TSAS #44: Are you brave and wise enough to overcome this type of blindness?

Hello SAS Community,

Question of the week: Are you brave and wise enough to overcome this type of blindness?

This week's newsletter is meaty, so get ready to explore:

1. The reasons why professionals underestimate and overestimate themselves that often hold them back from growth opportunities?

2. How to free yourself from behavioral blindness.

3. 10 steps to transitioning from an Employee to a Solopreneur.

I have to admit to you that I needed a break from writing. That’s why you didn't get the newsletter last week.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving in case you did celebrate.

We were traveling last week and came back from a wedding to attend Thanksgiving dinner with an extended family.

Now, I am ready to finish the year to wrap up 52 weeks of Questions which will be turned into an eBook. So, keep an eye out since I will be reaching out for your feedback.

If you are still reading these letters, I want to say THANK YOU and I don't take your readership for granted.

So, today I want to dive into something I have personally struggled with for many years.

Perhaps, you can relate but I didn’t understand for many years why I kept underestimating myself.

I thought it was for all these reasons that you would normally hear.

• Lack of self-belief

• Feeling insecure about looks

• Self-doubt or not-enoughness

• Lack of confidence

To be clear those emotions are not invalid from what I am about to reveal.

But, they are not the underlying reasons why most people underestimate or overestimate themselves.

I remember this one particular incident clearly when graduating with my Master's during the last semester.

We were paired in groups where we had to prepare a 60-min presentation to share a business plan as a case study.

My partner whom I was supposed to present the next day decided to quit last minute.

At the time, I was living with my future in-laws who graciously supported me through college.

I stayed up all night preparing materials including my partner’s part of the presentation.

I have seen many of my friends and family members who can pull it off by studying the night before and somehow ace an A+.

Not me and always took extra time to write, analyze, and put things together that made sense to me.

So while I was still in frantic mode, I showed up the next day for the presentation at 8 am.

My mouth was dry with voice shaking, sweaty arms, and barely brushed my hair.

Somehow, I managed to present in front of 30 people.

After the presentation was over, my professor asked me to see him in his office.

Now let me pause for a second.

Because let me know if this has ever happened to you.

Have you had managers or bosses tell you that starts with the sentence, “Please come see me in my office?”

Your thoughts turn into assumptions. Why did he ask me to see her or did I finish that task correctly?

In my case, I already made early predictions of how I would most likely fail.

This presentation was a big deal to pass the overall score.

In any case, I walked into his office and braced myself to face the criticism.

His response and feedback took me by surprise.

He said, “I am proud of you given your circumstances. Job well done!” All I remember was that positive feedback was something totally unexpected.

This seems to be the pattern in my life where I underestimated my abilities.

After 25 years, it finally makes sense why there are many people like me who do that.

You will also run into someone who seems to be overly confident in their abilities but tend to overestimate them. Have you ever experienced that?

Both of those scenarios can hinder the possibility of discovering truths about ourselves.

In both cases, assumptions are made based on how we perceive things as they are.

They often accumulate from past experiences or people blindly follow something that has been adopted as a habit for years.

I used to have a manager who was stuck in the old ways of doing things saying, “this is how we’ve always done it.”

The problem is no one challenges those assumptions or ways of thinking.

This whole notion of not being able to evaluate ourselves clearly is because of “behavior Blindness.”

“Psychologists used to think the inability to see our own behavior clearly or objectively was the result of a perspective problem; that we literally can’t see ourselves from the vantage point that others can.”

It would have been impossible to see myself from the same perspective as those 30 other people or my professor.

However, there is a way to construct your own mirror.

To overcome this blindness, the first thing is to commit to learning and accepting our realities.

Here are a few questions to overcome this blindspot whether at your work or business while identifying your assumptions:

• What are the best and worst cases if you implemented this decision?

• What sources of pieces of evidence, information, or data you might have overlooked in arriving at that thought or decision?

• Have you ever been blindsided by negative feedback from a boss, peer, employee, or loved one?

When you take observatory notes before and after events, you can collect your assumptions to find out the differences.

The way to free yourself from this constant need of adjusting your mirror is to become brave enough to step into new challenges BUT wise enough to grow a learner’s mindset.

On that mindset note, If you are thinking about a side project, business, or an idea driving into some sort of ownership, I want to give you my 10 steps.

As promised, this is not an exhaustive list but they are significant while transitioning from an Employee to a Solopreneur mindset.

1. Detach yourself from results - If you jump into the mindset of only conversion, making money, or pure monetization, you are giving yourself another job. Think about what is the primary reason you want to transition other than making money and the great lifestyle you see on social media. For me, personal time freedom was the biggest factor which is why I started freelancing, creating self-improvement projects, and building something of value that will transfer for a lifetime. Because at the end of the day, you can have all the money in the world and still hate what you do and who you are becoming. I can honestly say I am finally at a place where I can say I'm pursuing more time freedom than financial freedom.

2. Practice mastering your Mirror – People will continue to doubt your abilities and the worst part is when you start doubting yourself. Learning how to see yourself objectively and how others see you will help you become more aware. This is why I am passionate about self-awareness. It is the ONE domain I want to own in 2023 and beyond. The more you dilute your focus and abilities, the more you will mirror other behaviors instead of following your own. This requires absolute commitment to knowing and understanding your TRUTHS.

3. Take the Mentorship approach – If you are a seasoned entreprenuer, it makes sense to dibble dabble with different courses. But, if you are beginning a journey of self-exploration, you need someone to have an active dialogue with. This dialogue is not only important for insights but real conversations that will put you outside of your real comfort zones.

4. Learn distribution through active community – Start transferring your raw emotions, thoughts, and ideas to paper, and then bounce with people whom you can trust. Your first iterations will be far from perfect. The idea is to unload everything that's in your head and outside to distribute them. When you do this, you are activating neurons that will help you gain traction and not operate in silos. No good ever comes out of that.

5. Be ruthless in what circles you roam – When you are new, it is easy to get sucked into shiny syndrome and everyone sounds smart. I didn't understand until I started diving into this practice how important it is to question and challenge not only your beliefs and views but other people's thoughts. I like when clients and friends are dead honest with me, and sometimes it is painful but it makes me a better person. I know I am not immune to mistakes or being able to assess my own behavior at all times. You need honest and transparent circles where people are not fooling themselves to be the next influencer or viral producer on socials.

6. Find people you can have deep conversations with – In the beginning, I was heavily trapped in client attraction, lead gen type of folks, and not saying they are not genuine. But, listen you are more than clients, revenue, profit, scale, and metrics. When you learn to truly connect with people from the heart, it opens up a part of you that has been caged by your employer, family, upbringing, and society.

7. Take yourself out on a date – The life of an entrepreneur or solopreneur can be quite divisive, lonely, and frustrating. The truth is I still struggle on a daily basis. But, I am mindful of whom I hang out with, build relationships with, and create my echo chamber. If you can learn to accept who you are, and the way you are, and develop a conscious mind, you will stand firm in a crowd of people screaming for attention and acceptance. Embrace the quietness, stillness, and warmth inside of you.

8. Incorporate Mindfulness – A lot of people think it's yoga, retreats, or petting the dog. Those activities can stimulate mindfulness but that's not really what I am talking about. Mindfulness is simply allowing your thoughts to flow and recognize without ever judging them. Once you do, you become more aware of your daily actions, and how it manifests in million ways to make big or small decisions.

9. Practice more listening than you speak – This was a major problem when I first started because you are like a kid in a candy land who wants to 10x everything. When you speak to someone, practice pausing more than you are used to. It is extremely uncomfortable but I promise you will learn more and you will turn on the curiosity faucet. That's also how you get creative with the solutions that you want to build. I am working on it AS WE SPEAK. :)

10. Develop a gratitude attitude – I must have read and followed over 100 coaches who brag about how much they are making on social media. At one point I asked myself what does that say about me? The thing about it that daunted me much later in my entrepreneurial life is that they are chasing the next goalpost. I would LOVE to see a post where someone says, “I made $100 today and it is exactly what I needed to be happy.” When you express gratitude towards the process, you reward the intent and effort, not the GOAL itself. That's how you can stay aligned with the person you are trying to become rather than someone else's version of success.

That's it, my friend. I know it was long but hopefully, it brought you some value. I promise to keep going for a few more weeks, and then will be launching something BRAND new coming your way in 2023.

If you want to do a deep dive, let's connect and tell me anything that's good or bad in your world. I am here to listen.

Stay Humble, my friend.Yours Truly, Humaira"Create a collection of memories. Not distraction"