The founders I talk to want to be better leaders. Makes sense–you can’t take your startup from idea to IPO without a certain level of leadership skills.

I’d say part of leadership is self-awareness. I used to be a hospital manager years ago and had to learn self-awareness the hard way.

But if I could do everything over again, I’d start out in sales. Salespeople have to develop extreme levels of self-awareness.

Imagine you’re a furniture salesperson. A man and his wife come in looking to buy a sofa. As part of your sales process, you invite the couple to take a seat.

You notice the man wearing shorts.

You notice his testicles dropping out to the side.

You now need to pitch different fabric options whilst avoiding looking at this dudes ballz.

That, my friend, is self-awareness–it’s also a true story, by the way.

Anyway, you don’t have to be in sales to develop this important skill set.

But you do need to get in a position where you’ll face consequences if you don’t have self-awareness. .

You could spend time volunteering at a homeless shelter, for example.

Heck, I used to work with one lady who taught yoga in a prison as a side gig. It was just her and the convicts in the room.

The idea is to work in any environment where you’ll get slapped–literally or figuratively–for saying or doing the wrong thing.

With that said, you don’t want to develop self-awareness at the expense of losing buyers & customers.

That’s why I’m working on launching something to help you solve that problem.

More to come…