I read a piece on leadership recently that named a trap I have watched derail capable people for the better part of 40 years. The author called it a land mine — one of those internal habits of mind that quietly stop us from getting where we mean to go — and the most destructive one on the list was certainty: the unwavering belief that you are right and the people who see it differently are wrong.
In our corner of the business, the place where certainty does the most damage, and the most expensive damage, is in the raising of capital.
Let me draw a distinction that matters, because two things can look identical from across a conference table. Conviction is holding a position because you have done the work, you believe the evidence, and you can defend it under hard questioning. Arrogance is what happens when an investor declin
