Startup or Fortune 100, experienced executive or new graduate – we can all benefit from the wisdom of Liz Strauss and her blog post – When Will You Stop to Claim All You Already Own?

Liz wrote, “Those of us who are fully engaged in building our businesses are so focused forward that we often forget to stop and take an account of what we’ve learned, gained and gathered as we’ve gotten to where we are.”

In a busy world, why is this important?

Not owning what we know, what we have achieved and how we arrived here – holds us to a past point in time that no longer reflects who we are. Liz tells us this impacts (and not in a good way) “how we talk about ourselves and what we do, how we telegraph our confidence and causes us to appear less qualified than our experience because we don’t own what we know.”

As a startup I think this is extremely important, one can quickly get wrapped up in what must be done and where we want to be that it’s easy to overlook the progress that has been made. This progress is critical when communicating growth and value as a startup, defining your position in the market and evaluating next steps – a startup cannot remain a startup forever – own your evolution.

I challenge all of us to think about our accomplishments, what they mean both personally and professionally and own what you know.