What is the secret to success?
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I have always believed that the truth naturally rewards you with self-confidence, and telling lies naturally brings on insecurity, self-doubt and poor self-esteem, and so with that, I have chosen to be exceptionally honest in my life. As I matured into adulthood, however, I was stunned to find many people, even experts, don’t believe you can or should be honest. They believe lies are essential–a required element in life.
This has always perplexed me, and I can tell you few people see it like I do. So when I was reading online the other day and I opened up a link–I was pleasantly surprised at what I read. I found someone who is only mentioned by his first name, Peter, because he is an angel investor, but what he said was so beautiful to read!
Peter was quoted by Rebekah, who wrote the article, and shared her conversation with Peter about the secret to success.
Rebekah expected Peter to say all the things most people tell you about achieving success–“never give up” to the old cliche slogans on t-shirts, but he didn’t.
What did Peter say was the secret to success?
He said it “…is to never, ever, ever tell a lie”!
Imagine that?
He then went on to say…
“Complete honesty is the access to ultimate power.”
Think about it.
It’s true.
I have always lived by the principle of honesty in my life and it truly has rewarded me over and over again. I honestly can’t think of one negative that has come from being honest. Not one.
I just love how Peter said it!
Complete honesty does give you power for many reasons. Not aggressive negative power, but positive power. It fills your sails–it propels you forward with self-confidence. Furthermore, you are upfront with yourself because you have to own up to your failures. You can’t hide them or run from them–sweeping them up or ignore them because you are honest and you will talk about them and acknowledge them.
Instead, by facing your failures–you make changes. You grow and learn, and move on to new and better experiences. And that gives you more self-confidence. You begin to believe in yourself more and more, because you are building everything on honesty and integrity.
You also learn that when you admit your failures, people don’t actually judge you nearly as harshly as you thought! Most people understand we all make mistakes! It’s when people don’t admit to their mistakes that people judge harshly.
Furthermore, when you tell the truth, you aren’t overloaded with managing your lies, and you can focus on what is truly important. You also won’t contradict yourself down the line, or say things that are inconsistent. So many people are inconsistent on a daily basis and have no clue–because they aren’t honest with themselves, let alone other people.
People do catch on to lies–no matter how subtle, and they take notice and just one lie caught can cause people to distrust you. And those lies do hurt you in business and in your personal life.
There really isn’t one positive element to lying.
When you lie, you come across as insincere, fake and not genuine. Who wants to be seen like that?
So next time you talk to someone–pay attention. Are you about to tell a lie?
Do you really have to lie? Or can you say something else?
I believe you can always be honest, polite and never rude or offending. The key is to focus on what is true and positive, and take honesty step-by-step.
Give it a try and tell me how it goes. It truly is a beautiful feeling to always be honest, and in the end, it may help you achieve the success you’ve always dreamed about!
Great piece!
I have a boss that tries to get me to lie to our coworkers. For example, if there’s a section of the regulations that are vague, she’ll tell me that I shouldn’t tell our coworkers and offer our preferred interpretation as if the regs were written in a way that doesn’t allow another interpretation. I can’t imagine how she thinks that’s a good idea. Not only is there the ethical issue, but many of our coworkers are far smarter than we are. They may not know what the regs better than us, but i imagine we can’t fool them all the time; and it only takes once.
There’s a university library in my city that’s changed the rules about books placed on hold. Usually, they are kept for a week, but they’ve now decided that they can only keep them on hold for 3 days. The managers have made sure that no emails, letters or notifications are published about this change, so the only way the students will know about this is if they turn up too late to collect their books. This is all because if they were honest and told students, there will be complaints and lower ratings. It’s ridiculous how they think that lying by omission is a good way to avoid this!
>I honestly can’t think of one negative that has come from being honest. Not one.
I can think of a lot (and I’ll give a few examples in a second) but they are not ever worth it compared to lying. For example, last week a cashier accidentally gave me an extra $5.00 in change. I immediately gave the $5.00 back. In other words, I lost $5.00 for being honest, but that’s what I will always do. As a recruiter I frequently tell people they are not a good match for a specific job and I provide lots of job related reasons for that decision. That’s the honest truth. If I lied and said they are wonderful, I could get a quick placement, but it’s never worth it to me. I’d rather take the time and find the ideal candidate that can honestly do the best possible job, rather than a quick fill with someone who is not a great match. So I lose some business because I can’t fill the spots immediately – that’s a trade off I will always take, because honesty is worth so much more than a quick placement, every single time, no exceptions.
Wait… if “they are not ever worth it” compared to lying, if the cashier MISTAKENLY gave you back $5.00, that wasn’t truly “yours” anyway. If you are comparing the inconvenience of standing up and being honest with people about not being a good fit to the benefits of just lying to get a quick placement; that’s not a considering the consequences of being honest, that’s noting that doing the wrong thing can be initially less work/easier. Also, taking the time to put forth the “ideal candidate that can honestly do the best possible job” vs putting a person forth who is not a great match wouldn’t be dishonest, it’d be laziness (according to your “taking the time” modifier.) …and finally, if “honesty is worth so much more than a quick placement” I don’t see how you are experiencing anything negative according to your own words! (Russ is going to kill me) :::pinching Russ and then running::: lol
Hey Doux! 🙂
Thanks for the comments, and no one is going to get killed here 🙂 In fact this will be quite interesting!
Yes, the cashier mistakenly gave me an extra $5.00, that’s true. It was mine once it was handed to me, and it was my decision at that time to tell the truth and return the money or lie and keep the $5.00. I decided to tell the truth and return the money.
Simple question – if that happened to you, what would you do? 🙂 Has it actually happened? What did you do in that case?
On a related note, I purchased a money order at my local bank earlier this year, and the bank clerk made an error writing the money order out. I was asked to bring the money order back in, and get it reissued correctly. The other option would be to have it cashed by my condo association and they could pocket an extra several hundred dollars, which would get credited to my account. I took it back in, found the same bank clerk, made sure she got the bad money order and that she corrected the error. It was very obvious that if the money order was cashed she would have lost her job. There was a possible benefit of several hundred dollars for lying in that situation. What would you do? 🙂
As far as candidates for possible jobs, I did not make my point clear, my apologies. The way I was thinking about would involve falsification of drug or background screening results, but I didn’t say that in my initial post. If I send someone on a job, the screenings have to be done and they have to be good. I would not do this ever, but if a recruiter lied about someone’s results, then that recruiter could send the candidate in right away and start billing immediately instead of waiting. I’m losing money by being honest and always waiting for the candidate with everything complete. What would you do? 🙂
I’m sorry all my examples are about money, I wish I had a broader set of ideas for this. It’s an interesting discussion, and I’m curious to know what others would do when faced with dishonesty and a potential gain. I’ll say no to dishonest gain every single time, no exceptions. What would others do? 🙂
There is a negative about being honest because the way in which you are honest is important. Honesty without compassion becomes hostility.