Hey Stephanie,

I caught myself doing something recently that made me laugh at myself a little. I was looking for more information about something I already knew.

It wasn't that I didn't understand the information I had. I think I was hoping I'd find something that gave me a different answer. 

And it made me wonder how often we do that in business.

Something feels clunky, so we assume we must be doing it wrong. We don't completely understand something, so we question whether we know enough. Or something is working perfectly well for us, but then we see how someone else is doing it and suddenly start wondering if we should be doing it differently.

It's really easy to give more weight to what we hear outside our own business than to what we're experiencing inside of it, especially when there are so many people willing to tell us the "right" way to do things.

But the person whose business you're looking at may be ten years in while you're in year one. They may have a team supporting things you're doing yourself. They may have a completely different audience, business model, schedule, or even a different idea of what they want their business to look like.

Or they may simply love doing something that makes you want to throw your computer out the window. 😂

That doesn't mean their experience isn't valuable. It can give you ideas, teach you something, or show you another possibility. But their experience is information about their business.

Your experience is information, too.

When something works smoothly, that tells you something. When a process consistently feels harder than it needs to, that tells you something too. So does trying someone else's advice and realizing it doesn't work for you, or making a change and immediately wondering why the hell you didn't do it sooner. 

All of those experiences are giving you information about how your business works best for you.

That doesn't mean we stop learning, asking questions, trying new things, or listening to people who know things we don't. Outside perspectives can be incredibly valuable. They just don't have to automatically carry more weight than our own experience.

Our experience belongs in the conversation, too.

So before we assume someone else's way is better, or that something feels clunky because we must be missing something, maybe we give a little more weight to what our own business has already been showing us.

🌸 Behind the Scenes Tip

The next time you find yourself questioning the way you're doing something because of what you've read, heard, or seen someone else doing, ask yourself:

What has my own experience already shown me?

You may still decide there's a better way. You may still need more information or want another perspective. But whatever your answer is, let it count.

Because building a business that works for you isn't only about what you can learn from everyone else. It's also about paying attention to what you've learned from running your own.

With trust in what you know,