Sweat was dripping down his grinning face as he pulled off his helmet in the paddock.
He was sure he’d just set a personal best.
But the lap times told a different story.
It reminded me of something I see all the time in business.
Biographies of successful people often preach the power of gut feeling — that unexplainable inner knowing behind big decisions.
And I get it.
Plenty of times, my gut has steered me right, even when logic said otherwise.
But sometimes, the gut is wrong.
And that’s where data steps in.
You might feel like a post is going to go viral.
You just know it will.
You write it, design it, post it… and then nothing.
200 views. A few likes. No traction.
How?
Your gut told you this was the one.
The truth is: your gut is a great starting point — but a terrible dashboard.
It gets you on the track, but it doesn’t measure your laps.
One of our recent video ads? I was convinced the hook would crush it.
We posted it — average view duration: 2 seconds.
Out of 33.
It stung.
But instead of scrapping it, we tweaked the edit, trimmed the intro I loved, and tested a new voiceover.
The result? It performed 110% better — a 3.76% hold rate vs. 1.79%.
Still not great overall, but twice as many people who watched the first 3 seconds stayed until the end.
Every time we test and tweak, we fine-tune our internal compass.
We teach our gut to get better.
So when something flops, don’t take it personally — take it apart.
Zoom out. Look at the data.
Treat it like a coach giving you lap times — not to discourage you, but to help you go faster next time.
PS: Let me know if you use data in your business to verify your gut feeling 👇🏼
| Do you use data to verify your gut feeling? |
|
|
|
