创业者内部网络是一个在线社区，美国创业领域最有思想、最具影响力的商界人士将在此回答关于创业与职业的问题。今天我们的问题：“在做出艰难的商业决策时，在什么情况下应该相信自己的直觉？”以下为CoachMarket创始人兼CEO格林·劳梅斯特的回答。

创业者和有志于创业的人经常说，在面对重大决策时，你必须相信自己的直觉。根据我的经验，创业者做出重大决策时，相信直觉是最糟糕的做法。

如果你是成功的创业者，你应该具备远超过其他人的意志力。正是凭借这种意志力，你才能在成立和发展公司的过程中克服一个又一个障碍。很大程度上，这份意志力来自你取得某种成就的欲望，你希望在资金、时间或精力用完之前实现这个目标。

通常情况下，强烈的欲望和意志力，使创业者能够说服员工追随他们，说服投资者投资，吸引早期的客户信任他们。当你的欲望和意志力压倒了直觉、现实感和遵从理性决策过程的能力时，问题便会出现。如果你非常渴望某件东西，你的整个世界都会围绕着如何实现它而转动。在这个时候，你往往会听从自身情绪的指引，最终导致你的决策过程不再是基于事实，而是基于一种虚假的现实。

我曾经因为极其渴望做到某件事情而无视其他信息，最终做出了一些非常糟糕的决定。你不要指望客户会购买他们不想要的商品，也不要指望员工创造一款他们不知道如何编程的软件，更不要指望世界观不同的供应商能与你合作。

我无法分辨直觉和实现某件事情的欲望之间有何区别。我的欲望会告诉直觉做什么。在顺利的时候，你能从直觉中感受到经验、判断、下意识感受和神奇的X元素。但在逆境之下，你的直觉会被欲望、意志力和按照你设想的方式实现某个目标的驱动力所接管。

那么，创业者应该如何解决这个问题？虽然许多决策都需要有“信心的跳跃”，但我们必须区别在没有足够信息情况下的决策，和仅仅基于欲望的决策。

为了解决这个问题，我会把决定写在一张纸上，列出五个支持或反对做出这个决定的关键理由。支持和反对的理由必须基于事实，不能包含想要、需要、希望、如果、然后、肯定等词汇。

之后，我会把列表给我信任的某个不参与决策的人看，请求他或她对现实进行核查。这些理由是事实还是意见？它们是深思熟虑的猜测，还是我的希望、梦想和愿望？

每一个创业历程都是始于一个梦想，但根据我的经验，梦想无法支付账单。所以，一定要保证你的直觉是基于周围世界的现实，而不是你期望出现的那个世界。（财富中文网）

注：本文作者格林是一家科技公司CEO和终生创业者，在成立和发展B2C与B2B在线业务领域，有超过15年的经验。他曾任INC 500公司CEO，并曾入围安永纽约市年度企业家评选决赛。

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

The Entrepreneur Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “When making a tough business decision, how do you know when to trust your gut?” is written by Glenn Laumeister, founder and CEO of CoachMarket.

It’s often said, especially by entrepreneurs and those who would like to be, that you should go with your gut when making big decisions. In my experience, this is the worst possible way for entrepreneurs to make big decisions about their businesses.

If you’re a successful entrepreneur, you possess a level of willpower far beyond that of everyone else. It is this willpower that allows you to overcome obstacle after obstacle in launching and growing your business. A large part of this willpower is a result of your desire to achieve something and to do it before you run out of money, time, or energy.

Typically, strong desire and strong willpower enable entrepreneurs to convince employees to follow them, investors to bet on them, and early customers to trust them. The problem arises when your desire and willpower overwhelm your instincts, sense of reality, and ability to follow a rational decision–making process. When you want something so badly, and your entire world revolves around making it happen, your emotions take over, and you end up running a decision–making process no longer based on facts, but on a false reality.

I have made some really bad decisions simply because I wanted something to happen so badly that I was blinded by any other inputs. You cannot will customers to buy something they don’t want, you cannot will employees to create a piece of software that they don’t know how to code, and you cannot will suppliers to work with you who see the world in a different way.

I couldn’t tell the difference between my gut (instincts) and my desire to make something happen. My desire simply told my gut what to do. On a good day, you feel instincts in your gut that are a mix of experience, intuition, judgment, subconscious sensing, and that magic X factor. But on a bad day, your gut is simply taken over by your desire, your willpower, and your incredible drive to make something happen in the way you envision it.

How does an entrepreneur solve for this? While a leap of faith is often required in many decisions, one must differentiate between not having all of the information and making a decision based on desire alone.

To address this, I write down the decision and a list of five key pros and cons on a piece of paper that support or argue against making this decision. The pros and cons must be fact–based and cannot include words such as want, need, hope, if, then, sure, etc.

I then show this list to someone I trust, who has no skin in the decision, and ask for a reality check. Are these facts or opinions? Are they educated guesses or are they my hopes, dreams, and desires?

Every entrepreneurial journey begins with a dream, but in my experience, dreams don’t pay the bills, so make sure your gut is based on the reality of the world around you and not the world as you want it to be.

Glenn is a technology CEO and lifelong entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience launching and scaling B2C and B2B online businesses. He is a previous INC 500 CEO and finalist for Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Metro New York.