Why says you can't do it?

Often times, we set boundaries on what we can and cannot do. In some cases, we don't think we have the experience or ability. Other cases, we don't think we have the permission.

The Appentice had an episode where 2 teams were asked to sell wedding gowns/accessories. The team with an experienced wedding planner started off with full confidence. However, the other team was intimidated by competition and felt like they didn't have teh right expertise to win. Self-fulfilled prophecy. They ened up losing the game. The lessons: believe in yourself. Wedding gown or orther business, you'll always face new problems, new issues, new situations in business. How do you maintain the confidence in having the framework to solve the problem is critical to your success. Wedding gown or funeral business, it's business. It requires product assortment, sales/marketing, merchandizing in some cases etc.

Most of gain confidence by having had similoar experience or having seen others do it. The real confident ones see a new problem and face it with full steam b/c she believes she has the creativity and confidence that a problem can be solved using expereince that's not 100% a repeat.

This case is easy to resolve. Just keep reminding yourself the universe is all connected and a new problem can be solved by recognizing familar patterns and using frameworks.

The 2nd case is more mental and cultural than anything else. As such, it would take a while and take quite some repetition for you to overcome. I know that b/c I fall into category. I often defer decisions to others either b/c I think they are more senior or b/c I think organizationally they are the ones on-point. Hard lesssons I learned are if you defer decision-making to others, you lose your value-add. I'm thrilled this past week that I took the initiative, forgot about who owns what and developed 1) an implementation plan 2) BOM for a launch 3) provided thought leadership to a BG's request 4) I got so caughtup and in the evening I provided some business suggestions to the mgmt team. Think and act like a CEO and you'll more likely become one thatn the next person who thinks within her scope of responsibilities.

Good week after all.