When should I take my mentors advice and when should I trust my gut?

When should I take my mentors advice and when should I trust my gut?

This was a question a CEO asked me recently.

The answer is simple, NEVER!

In fact you should never take anyones advice.

Bear with me.

Gut instinct is when the amygdala in the brain has noticed a pattern in the environment (internal and external) and set an emotion to drive movement towards potential opportunity or away from potential danger based on ASSOCIATIONS FROM THE PAST.

So gut feeling is about the past not the present.

That doesn’t mean you should ignore it completely. But this is a big decision, you owe it to yourself to investigate what your nervous system was picking up on.

Advice is THEIR gut instinct based on ASSOCIATIONS FROM THEIR PAST and so not truly about this current situation. On top of that advice almost always comes with an ego investment and therefore a sales pitch.

Again that doesn’t mean to dismiss advice from mentors that have been there before.

Advice should be heard, qualified, measured, mentally tested and then even if you take the path recommend it should be owned as YOUR decision.

The moment we simply take advice we have relinquished responsibility for both success or failure as well as opening the door to resentment.

That’s worth remembering every time you ask for advice or provide it.

Have you ever taken advice and been frustrated with yourself and annoyed with them when it didn’t work out?