FIR 106: How Hacking Your Gut Can Develop Your Business Instincts

Financial Investing Radio

Good gut health leads to good body health. Good business gut health leads to business insights. How do you get good business gut health?

Hey, everybody, this is Grant Welcome to another episode of ClickAI Radio.

All right. So I was looking back at an experience that I had many years ago. And I was standing in a hospital visiting an elderly friend of mine, he had just completed surgery, he had part of his feet removed because of because of his diabetes. He was fully aware of his diabetic problem. But he also made a determination not to make changes to his diet or to his lifestyle. Well, as I stood there trying to support my elderly friend, I have to admit, I felt a bit conflicted. I wondered, why wouldn't he do anything about it? Why wouldn't he accept some insights and guidance to improve his health situation?

I learned through that I'm not going to judge him. But I'm going to love him, right and try to be there to support him. But I also said to myself, like if I ever get into that situation where I'm diagnosed with something like diabetes, I'm not going to let it get to that level. Right. And now at the time that my elderly friend was going through the surgery, I was I was running a technology startup company. And we were working many hours over time, you know, working harder than we were smarter, hard lesson to learn, right? But sometimes in life, for me anyway, it's too easy for myself or for us as humans, to look at other people's situations and think, hey, they're doing it wrong, even though we're often doing something similar in our own life, right or in our own business.

Well, while my elderly friend was recovering from his surgery, my business we were developing some advanced technologies. And we had prepared it were we were ready to show it to some Industry analysts. So we get in touch with the analysts. They come in, we show it to them. We were so excited, right? We're proud to demonstrate what we had built, we kept saying to ourselves: "Hey, they're gonna love this, right?"" They're gonna give us glowing reviews in the marketplace, right? Stairway to Heaven, right?

So upon completing their review, the analysts came back and said, "Hey, this is an interesting idea. We think you have something here."" So that moment, we felt really giddy, right? We're over there patting ourselves on the back. But the next sentence just caught, caught us. And then they said, but you are at least at least nine years ahead of the market. Well, we were stunned, right? We're like, what how could that be? Right? Surely they were wrong. What do these guys now they're, they're just analysts, right? So to defend our position, we started quoting Henry Ford's comment right about his customer base. We've all heard it, right. We've all used it. I'm sure it goes something like this.

Henry Ford apparently said, you know, if I would have asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse, right? So we were self assured that we are being Henry Ford's at the time, right? Well, the market just wants a faster horse, right. And here we've got a new automobile, right? It cruises, it slices it dices. So we started to demonstrate what we had developed to other audiences and to other firms. And people started sharing their feedback, right? Oh, man, this looks great. But, you know, we can't really adopt that. Right? We're not ready to figure out how to use that. But we continue to double down on what we are doing, right? I liken it to times when when we eat what we want rather than eat what we should but we hope we're hoping though to get the results of healthy eating, even though we're not really eating what we should. All right.

That's one we're not being realistic with, with really what's going on. Well, in this case, we stopped listening. Right? We kept saying herself Hey, surely you know, we're being Intelligent with our business. We're asking others for insights, but we weren't doing anything with those insights. We weren't making adjustments or pivoting. I think it was Lyndon B. Johnson, who said, when we stopped listening, we stopped learning. Well, you know, as we all know, just as we, you know, put good stuff into our guts, right? It produces better health for our whole body. And our businesses also need good gut health. So here, here's some examples of what this might be. For example, we all know that, you know, we're going to have good health gut, right? In terms of our bodies, we're generally going to put in more fibers and proteins and, you know, salads and vegetables and complex carbs, and so forth, right? Let's talk about good business, gut health. What does that look like? Because when we have good business, gut health, it improves our business instincts. What does this mean?

One of those is seeking insights. And so that means to leverage dispassionate insights. Now, of course, I'm a fan of using AI to do that, right. It's to take the dispassionate part out, and to bring the insights in, you may have heard about decision intelligence, right, the ability to deep politicize decision making that's that's a challenge, right for us and in businesses. Ai provides that, but you also have to watch out for something called AI bias. Now, that needs to be a topic for another time that we we go over. In any event, the real business, gut health cons, when we take insights that come and then we apply them in our business. In fact, good business, gut health means we've got the majority, or perhaps I might call it the humility to make the adjustments in our business. Now, I saw some research from Gartner once that stated, and I'm paraphrasing a little. But it basically said that 75% of business executives will not evaluate multiple options when making decisions, but rather, will use the information available to justify their position.

And so it's difficult when we have that mindset. And we think, Oh, I'm just going to use the information that's at my fingertips so that I bring in I'm going to use the lens of that of my perception and my priorities, to filter that information. That's a challenge for all of us. So it's not just to bring the information in and the insights from things like AI or other interested parties, but it's Can I change my my perspective, so that I can truly make the adjustments that are needed? Well, turns out, you know, I stood by my elderly friend as he had his feet, partially, and you know, amputated, and I continued to be a support and his friend. But then a few months later, he passed away. And I'm grateful for the lessons he taught me, and in particular, the awareness that it created in me, you know, somewhat ironically, I was diagnosed a year after that with type two diabetes.

And so the question, when that happened, I just, I was stunned when the doctor told me is like, what, oh, my goodness, then I started to think back to my elderly friend, and I kept thinking about these questions like, Am I going to apply gut health principles to my life, right to my personal life? I'm going to eat what I should right? Take the input, the information, the insights from the doctors and others. Would I apply the gut health principles to my business? Would I take the insights that are coming to me? Follow the gut make the adjustments in my business? Am I going to listen? Right? Am I going to adjust? Will I adapt? And the question I have for you is, what would you do? Right? Would you make those adjustments? Well, the lessons from my elderly friend Jerry rang clear in my mind, for sure. And you know what? I was deeply affected in my personal life. And in my business life, by my friend Jerry, I still remember constantly, it comes to my mind every time there's a need for me to make any kind of adjustments, I think, all right. Jerry pointed out to me, you know, through his life, that it's important and critical that we do take the input and we do make the adjustments. Our gut health affects the health of our body, as well as our business. All right. Thanks, Jerry, this one's for you.

Thank you for joining Grant on ClickAI Radio. Don't forget to subscribe and leave feedback. And remember to download your FREE eBook visit ClickAIRadio.com now.