Business I career coach Trust Your Gut I ntuition: Being aware of or knowing something without having to dis- cover or perceive it; something known instinctively without actual evidence for it. Major life decisions — like starting a family, choosing a career or closing a business — can be scary and lonely. Trust your gut and it will be easier to face the unknown. Time and again people ask how to make tough choices when I coach and give seminars. I always recommend following: intuition. Do you want to go work for someone or yourself? Should you fire someone or give him or her another chance? Should you try to salvage your underperforming business or close it? You shouldn't make a decision blindly but you should trust your gut when mak- ing it. Do research, ask tough questions, weigh options. Along the way, don't forget to tap into a little intuition. Some of our country's most respected business leaders made difficult choices that clearly involved intu- ition. Do you think Florine Mark (Weight Watchers), Bill Davidson (Guardian Industries) or the late Max Fisher (oil industry tycoon) would have achieved such remarkable successes and developed into well-known philanthropists had they not trusted themselves and followed intuition? Alex Manoogian, who founded the home product giant Masco, trusted his gut time and again. First, he fled Turkish oppression in 1920 to come to America with just $50. Next, he moved to Detroit to capitalize on the high wages being paid by the boom- ing automobile industry. He followed his gut again, buying out his two partners at Masco Screw Products Company within the company's first year. Bill Gates followed his gut when he dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft and now he is one of the richest people in the world. (I am not suggesting dropping out of college.) There are countless success stories about people who trust- ed their guts and took risks. To name a few: Look at business- man and former race car driver Roger Penske, who owns an auto racing team that has won the Indianapolis 500 13 times. Today, Penske Corporation is the second-largest publicly traded dealership chain and he is working on the Smart Car. Detroit businesswoman Cindy Pasky is another example. She couldn't get a bank loan to pursue her dream of starting her own IT staffing company. Convinced she could do this and manage it better than her previous employers had run theirs, she trusted her instincts and asked herself, "Why not now?" In 1990, she borrowed money from friends and today the company is one of the nation's largest staffing companies for information technology services. Former Detroit Piston All-Star Dave Bing relied on intuition to start the Bing Group auto supplier after his success- ful sports career. Now he'll have to do the same in deciding whether to run for mayor of Detroit. When you visualize your future and think of every possible alternative that could go wrong, trust your gut. Flipping a coin is one of the best ways I know to decide between two alternatives. As you flip it, think about what you want the coin to be when it lands. What did you wish for while it was spinning in the air before it came down? That is your intuition. Trust it. Robert Sher, CPA, is a certified executive coach. Formerly CFO and partner for Schostak Brothers & Company, he serves on the boards of charitable and professional organizations as well as being on the West Bloomfield Township Board of Trustees. He is treasurer of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Foundation. • DO YOU HAVE BUSINESS OR PERSONAL TAX PROBLEMS? 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