By Michael Walsh

Discernment is a powerful, yet overlooked dynamic in business. The ability to discern or distinguish what makes sense from what doesn’t, often makes the difference whether opportunities turn into profits or not.

It is very important to be able to trust yourself, including trusting your own gut feeling. The ability to notice that gut feeling is discernment.

The ability to distinguish what makes sense from what doesn’t is partly a function of your business experience. You know what the right answer is in a given situation. You might not be sure why you know, but you know.

Ever had that feeling? These are powerful feelings that business owners have all the time. You can’t explain why you are clear on something, but you are crystal clear. Rather than merely some esoteric airy-fairy notion, this “gut sense” is usually based in some very specific dynamics that are constantly at play in your mind.

What are the dimensions of this thing called discernment? It’s composed of three distinct elements:

1. Your business experience
2. Your personal experiences
3. Your sense of intuition

Your Business Experience

I’ve met entrepreneurs who have been through so much in their business lives, that they just know what is appropriate in any given situation. They have been there and seen it. Their level of discernment has been finely honed over the years, based on their experiences, and all the lessons they have learned in business by, well, being in business.

You don’t always have conscious access to what makes sense, but it is there in your subconscious mind. You do not lose the lessons you’ve learned from your business. They are stored in your subconscious.

Your Personal Experiences

Whether you have years of business background or not, you still can discern or notice what makes sense from what doesn’t. This is mostly based on the personal experiences you have gained through your life.

Ever since you were born you have been learning. Your internal barometer for what makes sense in your world has been evolving. You don’t think about this much, but it can be a very powerful ally to you in operating your business.

Your personal experiences grow your core values and they contribute to your level of discernment. The important things are so visceral and automatic to you that you don’t need to consciously think it through. You just know what is right versus what is wrong, for you. That’s not to say that this is true for someone else, but it is part of your make-up.

Some people love adventure. Others only take measured risks. Neither of these approaches to life are fundamentally correct or incorrect. They’re just different. Your personal background and experiences, including what you were taught by your parents, your teachers and others who were instrumental in helping you grow into adulthood, all have an impact on your decision-making.

Similar to business experience, you can’t necessarily pinpoint where a particular decision came from, but you know what’s right for you.

Intuition

This is the most elusive of the three dynamics of discernment. Much has been said about “Women’s Intuition.” It works.  Many very smart men don’t question the women in their lives when they have a gut sense. You call it women’s intuition, accept it and move on.

There have been times in life when I have had my wife say, “I don’t know. I just don’t trust that person,” only to have these words turn out to be prophetic.

Many people don’t believe in intuition. It’s hard to explain. Have you had many occasions where something just drops into your mind, making perfect sense? There are those who say we are all connected and part of one universe. That’s just our way of accessing universal consciousness. Well, I can’t explain it, but I won’t ignore it.

There have been far too many times where something has just come to mind. That sense is what I am calling intuition. Is it based in our business experience, or our personal background, or something else? I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. If I trust my own gut sense, which is a combination of all this, then I seem to make more decisions that are right for me.

Response versus Reaction

Discernment is looking within yourself and seeing what is right for you, or for the situation. This is very different from reaction. Many people operate like a pinball, bouncing from one crisis to the next, reacting to what gets thrown at them. This is NOT discernment. It is reaction.

Don’t get me wrong. Reaction is good, in its place. We can react immediately to situations where there is a threat. This is good. Without this instinctive state, You might not move out of the way when a bus was coming down the street you were attempting to cross. Reaction is what tells you to run from danger, or when to fight to save yourself.

However, most of the events in life are not life-threatening. Some people seemingly love to have opportunities to react. They often get themselves into trouble by overcommitting to things they are really not committed to.

Making Messes

The definition of a “mess” is an obligation without commitment. Have you jumped at things and said yes without the benefit of a “gut-check”? This is the source of many messes in the lives of entrepreneurs. It causes you to waste energy handling a number of things you were not even committed to first.

Slowing Down

Instead of reacting to everything as if it were an immediate threat, what would happen if you slow down enough to gain access to your own internal wisdom? This takes practice. Responding instead of reacting is so powerful that it is too important to overlook.

By slowing down, you are better able to discern what makes sense from what doesn’t, on a much more consistent basis. Your decisions improve, and your business will do better than it does today.