I'm Gretchen Rubin and this is a little happier. Fortunately for me, my father has given me a lot of

great advice over my life about how to live my life, about how to succeed at work, how to deal with

other people, just about everything. And one of the most helpful things he told me is something that

I think about often, and it has saved me from many mistakes, and yet unfortunately for me, I often

fall into this very trap and learn again the hard way of how right he was. We were talking about

some situation years ago, and I can't even remember what we were talking about exactly. It was

about when people had hired a consultant, a political consultant or something, and he observed to me,

well, there are no wizards. And in our conversations, we've returned to that idea many times,

and it resonates with me because it is so tempting to convince myself that if I could just find

the right helper, the right consultant, the right advisor, the right person to do the job,

all my problems would be magically solved and I wouldn't have to be worried or maybe even involved

with a project anymore. Sometimes this is an incredibly enticing idea. I've been in situations where

I so badly wanted to find someone who could handle a problem for me and just let me step back.

And over and over, I remind myself of my father's words. There are no wizards. There are smart and

capable people. Yes, of course, there are people who can bring tremendous value to a problem.

But if something's important to me, and I care a lot about the outcome, I have to stay involved.

I can't just delegate. I can't just look for some wizard. Whenever I've done that, I've been

disappointed. There are no wizards. I'm Gretchen Rubin and I hope this makes your week a little happier.