Ask HN: How can you tell fear from useful gut feeling?

1 points by topoftheforts 7y ago ↗ HN

This is a broad question, but I'll give you an example based on my situation: I'm working with a client as IT/marketing consultant. I've had a strange feeling about it since day one, but it's my main source of revenue and I ignored it.

In this project I'm also stretching my capabilities - I'm doing some things I've never done before, I want to grow as a professional so I thought the gut feeling was just fear of getting out of my comfort zone.

Now I'm torn: the strange feeling is growing by the day, and I'm not sure whether it's because I don't know whether I can deliver on some objectives or because I don't like my relationship with the client.

Do you have any key questions you ask yourself in this case? Any useful advice? Thanks.

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Nomentatus 7y ago ↗

Great Question. "Experience." Sorry, but that's the answer because intuition is based on accumulated experience. So if you don't yet have the experience, particularly in a given field or with a given personality type the best you can do is try to bring in someone with far more expertise/experience, briefly, to get their "gut check" on the situation.