Can I succeed telling the truth? Not only can you succeed by telling the truth, you can thrive telling the truth. The reason is that you will attract the ‘right’ clients, who have lots of money, who can handle the truth, and prefer the truth.
Telling the truth can actually give you a competitive advantage in a market glutted by people full of hot air. Most people fear nobody wants to hear the truth, but of course they do! And the ones who want to hear the truth will be your best and most lucrative clients. Most successful people respond to bare-bald-buck-naked facts, because most successful people got that way by remaining grounded in reality.
Jack Welch, arguably the greatest CEO of our time, held the philosophy, “Tell me the truth, and tell me early.” If something happened and you knew and didn’t tell him about it, you were fired. But if you came to him early and told him, “You know what? This whole project is screwed up, and I don’t know what to do about it,” you’d go a long way with Jack Welch.
