The Validation Trap

We seek validation: The client's approval. The mentor's praise. The industry's recognition.

Each "yes" from outside pulls us slightly away from the knowing within.

Until one day we realize we've built a business perfectly validated by everyone except ourselves.

The way back: Noticing when decisions come from seeking approval versus... See more

Learning in the early phases of a skill is an act of accumulation. You acquire new facts, knowledge, and skills to handle problems you didn’t know how to solve before. Getting better, however, increasingly becomes an act of unlearning; not only must you learn to solve problems you couldn’t before, you must unlearn stale and ineffective approaches

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