
Let me give you a concrete example. I once hired a manager who had an exceptional resume. Great references. Interviewed well. Ticked every requirement on the job description. But something felt off. I couldn't articulate it at the time. There was a slickness to them that didn't match the culture we were building. They said all the right things, but it felt rehearsed rather than genuine.
I hired them anyway. Because the data was strong and I told myself I was being paranoid.
Within three months, I had a culture problem. Staff morale dropped. Communication broke down. The manager was doing exactly what they'd been hired to do on paper, but the way they did it was creating friction everywhere. The instinct I had in that first interview was picking up on a leadership style that didn't fit. The data couldn't see that. My gut could.
I've had the opposite experience too. I've met people whose resumes were thin, whose formal qualifications were limited, but something about them told me they'd be exceptional. And they were. Because the qualities that make someone great at their job, integrity, adaptability, genuine care for the work, those don't show up in a spreadsheet. They show up in a conversation if you're paying attention.
Data tells you what happened. Instinct tells you what's about to happen. You need both, but you need instinct first.
The partnership that should have ended sooner
I stayed in a business arrangement for over a year longer than I should have. The numbers said it was working. Revenue was fine. The operational metrics looked healthy. But something in the dynamic was wrong. The values weren't aligned. The long term vision wasn't shared. I could feel the drift happening in every conversation, but because the spreadsheets looked fine, I kept telling myself it was in my head.
It wasn't in my head. When it finally fell apart, it was expensive, it was stressful, and in hindsight, every sign had been there from the beginning. I'd just chosen to trust the data over my own experience.
That taught me something permanent: when your gut and your data disagree, don't automatically trust the data. Go deeper. Ask more questions. Because your instinct is picking up on something the metrics haven't captured yet.
How to use both properly
Here's the framework I use now, after two decades of learning this the hard way.
Step one: listen to the gut. Before you look at any data, sit with the situation. What's your read? What does your experience tell you? Write it down if you need to. Don't let anyone else's opinion pollute your first take.
Step two: gather the data. Now look at the numbers, the research, the evidence. Be thorough. Be honest. Don't cherry pick data that confirms what you want to believe.
Step three: compare. Does the data support your instinct? Great, you're probably right. Does the data challenge your instinct? Good. Now you have something worth investigating deeper. Don't just dismiss your gut because the spreadsheet says otherwise. Ask why they disagree. The answer to that question is usually where the real insight lives.
This is exactly why I build AI tools for business decisions. Not to replace human judgement, but to give your instincts something concrete to test against. When I build a custom AI integration for a client, the goal is always to surface the data that either validates or challenges what the operator already feels is true. The AI handles the data at scale. The human provides the pattern recognition that no algorithm can replicate.
Trust yourself more
If you've been running a business for any length of time, your instincts are sharper than you give them credit for. You've seen patterns. You've made mistakes and learned from them. You've developed a sense for what works and what doesn't that goes far beyond what any dashboard can show you.
The times I've gotten it right, really right, were the times I trusted my read first and then used data to confirm it. The times I've gotten it wrong were the times I let someone else's confidence, or a compelling spreadsheet, override what my experience was screaming at me.
Don't ignore data. Use it relentlessly. But use it to confirm your gut, not to replace it. Because the best business decisions happen when instinct and evidence point in the same direction. And when they don't agree, that's the moment that deserves your full attention.