Neal Ravikant Tweet (2023)
Entrepreneur Intuition
Naval Ravikant’s tweet got me thinking about intuition, or “trusting your gut” – the ability to acquire knowledge instinctively, without conscious reasoning.
As entrepreneurs, a lot of what we do takes place in the realm of the unknown. Because we’re required to make so many decisions each day, even when we lack the data we need to make well-informed ones.
That’s why entrepreneurs who are myopically data-centric can still make big mistakes. Because, by nature, data is information about the past, which only lets us predict what may or may not happen in the future.
That’s why intuition is also important to entrepreneurs. It enables us to pull from our past experiences, combine them with cues from our present environment, and make decisions so quickly that they don’t even register on a conscious level.
Experimental Intuition
Science has shown us that intuition is a real psychological phenomenon.
In a study called the Iowa Gambling Task, participants were given four stacks of cards. Each time they flipped a card, they’d either receive a reward or a penalty.
- Two decks offered large rewards, but even bigger penalties, so that statistically they would eventually lead to loss.
- The other two decks offered small rewards, but even smaller penalties, which statistically made them the safer bet.
- But after 40-50 attempts, most of the participants began to deduct which stacks would lead to bigger wins.
To prove that this outcome was not a result of executive function and deductive reasoning, the test was re-administered by other researchers. But this time they divided participants into three different groups.
- Two of the groups were given a parallel, secondary task (random number generation) to load their executive resources.
- The third, control group merely completed the original experiment.
The result of this experiment was that the rate of learning across the three groups was not significantly different, showing that the participants indeed used intuition rather than deductive reasoning. (Turnbull et.al, 2005).
Intuition in Neuroscience
Neuroscientists have been unpacking the concept of intuition for quite a few years now. And although numerous brain studies using the Iowa Gambling Task have shown activation in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MFPC), there is greater agreement that System 1 Thinking (which includes intuition) is not located exclusively in one part of the brain. Rather, according to Prof. Eugene Sadler-Smith (2023), there are five core processes of intuition that have been identified and studied using methods from neuroscience:
- Perceptions of Coherence: This process is ‘knowing’ when different pieces of information fit together, even when we can’t explain how or why. It’s that feeling of everything making sense without apparent effort, often occurring in moments of insight or creativity.
- Pattern Recognition: This is the ability to identify patterns in a set of data or environment without conscious thought, as the brain recognizes familiar patterns based on past experiences, allowing for quick decisions without detailed analysis.
- Somatic Markers: These are the physical sensations or feelings we feel in response to certain stimuli. These bodily signals guide our decision-making unconsciously, allowing us to steer us away from poor choices based on negative sensations or towards good ones associated with positive feelings (Antonio Damasio).
- Interoception: This is the inward perception of bodily sensations like hunger, heart rate, or discomfort. With intuition, interoception provides a ‘gut feeling’ that can guide decision-making or signal that something is off, even when we can’t pinpoint a reason through logical thinking.
- Mirror Mechanism: This involves the brain’s mirror neurons, which activate when we perform an action or observe someone else performing the same action. This is thought to be foundational for empathy and understanding others’ intentions or emotions intuitively, as it allows us to ‘mirror’ and internally simulate the actions and emotions of others.
Lessons for Entrepreneurs
So what can entrepreneurs learn from these five core neuro-scientific processes of intuition?
We can expand our consciousness to better identify and respond to our intuitive cues – the sensations, patterns, memories, and empathic responses that trigger the instincts we often need to act upon.
This will enable us make better decisions when we lack the data to make informed ones by helping us understand what causes our gut to send us cues that otherwise might be misunderstood.
And although entrepreneurship isn’t exactly one of the hard sciences, some the greatest quantitative minds in history also recognized the value of intuition to their work.
“I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am.” – Albert Einstein, The Saturday Evening Post, 1929
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