You’re just not qualified………

Throughout our life we all face moments when that voice in our head tells the lie “you cannot do”…fill in the blank.  For some, it is a quite whisper, others a condescending yell, maybe a deep seeded feeling or just a calm voice that carefully states the lie ever so convincingly.  Shortly thereafter, the subtle onset of fear begins to contaminate our thinking and not long thereafter, we cast out our ideas to a corner of our mind where we dare not tread.   For me, the voice of defeat that I hear is “you’re just not qualified!”  If you repeat that to yourself with some attitude with the voice of a smart aleck with a sprinkling of a snobbish tone you would hear what I hear on occasion. It is an absolute that the voice of defeat has crushed more dreams, business ideas, apologies, relationships, marriages, inventions, books, research papers, advanced degrees and millions of other opportunities because we listened to that LIE of defeat.

When you think about that new business idea, expansion plan, promotion, invention, service project, the book you thought about writing, the business to start, the next great idea for your boss, how many times has that lie entered your mind that “you do not know how to do that so stop before you fail and embarrass yourself” or as I have heard for myself “you’re just not qualified”

So I guess that begs the question “At what point do you become qualified”?  As you can guess, I have been wrestling with this and I feel the need to explain what I mean by qualified.  I do not want this topic to be confused with “I just received my certificate and now I am qualified”.  Quite the opposite, the qualified description I am referring to are those men and women we come into contact with throughout our life where we know standing in their presence they possess great skill and wisdom and you want what they have.  I have been fortunate in my life to cross paths with several men and women of great qualification and wisdom.  In one such case, my advisor and I traveled to China, India and in the U.S. on various trips where I learned a lifetimes worth of skills from him. To this day he is listed in my cell phone as Yoda.  No name necessary, just Yoda (as in the Star Wars character) A man of such great wisdom he changed my life path.  I do not recall him ever telling me what to do, but he was full of questions, encouragement and ideas.

As I have thought about my life experiences and experiences with men and women of wisdom, I have concluded that the real truth is NONE of us are qualified until we do “it”, and do “it” so many times “it” becomes second nature and even then we may never be regarded as qualified or imparted with wisdom.

With that said, I hope you will realize that no two situations are the same although many are similar and you will stop deflating yourself and your ideas based on other peoples success in your area of interest.  In fact, my hope is that you “struggle well” with the rest of us by daily carving out successful inches, yards and miles and deploying infrastructure to preserve your progress. When, (not if) the dry spells come, and the voice of defeat rises up like a bright sun in the sky, keep calm and carry on……..struggle well.  When you here that negative voice tell you the lie, “you are not qualified and you will never be wise,” you should immediately and appropriately apply the following business prescription.  “You can shut up, you’re not in charge, get back in your corner and be quite because I am not interested in listening to you”.  You are the voice of authority YOU listen to.