The notion of self-awareness may bring to mind an image of a highly conscious individual meditating on a mountaintop — I’m sure we’d all love to be in that spot right now – taking deep breaths. It’s a nice picture, but self-awareness is not only for exceptional people in an amazingly beautiful environment. In simple terms, self-awareness means to know oneself, and it’s possible that this greater knowing can - and should - occur every day, both personally and in business.

On this episode of Business X factors, David Spitz, the CEO of ChannelAdvisor, gives a sense of how ChannelAdvisor was ideally situated to grow alongside the blossoming ecommerce industry. He also shares how self-awareness can lead to making intuitive decisions. 

Main takeaways: 

• Timing is Almost Everything: We often do not appreciate sufficiently how timing can make a substantial difference in life. For Spitz, his family bought a computer when acces to these machines was only beginning to come into the consciousness of some families in America. The access to this early computer was instrumental to the course Spitz’s life took.
• Knowing Oneself: Spitz discusses having “an irrational fear of failure.” This is surprising because many entrepreneurs and business leaders focus on accepting failure. Spitz makes the point that this self-knowledge allows him to make calibrations in how he responds to certain situations. Knowing oneself allows a leader, and even a company, to make better decisions. 
• Seeing the Connections: A leader can drill down into one area due to what feels like a necessarily intense, narrow focus. According to Spitz, taking a broader view across disciplines can help one see the connections between them. A pattern can then emerge that helps to fuel intuition concerning decisions that otherwise may not be clear cut. These frameworks can act like guides to inform decisions.

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