DECONSTRUCTING YOUR COMMITTEE
In the business world, we are taught to mitigate risk. We are taught to look at data, study benchmarks, and get expert opinions. None of those things are inherently bad. But for many women, risk mitigation turns into something else entirely: it turns into outsourcing our authority.
When we don’t fully trust our own executive intuition, we don’t just make a decision and move on. We run it by a committee.
Sometimes that committee is literal—we poll our team, we ask our business besties, or we text our partner. Sometimes that committee is invisible—we look at what our biggest competitor is doing on Instagram, or we spend three hours googling what ‘experts’ say we should do. We do this because we want a safety net. We are waiting for someone else to give us the green light so that if the decision fails, we aren’t entirely to blame. We want validation that we are doing it ‘right.’
But here is the catch: a committee can only help you build a safe, average, copy-cat business. A committee cannot build a visionary, disruptive, highly profitable business that belongs uniquely to you. Only your internal compass can do that. So before we learn how to tune into that compass, we have to look at who is currently sitting on your committee.
Let me ask you this: Who is currently sitting on your business committee? Whose validation are you secretly waiting for before you make your next big move—and what do you think will happen if you don’t get it?
Some types of committee members…
Company Leader – are you seeking validation from someone else in the market? Do you feel like you can’t launch something until you see someone else successfully doing it first? Why might we trust their market research more than our own gut?
Partner – are you seeking safety and permission from a primary relationship? That is so common. I discuss business decisions with my husband all the time! We look for safety from the people we love. But does your partner actually have the data to validate your business intuition, or are you just asking them to hold your anxiety?
Buying/Attending Courses – are you waiting for an institution to validate you? How many degrees or certificates will it take before the committee finally votes that you are ‘ready’?
YOUR PROOF
Self-trust isn’t a magical feeling; it’s a muscle built on evidence. This exercise will help you look at your data.
Challenge: Write down 3 times in your business or career where you ignored your gut feeling/intuition to please someone else or play it safe. What was the actual cost of ignoring yourself?
Proof: Write down 3 times where you made a fast, bold, or unconventional decision based purely on your own conviction—even if others doubted it. What was the positive outcome?
Look at your ‘Proof’ list. What did it physically feel like in your body when you made those aligned, independent decisions? How did it differ from the anxious energy of polling the committee?
Side Note: I’m guilty of chalking up wins to luck, and you might be too. Be mindful when you minimize your wins. Ask yourself: Did luck do it, or did my executive decision-making do it? You are just allowed self-validation, you’re required to do so if you want to grow.
YOUR CHALLENGE
Moving forward, when you have a gut hit on a business decision, practice a 24-Hour Polling Ban. Give yourself 24 hours to sit with your own answer before you ask a single other person for their opinion. Learn what your own voice sounds like without the noise. This will start working the self-trust muscles, and you might find clarity faster and easier without manifesting extra noise.
Something to think about…
If you fully, 100% trusted your own business intuition right now… what is the very next decision you would make today?
