The Secret Superpower of Women

Let me set the stage for you. I was recently in a leadership-level meeting with one of my clients. Maybe eight people were around the table, and we were discussing various aspects of the business. We found ourselves debating a financial principle, and there was some disagreement around the room.

As I was whiteboarding the idea to visualize it, someone mentioned how I was attempting to prove that I was right. I responded, "I'm not in the business of being right, but getting it right." I'm telling this story because of what he said next: "Everyone wants to be right. We all have pride."

He's not wrong, which is the problem. So many of us are in the business of being right, which comes at the expense of getting it right. 15 years ago, I probably would have fallen into this trap. I wanted to be right....badly. But I quickly learned my desire to be right hurt myself and everyone else involved. We can be right if we wish to, but it often means we're getting it wrong.

Luckily, I've been able to drastically shift gears and priorities. I don't often care about being right. I desperately want to get it right. I still have strong opinions, but I try to hold them loosely. This is one of the benefits of pursuing discomfort and failure. If we venture into scary waters, we're bound to find ourselves in positions where we don't necessarily know the answers. That's when we have an opportunity to shift our perspective and focus on the getting it right part.

This concept reminds me of one of our podcast episodes, published more than two years ago. The episode's focus was my case for why women are better at money than men. I believed it then, and that conviction has only grown since. I encourage you to listen to it by clicking the link above, but in case you don't, I'll summarize.

Men have two major flaws when it comes to money. First, they often use money as a scorecard....a measuring stick.....a trophy. The more money they have (or the outward perception of having more), the more successful they are on the measuring stick of success. This leads men down some interesting roads, such as risky investments, flashy toys, and other publicly visible signals that they are winning. The second reason is simple: pride. Men are typically in the business of being right. There have been multiple instances of men who hire me, tell me I'm wrong, then decide to keep doing it the way they've always done it (despite those habits and corresponding results being what led them to hire me in the first place). They are in the business of being right. Us men greatly suffer from this affliction

Women, on the other hand, are generally in the business of getting it right. There's no pride. They know what they want, desire to learn how to get it, then execute. No show, just results. It's so refreshing. I want to be more like that!

Don't be right. Get it right.