I’m too interested in being smart.

This is something that came out in therapy that’s been helpful.

My sense of identity is defined by being “smart.” I say this without any intent at bragging — actually this is a really self-deprecating post.

So by “smart” I mean standardized tests were my friend. I tested really well starting in 3rd grade and that put me in honors classes and led to a college scholarship. I’m a National Merit Finalist if that means anything to you.

I have a lot of pride in those test scores and, importantly, that pride serves an important defensive purpose. I was not very good at school. I didn’t do my homework, didn’t study, didn’t pay attention. Being a “bad” student doesn’t feel good. What helped me cope was that I was supposedly “smart.”

I keep putting that word “smart” in quotes because it’s a completely flawed label. I did specifically test well. But in so many other important ways I was clueless and ranked well below my peers. And yet being smart was a defining label that I adopted for myself.

One of the most common patterns in coaching is that your pride, even well-earned pride, becomes the blind spot that holds you back. What got you here will not get you there.

So if I’m proud to be smart then I’m also blind to how that holds me back. How? Well, I see it most clearly as an entrepreneur. I absolutely struggle to do the basic, dumb, simple thing. I’m constantly delaying decisions until I have inspiration. I resist doing things that are unoriginal.

There’s a startup concept called innovation tokens that is meant for people like me. Pretend your company has (let’s say) 3 innovation tokens to spend. What are the three places where you are going to innovate? Now once you’ve chosen, everything else should be as basic as possible.

I think we innovated the idea of text based coaching. You could get pendantic about that claim and I’m sure the concept occurred to someone before us. But we made it real. We figured out best practices, the best use case, how to integrate it with traditional coaching, how to find and train coaches. That’s where we spent one of our innovation tokens.

But then I followed that by dragging my feet for years (literally) on how to grow that concept. I kept looking for some equally cool marketing innovation to turn that product into something millions of people used. That’s my blind spot in action.

So now, as a person who feels relatively comfortable in my own skin, I’m looking at this need to have innovative marketing and realizing that it comes from an irrational place. I don’t need it. What I “need” is successful marketing.

So recently we’ve been setting down the path of basic, run-of-the-mill content marketing. We should have started this four years ago. That’s how expensive blind spots are and that’s exactly why I recommend all CEOs have some form of coaching or therapy. For me, right now it’s a therapist, but in the past it’s been an executive coach. And I bet I will flip between those two professions for as long as I’m working.