Me, Myself and I – Who Has The Right Answer?

Written by James Sanders

Running a business can be one of the most exciting, scary and loneliest things that a person can do.  Many fall into the trap of thinking that asking questions of others is a sign of weakness.  Moreover, some even think they have all the answers and only rely on themselves and the person they see in the mirror for input. 

From my own personal experience, I can share that each of these decision-making approaches led me to the wrong answer more times than not.  That is not to say that I did not consider or think about the right decision.  However, whenever I relied solely on myself, I usually over-analyzed the situation and missed an opportunity or just made a bad choice. 

After making some particularly dumb decisions, I finally came to the realization that maybe I should reach out to other people and get some varying perspectives.  Surprisingly enough, when I engaged in this process, I made better decisions.  It is such a simple concept that is too often ignored. 

If this is an approach you are considering, I would strongly encourage you to identify and develop your own personal Board of Directors.  This can be professional advisors (business attorneys, business accountants, financial advisors), other business owners, mastermind groups (e.g., Vistage), mentoring organizations (e.g., SCORE, SBDC), and so on.  When you talk with them, make sure to remember that you have two ears and one mouth and to use them in proportion.  At the end of the day, if your own personal Board of Directors is me, myself and I, you may want to think about expanding it. 
 
Below are some articles that also may help:

• As The CEO Of Your Own Life, You Need A Personal Board Of Directors (forbes.com)
• How I Built a Personal Board of Directors With GenAI (sloanreview.mit.edu)
• www.vistage.com
• www.score.org