Mikeworth Consulting

This story, like so many others, starts with an idea. But this idea has nothing to do with a product. Nor does it have anything to do with a service. It’s all about perception.

Whenever faced with a problem, Amy Hoerner Balser approaches it from a very different perspective than most. She doesn’t simply accept the problem, as many people tend to do. Instead, she looks at the entire situation with a belief — a belief that her life at that particular point in time should be different.

Then, she thinks about where she needs to be to make a change to the situation. It’s no longer about the problem. It’s about the outcome. You just need to figure out how to make that outcome possible. In fact, the how isn’t as important as the belief in the end result. And even if the end result is nebulous, you need to trust that the opportunities for attaining it will come.

But Amy doesn’t apply this approach to just problems. She uses it in all facets of her life, and it’s been of particular benefit to her career.

Convinced she could be both a great mom and a successful female executive, without having to make compromises in either role, Amy began to work through her “musts.” She took into account everything from the concrete, like pay, hours and commute, to the more abstract, like being respected, making a difference and taking pride in her work. And any time an opportunity presented itself, she’d refer back to her “musts” to see whether it was a good fit.

This approach has provided Amy with many small and large wins over the last decade, moving from a role as senior analyst to consultant to vice president to associate partner. It’s her mindset that’s responsible for making the connections necessary to create purposeful changes to her life — “purposeful” being the operative word here. She did it on her terms.

The lesson I hope everyone can take away from this is that trusting yourself as an individual can change the opportunities in your path.