Nothing Was the Best Answer!

“What do you know now that you wish you had known then?”

That is a question that I ask every executive and successful entrepreneur I meet. The first time I asked, I was told “know your worth,” and I took it to heart. I even gave my first talk on that subject.

Know your worth, and don’t give it away.

This week I asked the same question to a connection of mine, someone who has risen through the ranks to be the Executive Vice President of a major global corporation. Her answer both floored me and caused me to rethink the entire premise behind the question.

“Nothing!”

I am sure my jaw dropped, so they pressed on…

“Because if I had known then what I know now, I might not have taken the risks and leaps I took.”

So often we seek out the lessons of others, the shortcuts and easier paths. But what if by seeing that there is a pit on the other side of the obstacle we go a different route and, what appeared easier is in fact both longer and leads to less?

I finished the first draft of my book this week. I am really proud of it. I am also the only person who has read it. I have now started the process of having it published and I am exploring the different routes: traditional, quasi-self, and self publishing. If I had known when I started writing that there is a substantial cost to getting it on the shelves, both emotional and financial, I might have stuck to LinkedIn posts and newsletters. But because I didn’t, I plowed head long into writing the entire thing, and here we are.

It is important to learn from our own failures, and even more important that our teams hear about those failures and the lessons learned, but don’t take it so far that you stifle growth. Wisdom is one thing, governors are another.

So how do I combine the answer that I received at the start with this week’s gem?

Easy.

Know your worth, and know that you are better than whatever gets in your way and be glad you didn’t know how deep that pit was that you just jumped.

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