Midnight Mind Chatter
The TV game show Jeopardy is advertising the latest on-line test to become a contestant. It’s coming up on March 28. My husband has been urging me to register and I’ve been “forgetting”. Last night I figured out why.
It’s not that I was concerned about failing the test. It’s that I was scared I might pass and get selected as a contestant. The mental chatter was all about how much I don’t know, how many categories I am weak in, how my high school avoidance of all things geography has come back to haunt me, an almost endless list of my data bank deficiencies. What I wasn’t paying any attention to was the 60%+ of the answers questions I do know.
What prompted me to register today was remembering something I read several weeks ago, and that changed my whole perspective. An article published on the Harvard Business Review blog pointed out a tendency for women to “round down” our accomplishments.
(W)e’ve long been taught that a 0.5 gets rounded up to 1. And even when we feel 70%, 80% or 90% qualified for a job, we’d never be so bold as to round ourselves up to 100%. We look at that margin of error and assume the worst, not the best. But rational math actually tells us that we should be rounding up in that scenario.
So this morning I rounded up and registered. In the immortal words of Jennifer Tilly in the movie Let It Ride, “Nothing ventured, nothing ventured.” (You’ll find it at the 5:30 point in this YouTube video).
Go Kerry! This is fantastic!! I too am one of those women who continually “round down”.
Let’s make a deal – I’ll remind you and you remind me. Round UP.
Oh, I love this concept of rounding up instead of rounding down! What a great image!
If you think you have the kind of data base for Jeopardy, then absolutely go for it. I so completely lack that kind of knowledge (it was more than geography that got lost…I’m just not good on specific information and certainly not the range of things you need to know for that show).
I hope you apply and get on the show. I can’t wait to watch you in action!
Judy Stone-Goldman
The Reflective Writer
http://www.thereflectivewriter.com
Personal-Professional Balance Through Writing
It all depends on the category. Sometimes I’m hot and other times it feels like I’ve been living in a hole for the past 10 years. Test taking was always something I was good at, even when I didn’t do well in the class, so this will be interesting.
Congratulations on having the courage to find your avoidance creature lurking in the depth of your mind and your courage to move past it and sign up for the contest. Good luck!!
Sue Bock
http://bestlifeafterbreastcancer.com
http://couragetoadventure.com
http://couragetoadventurecoaching.wordpress.com
I have lots of other avoidance creatures lurking. I even have one for avoiding the avoidance ;-). It’s great when one comes out where I can get a hold of it and give it a good working over.
Be fabulous and proud of it!
Always something to strive for. The older I get, the better at it I’m becoming.
Wow – I had never heard of the rounding down concept, but it makes so much sense. I can definitely see this in me and my perfectionist ways. Somehow, for me, 100% is unattainable – and that can certainly hold you back if that is what it takes to move forward, to sign up for Jeopardy try-outs, to put up the website, publish the book…you name it. Your post definitely puts this in perspective for me as well.
Jennifer Peek
Find Your New Groove
Left-Brained Strategy for Right-Brained Businesses
I hear you – 100% is what we’re trained to strive for. 100% on tests, A+ in school, excellent on performance reviews. Then I look around and notice that many successful people aren’t 100%-ers. I think it’s a line from a movie (not sure) that goes something like: “Someday all you A students will find yourselves working for the C students.” Accepting that good enough IS actually good enough is a surprisingly difficult thing to do.
Yep. That sounds like us alright. This is somewhat empowering Kerry! Thanks.
I’ll take somewhat empowering. You’re welcome.
Thanks for the reminder to round up. It’s human nature to focus on the negative so we need to remember to believe in ourselves a little more. Good luck with Jeopardy!
Thank you. We are so programmed to favor the negative, but life is so much better when we favor the positive. So, round up, choose happiness. It’s contagious, become a carrier.
Absolutely love this round up concept. I remember reading once that women have the tendency that they think they just need to study a little longer, know a little more before claiming any authority. We lose so much talent this way. Rounding up is such an immediate, almost visceral, way to look at this. I CANNOT WAIT to watch you on Jeopardy! I think the positive vibes coming your way from your many fans will push you right over the hump of self doubt. In the meantime, mazel tov for going for it!
Thank you for the good wishes The on-line test is this evening. Passing that is the first step and one of the few that isn’t governed by the luck of the draw. I’m excited.
Rounding up is such an easy concept to recognize and remember that I’m finding it very influential in my day to day life. It crops up all over the place and helps me make better, more pro-Kerry decisions.
Wonderful! You are so right. We all discount ourselves because we are not at that perfect 100! Why? I think it’s because society says we have to be better than men to be considered good. time to put that to bed permanently. Congratulations on signing up!
Julieanne Case
Always from the heart!
Reconnecting you to your Original Blueprint, Your Essence, Your Joy| Healing you from the Inside Out |Reconnective Healing | The Reconnection| Reconnective Art |
http://thereconnectivehighway.com
I used to believe that women had to be better than men to be considered as good. Now I’m wondering if perhaps that has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. We believe it, we perpetrate it, we reinforce it. I’m with you, let’s stop it.
As I read this I realized that often when a woman does round up and own her success, it is another woman that says something mean to round her down. We have to stop that as women. and that means we have to stop doing it behind their backs!
Ann Evanston
warrior-preneur.com
You are absolutely right. It needs to stop. We shouldn’t be doing it to one another. We shouldn’t be doing it to anyone. That kind of energy is as damaging to the ones doing the running down as it is to the ones being run down, maybe more so.
The only answer is love.
Wonderful Kerry! Good luck and I might just have to find a TV to watch so I can see you when you get on! Your statement about rounding down is so true for many of us. For me, I am always discounting what I have done and looking at all the things I have to do yet as a sign that I am not a success! My daily to do list is always too long. Sometimes I just go back to the list at the end of the day and add all the things I did that were not on the list just so I can cross them off and remind myself of just how awesome I really am!
Way to go, Kerry! Be sure to let me know when you are on so I can cheer for you. I’ll cheer no matter what the outcome because you are a winner in my book! Hooray!
Susan Berland
http://susan-berland.com
Thank you Susan. If I make it onto the program I’ll be torn between hiring sky writers and hiding in a hole. Maybe I’ll hire the sky writers and watch from the hole 🙂
I so don’t know why you even struggled with going for it!! I’m so glad you decided to do it. You are one fantastic person and I think you would be a kick to watch.
I love the rounding up concept. I’d never heard that before and it certainly makes sense. Women, and especially more ‘mature’ women were consciously and subconsciously taught that success was for men. And staying home and running the home front was not something that could be quantified as a ‘success’ so women never got into the habit (comfort) of being successful. You certainly shouldn’t be smarter than a boy because then no boy would ever like you. These ideas were perpetuated so that, as you said, women were not afraid to fail, but afraid to be successful. I don’t think this is just gender based either. I think that there is a whole racial perpetuation as well of this same concept.
But I think I’ll go have some tequila…
Candace Davenport
http://www.ourlittlebooks.com ~ Little Books with a Big Message
Wow Candace
Somehow I didn’t see your comment on this post until just this moment. 18 months later. Thanks for your encouragement. I didn’t make it, obviously but will keep on taking the test, just in case.
Your observations on the lamentable tendency for women to underestimate their skills, accomplishments and potential are perfectly aligned with mine. I cn still her both my mother and especially my grandmother telling me to make sure the boys didn’t find out that I was smarter. I can only hope this isn’t being perpetrated as extensively these days.
I still have tequila and lots of limes…
I LOVE this – and you can bet I’ll be rounding UP from here on to eternity!
Peggy
***
Peggy Nolan
The Stepmom’s Toolbox
Yay Peggy.
Here’s to rounding UP!!!
That is wonderful news! I hope you get selected for the show. Good luck to you!
I think we all critique ourselves to a point of not seeming good enough. It’s just part of human nature.
Thanks Keri. I didn’t make the cut this time but I’ll try again one of these days.
To quote a line from some movie “Human nature is what we were put here to rise above.” I wish I could remember the movie and the actress who delivered the line. I can hear her voice in my head. It does seem like a life long project to stifle the critical and often inaccurate critic in our head.