Latest / The Talent Brief / When Did You Stop Trusting Yourself
Transcript
- Jeff Ganter: Welcome back to the Talent Brief. I've been thinking about something this week that you probably heard me mention before. It's been following me around for a while. I used to think that people lost trust in themselves because they ignored their instincts. I don't believe that's true anymore. I believe we stop trusting ourselves because we get really good at explaining away. What we already know. That realization changed my view on signals versus scripts. For a long time I viewed signals and scripts as competitors. Now I don't believe they are. I think they occur one after the other. The signal always comes first. Then the script appears to explain it away. Take a moment to think about that. Have you entered a room? And immediately sensed that something was wrong. You weren't able to explain it. Nothing had happened. Nobody had said anything. But something inside you noticed. Or maybe you've met someone for the first time and thought, I really like this person. Once again, no evidence. Just something. That's a signal. Then almost right away the script arrives. You're overthinking. Don't judge too quickly. Be realistic. Don't get your hopes up. The signal wasn't loud, the script was. And that's what I've been struggling with. I don't believe the main challenge is learning to recognize our signals. I think it's noticing how fast the We replaced them with explanations. When I ran my recruiting agency, I interviewed thousands of people. Sometimes I would leave an interview with a feeling I couldn't explain. It wasn't about a resume. It wasn't about experience. Something just didn't feel right. Other times, I'd meet someone whose background didn't fully match what was on paper, yet I couldn't get the conversation out of my mind after they left. Those moments taught me a valuable lesson. The best hiring decisions I made weren't based on ignoring the facts. They're focused on being curious about what I noticed before I had all the facts. That's a completely different approach. Curiosity creates space. Scripts create certainty. And certainty can be dangerous when it comes too soon. The older I get, the more I realize that self-trust isn't about having the right answers. It's about giving yourself permission to stay with a question a little longer. Not every signal is urging you to make a big change. Sometimes it just asks you to pay attention. I believe that's where a lot of us get stuck. We assume every signal needs immediate action. It doesn't. Sometimes it just needs to be acknowledged. I've begun to wonder if that's the reason so many people feel disconnected from themselves, not because they've lost their intuition, but because they've paused long enough to listen. So this week I don't have a challenge for you, I have a question. Where in your life are you quick to explain something away instead of being curious about it? Maybe that's where your next answer has been waiting all along. Thanks for taking a few minutes with me today. I'll see you next week. Bye.