It’s such a treat to find the right person to help us on a tough job.

Someone who has been there and has done that, who understands our context with all its nuances, who can insert herself seamlessly into this tricky situation and move us forward while making us better.

This expert might be a designer, a professional coach, or a mentor. She might be a software developer, a systems architect or a professor.

She accelerates our work, teaches us things, and moves us down our path.

And, if she’s good (and it sounds like she is), we grow by being in her presence. We learn more about what questions to ask, about how to see the whole playing field, about what’s is and isn’t important in making these kinds of decisions.

But let’s NOT let her excellence slow us down or, worse, stop us completely.

She’s here, right now, but she will be gone, sooner or later. And we can’t let her presence, and our understanding of her excellence (and the gap between what she knows and what we know), erode our confidence that we know enough to decide.

Not because we’re as skilled or experienced or as wise as she is. But because, after all, these are our decisions to make.

If we don’t make this decision and the next one and the one after that, no one will.