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50 minutes reading time (10029 words)

Should you tell the truth?

Should entrepreneurs always tell the truth? Should entrepreneurs always tell the truth?

In this podcast I explore what it means for entrepreneurs to always tell the truth and more importantly to be a seeker of the truth. The podcast is conducted live on ClubHouse at 5pm Easter time every Thursday.

Complete Entrepreneur 9-30-21

[00:00:00] It's great to have, um, Colin here and also Michelle here and Rachel and Kelly. It's fabulous to have you guys here, um, helping as well and the complete entrepreneur. Cause we're looking at a really, really interesting topic today and that is, should you always tell the truth?

[00:00:26] Should you always tell the truth? So Colin, should you always tell the truth? What do you think about that? No, I mean, we saw the movie, right? Remember that movie, there was one that they came out, the guy I'd always tell the truth. Like, um, I don't even know what this topic's about. I'm so confused, but I will say this like integrity over map over, over money.

[00:00:49] That's one of my personal things. And I truly believe in operating at a high level of ethics and I, and I know it, you might take a little longer to make money, but in the end you always get there. And, uh, for me, be brutally honest with your team. I love this is, this was good to great. I believe be brutally honest, level five leadership.

[00:01:09] Be brutally honest with the facts of the situation. But then also share your vision, share your optimism. You know, there were a lot of people who questioned whether or not.club could be a meaningful domain extension to compete with.org and.com. And today it is, it has really taken off. And now, you know, obviously now you look back and say, oh yeah, whatever, but what Jeff and I and Michelle started this company.club.

[00:01:43] We had to convince the world that there was something here that this was an incredible brand that the world needed. We had to convince the Chinese government, that this was important for the China. For China. We had to convince hundreds of registrars to list this name on their, on their, on their website to sell this name.

[00:02:09] We had to convince end users. I don't call that line. I call it inspiring. I call that coming out with a vision, but I'm curious, I don't really understand this topic, Michael and I don't, let's do one it's it's, it's a pretty broad topic they call an and uh, let me tell you a story. Even this week, that happened to me.

[00:02:29] Uh, I got an email from a client and they said, oh, Michael, I haven't received my payment. And it was only a few hundred bucks. It wasn't that much. And, uh, um, we, we pay all of our clients, uh, at park logic every single month. It's like clockwork. Yeah. And I took a look at the account and I thought, oh no, I forgot the ticket checkbox.

[00:02:54] You know how you get these forms and your backend systems, CRM systems and everything like that. And there's all these different fields and stuff. Well, I forgot to tick one, so I could've spun it. I could say, okay, um, everything's gonna be fine next month. Sorry about that. Or whatever. Or the thing is we missed a payment run.

[00:03:16] It's going to be a disaster from an admin perspective for that month and all these sorts of different things. Instead I said to the person, you know what? I made a mistake. I made a mistake, uh, and I told them the truth. And I said, this is, this is what happened. And I forgot to tick a check box. And look, I'm really sorry about that.

[00:03:37] You have these different options to move forward and everything like that. Please let me know which one you prefer to do. And, uh, took from there. But sometimes it's quite difficult for entrepreneurs who are trying to do the spin. You're talking about they call calling, but for entrepreneurs to say, I'm going to tell the truth.

[00:03:57] Uh, I'm going to tell the truth and that it's actually real, it's a difficult scenario, um, to be able to do that. And I have a small story, Michael. Yeah, I should. So back in the nineties, uh, we had something called an internet service provider in Canada and we had dial up internet. And, uh, I mean, this thing was unbelievable.

[00:04:20] We were the largest, uh, in the city of Toronto at the time. And we had 700 phone lines going into the small little building and some one day the, um, the, I dunno, hydro one of these big companies, they cut the lines and most of Toronto was off the line on the internet. And we're all, we all huddled in the boardroom and we're like, holy shit, we're out of business.

[00:04:45] This what? And the other, let's just say like, you know, this technical prophet said, no, let's just tell the truth, but let's do something different. Let's put out a press release. We put out a press release telling the exact truth. And I could tell you right now, never before have I seen our business explode more than after that because it took them about two days to fix it by the way.

[00:05:07] And they were working 24 hours a day and it turned into it every, every hour, every half hour on the radio stations, all the news channels, internet directors down.dot.dot tens of thousands of a hundred thousands of users are down on the trump.dot dot. Tell the truth. And we actually publicized it and it worked in our favor.

[00:05:29] I'm not saying that works all the time. I just think it worked in that case. Yeah. That's a great story calling. It really is. And, but it can be challenging though, to tell the truth. Yeah. It can be really challenging and a zero state, as I began to explore this topic and looked at why, why do entrepreneurs find it difficult to tell the truth?

[00:05:56] And quite often they say can justify their own thing. It's for the greater good, um, it's for the greater good yet. Ultimately everything is going to work as me. Greg, I'm going to tell this lot, uh, let me, let me tell you a story, but I, um, we put, we had a sales guy come and join the team one time. And, um, as things happen, when you have technology, um, things go wrong.

[00:06:19] Um, at times, and, uh, the sales guy, he was, he was really noticed he was new to the team and, uh, and he went along and he get oldest work of how he could spin the story to the client. So the client wouldn't really notice it. It's not going to cost the business any money. And I sat down, I sat down with him and I said, so, so let me understand this.

[00:06:45] We stuffed up, but you've worked out a way of how we don't have to actually compensate the client because the client liver. And he said, yeah, yeah, I've worked. I've worked at a, certainly to get a bit of a pat on the back. And I said, there's a problem that, and he said, what's that? I said, someone already knows.

[00:07:04] And he goes, what do you mean? I said, you know, and you know, the situation. So the question I said to him was this is that if you know, and you're about to commit and essentially tell a lie or a bend of the truth, what damage are you doing to you? And ultimately what damage will that cause to the camp, to our company?

[00:07:28] And he goes, oh, I said, go back to the client, tell them the truth and say that we're going to pay them compensation. Cause we stuffed up and you know, it came back a few days later to me and he said, you know, Michael, um, it's actually incredibly refreshing working for a company that takes that attitude and not putting tickets on myself.

[00:07:53] Cause I wish we could actually be better at that all the time. Um, cause sometimes we miss the mark, but you know, it is, it is. So it's so important. Yeah. I think for staff in your team that they know that you don't only have their back and in terms of them going out there and interacting with customers, but you have their back financially as well.

[00:08:16] And it doesn't mutate that guy still working. To this day and we have the same team we've had for over 12 or 13 years. And it's, that has paid unbelievable dividends and we've become fairly fanatical about that, the truth and the issues of the truth. So that's the topic we're discussing is should you always tell the truth and are there times when you shouldn't tell the truth as an entrepreneur, and what's the implications of not telling the truth, but explain all those different things.

[00:08:51] So if you're in the audit, just say, you know what, I've got a great story to tell, and it could be a negative story, could be a positive story, or you have some questions about this topic. Like, should you tell the truth to a VC? Or how about Jordan investor? When you know, you're looking at numbers and they're a bit rubbery, all these are great questions.

[00:09:09] If you're in the audience right now, and you want to stick your hand up, we'd love to hear for you want to hear your story, hear your questions at the complete entrepreneur, because it'd be great to hear from you guys. But in the meantime, Ron, it's wonderful to have you on the stage, Ron, what's your thoughts on this topic of, should you always tell the truth?

[00:09:29] Thank you, Michael. Good to see you. I'm an advocate at one extreme. I never tell a lie. The last lie I told was when I was a teenager, I gave it up explicitly. Uh, resolved. I would never tell a lie again, the rest of my life. And I've lived by that code. And I believe that a panoply of terrific outcomes have come out of that decision.

[00:10:03] I'm a serial entrepreneur. I took one venture from nothing to a $2 billion acquisition. I did it without struggle without especially difficult work without setbacks. And I think, and one obvious thing is I have a terrific reputation with everybody who has ever dealt with me as a scrupulous truth-teller they can count on what I say, what I claim.

[00:10:37] And, uh, if we have time, I'll tell a little story about how I take it beyond mere truth telling. Um, the second thing that to me is so important in this principle is that if you are telling even little lies, even white lies, supposedly quotes white lies, you are screwing up the reputation that you have with yourself.

[00:11:08] Psychologically, your self-esteem is utterly dependent on your view of yourself. As honest, authentic, forthright, tremendous sense of pride, tremendous self self-esteem will come from that. And out of self-esteem comes confidence, courage, and all sorts of other great things. I'm I'm gonna pause there, but I would love to say a little more if, if, if you have time, uh, give a couple examples of how this worked and this is run.

[00:11:45] Yeah. Ron, you raised some really good points there. Michelle, do you have any thoughts on what Rhonda shear? You know, I I'm just sitting here thinking, oh, should you always tell the truth? You know, there's sense, you know, lying as an omission or commission, right? Like deliberate lies and then maybe just not telling somebody something, but what occurs to me the most, you know, it's a survival instinct.

[00:12:13] Oftentimes when people just fill out a lie. But the one thing that I think is true is that when you do tell the truth and by the way, it's okay to say, you don't want to talk, you don't have to like spill the beans about everything. That's okay. I, I think it's a great way for you to actually control the outcome, right?

[00:12:38] Because when you do tell the truth, Then you, you know, then you can give the rationale, you can paint the bigger picture. You can, you know, talk about what the remediation is. So I think, you know, kind of reframing truth telling and, and how you interact with others. And like Ron said with yourself is really important.

[00:13:06] Um, that's, that's um, Michelle and I'm finished speaking. Yeah. It's Michelle. I think you're completely right there. And Ron raised as well, is that, um, it talked about how, when you lie, you're acting damaging yourself. You're damaging yourself as an entrepreneur or as just an individual, not even an entrepreneur when you're aligned, you know, you've lied, you've know you've bent the truth, and that has an impact on you psychologically, mentally it damages you.

[00:13:40] And in fact, there's a whole lot of research, uh, on this exact topic, um, was conducted, um, for entrepreneurs by that was it the Massachusetts university that when people lie, they, when entrepreneurs lie, they damage themselves and they lose a lot of their impetus. They lose a lot of their energy and things like that because they're having to manage all these different lives.

[00:14:04] Like what do you do when you go to a conference? And you have like a group of people that drinks or something like that. And you think, oh my gosh, how do I have this conversation? Because I've told each person this circle at different story, how do you manage that? And so sometimes people say, well, I don't want that person, that person there to be in the same sort of discussion circles, these other people, because there are different stories and it becomes, it's so incredibly stressful.

[00:14:35] As I say to my wife who has time for that. Yeah, absolutely. As I say to my wife, life is so much easier when you have a, you just tell the truth. But as Michelle really said, said it was one highlight as well, I think was that there's two different types of lies. There's a lie of omission and there's a live cognition.

[00:14:57] You may say. What was the difference between those two Mago commission is I'm just deliberately telling an untruth all mission is I'm not going to tell you something, um, about our product, about our service. I'm going to admit something out of it and, uh, that may impact your decision. And that's a lie on the shift to that when you get a moment like, um, just before then, Ron, and I appreciate your ignorance on this topic because we will come back to you at some point.

[00:15:30] I'd love to hear from Adam though, Adam, what's your thoughts on. On this topic of, should we tell the truth? Well, simply put, we should always tell the truth. Anytime I've had, anytime I've lied, it's turned out bad. I, I do not hold the record who was speaking and said that they held the perfect for you. Was that you call him.

[00:15:54] Did you say you were good over on Ron's the perfect guy. I had one little one or two little T I'll tell you this. If I relate it back to very early on, I stole a chapstick from hobby lobby when I was very young, probably four or five tops. And we were, were, were pretty poor gas was a thing. My mom, we were halfway back to the house.

[00:16:18] My mom saw me in the mirror, the rear view mirror, putting the chapstick on. She slammed on the brakes, got it out of my hands and asked me, where did I get it? Obviously she knew I stole it. So she drove all the way back, like at least 30 minutes and made the, made me walk up to the, to the cashier and confessed that I stole it and ask her what my punishment was that left the biggest impression in my life.

[00:16:45] Now I've messed up one other time since that. And it's not something I care to go into, but it wasn't a punishment. You can't leave us with that. That was it. Just the embarrassment of that. Wasn't punishment of not enough. I don't know. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah, no, I was totally, I mean like that, it just left the impression on me.

[00:17:03] I don't think it was, she meant to embarrass me, but I'm not. I'm so not embarrassed about it now. You know what I mean? It's like it set some clear defined lines of who you should be. And I don't think it has to do with just being an entrepreneur. I think it's just being a person in general and something that really resonated with me was when you said, oh, I was told five different stories to these five different people.

[00:17:24] Who would, who do, why would you invite that as a possibility into your area? Like as a core for me? So that's my piece right now. I'm sure I have something to say in a little bit, hang tight story. When I reflect on my own life. Let me say, I remember those times when I exactly the same situation with my parents, they, they really drilled into me the importance of the truth and I passed it on to my kids as well.

[00:17:51] Um, which brings up an interesting question. Can you have a relationship with someone who consistently lies? So how can you have a business relationship with a supplier who continuously lies that means, can you have a relationship with a customer if you continually lie to them? Because I personally believe you.

[00:18:19] You actually can't and the reason why no one will know where they actually stand with you, the foundation of any relationship is the truth. The foundation of a marriage or a relationship is the truth. Hollywood has built a whole sort of industry with romcoms, and I can guarantee every rom-com. At some point in time, we'll have one of the different, different, um, uh, lead actors or actresses telling a lie to the other, and it finally comes out and then they go along and tell the truth.

[00:18:55] And suddenly the truth sets them free. All men, everything is all the tension up until that point. And then the true set, the free and all is good. So the question is this and Michelle or Colin loved it. Your thoughts on this one is it, can you have a relationship, whether it's a business relationship or not?

[00:19:18] If a person is prepared to pay it to continuously lie and you're always questioning what they say. So either of you, Michelle, can you have a relationship to somebody who doesn't get vaccinated? I think you can. I think it's okay. But a weird, weird, I think that was weird. Take it out. I'm sorry.

[00:19:50] Yeah, I think I said a little bit different to that, um, where it's not necessarily, uh, a person's life, it brings up another point is that your truth could be different to someone else's truth or is there the truth? And that's another question as well is because people have different perceptions. They view the world very differently.

[00:20:12] So I may, uh, I may think you just lie, but that person is not, I didn't lie at all. I viewed the particular issue in a different way. So is it a lie or not? Um, and that's once again, another really interesting point about this topic. And as we begin to unpack this topic of, should you always tell the truth?

[00:20:34] There's another aspect to it again, how do you develop a culture of truth in your organization? And what's the difference between telling the truth and being a seeker of the truth? The very different things I seeker the truth is so critical for our entrepreneur because a true seeker of the truth will say, I need to get to the bottom of this problem in my business.

[00:20:57] And I need to encourage people in my business to actually reveal the problems so they can be worked on because if you don't know the problem exists, or you don't have all the facts or problem, how can you possibly solve the. And a seeker. The truth is absolutely critical. Let me tell you a story, then we're going to move on to clocks.

[00:21:15] And I remember I sat down, um, uh, with a couple of people and I said, I want to tell you something, I'm a seeker of the truth. I want to understand what is going on. And I went on a timeline over this particular issue, and I could even add a PowerPoint slide. We're going to say, this is what happened this point, this point, this point, this point, this point.

[00:21:39] And I said, so what we need to understand here is what actually occurred in this process and how, how the relationship went off the rails and, uh, the business relationship. And, uh, the interstate that I discovered in that process, not everyone is capable of hearing the truth. So what do you do in that circumstance, which is once again another issue, but anyway, there's so much happening in here in this conversation at the complete entrepreneur, should you, as an entrepreneur or as a person always tell the truth and what happens if the other person is going to really hurt them.

[00:22:16] But if you've already tackled that issue, let's see it from clocks and clocks. I'd love to hear from you on this topic.

[00:22:26] So Clarkson you there. Um, you may have to turn off your microphone, turn on your microphone.

[00:22:34] Okay, Clarkson, we're going to move on to Maggie then. Meggie. I'd love to hear from you on this. Thank you so much for bringing me to this stage. I am a brand strategist. Um, so here's the truth for my clients. As I, as I tell it to them, fairness, Jeffree star exaggerated claims will eventually be found out.

[00:23:01] So your competitive advantage, the thing that sets you apart as a brand needs to be something that you can prove every day. Is it true? Is it provable and give them examples? So for my clients, the challenge isn't to ask themselves, do I lie, or do I not lie? The challenge is, do I hyperbolize knowing that tension creates attention?

[00:23:31] And what I say to them is the brand strategy best practice that I want you to follow is don't lie. Don't exaggerate because your claims will be found out people's the Zeit. Geist is such that bullshit detectors are on high. So when people say things like they haven't lied since they were a teenager, we know that to not be reflective of somebody.

[00:24:01] Is telling the truth. Thank you for letting me on the stage. I'm done talking, Hey, Maggie, you haven't done talking yet. I'll tell you, you brought up a really interesting thing about brand and, um, and, and how truth is wrapped up in the brand. Does that, are you suggesting that the marketing pitch of our marketing materials, our marketing message and everything should be absolutely squeaky clean?

[00:24:26] Are we allowed to embellish a little bit and our marketing pictures? Like, what are you saying here? I don't know if you all are old enough to remember the marketing campaign come see the softer side of Sears, but that was a multi-million dollar campaign that failed because the truth of what Sears was in that moment was not at all aligned with the message that the marketing campaign was sending to the world.

[00:24:55] So I say to my clients, jokingly, I allow 10% hyperbole because I feel like they need some number to attach to it. But no, it is never a good idea to create a marketing piece that isn't backed up by the organization that you're talking. Yeah, but what do you do with a situation that Maggie had? Like, if you've ever seen the movie, Kate and Leopold with, um, uh, Hugh Jackman and he's, he's advertising this particular butter and, and he goes, what should I be peddling pond scum, but he's going to say all the nice right words and all that sort of stuff.

[00:25:36] Even though the product went terrible. What do you do in that circumstance? I think people have to decide, uh, for themselves and if they want to sleep at night and how well they sleep at night, I feel very comfortable with the clients I work with and because they're doing amazing things in the world, I stay small for the reason, for one of the reasons I work with medium sized companies, not enormous companies is because that's the juice.

[00:26:04] Is there, the honesty is there, the passion and Goodwill is there. So I just think you have to just figure it out for yourself. We're all adults. We can do that. Okay. Yeah. That is true. I must admit that that's a great movie though, but by the way, if you hadn't seen that go and see Kate and Leopold, because it illustrates this.

[00:26:23] I Glen, if you can just mute your microphone now we'll come back to come back to shortly. But yeah. So Michelle, so what do you do in the circumstances that, that Maggie is talking about? Should we be really squeaky clean with our marketing messages and things like that? What do you think about that? Well, yeah.

[00:26:45] That's a fine line, right? Obviously, at least. So Michelle, isn't a fine line between pleasure and pain as a, there's a song that's told to you about that. It's you, you gotta like, obviously it's marketing, right? You want to talk about the good stuff. Right. And it's very subjective. So yeah. I mean, obviously you don't want to lie.

[00:27:12] Um, but I think it really comes down if you're a good marketer, right. You're trying to solve a problem for someone. So just if your product really, or service really solves that problem, then just focus on that. And then you don't, you know, well, why do you need to lie? Right. You're not going to keep and gain customers by lying.

[00:27:33] And then there, you know, you get a bad reputation and they don't want to buy your product. So I don't see any benefit of lying in your marketing materials, but if there's something wrong, you know, I wouldn't put that in there either. Okay. Yeah. Maybe we're not talking about lying here, Michelle, but maybe stretching or as we talked about, maybe it's embellishing beyond the 10% to say 20, 30, 40% or something like that.

[00:27:56] Like what do we do in that circumstance though with our marketing messages and things and things like. Yeah. So hard one. Yeah. I mean, I personally, wouldn't put you on the spot here, Michelle. I know, I know I personally would not do that. And I personally wouldn't keep using products that did that, but again, like things are subjective, so it's always good to, that's why, you know, today, I think in today's world, people are really looking for transparency.

[00:28:26] I think it's good to be transparent and, you know, get, I like to marketing, to use testimonials and third party because you know, at the end of the day, you know, marketing best is if you show me and you're not just telling me, so from a marketing standpoint, let others talk for you, I think is, is a good policy and yeah.

[00:28:49] Don't make up shit. I mean, like just it's it's bad and it's only going to hurt you. May I, may I get in here? Or did you want to come back to that?

[00:29:00] Yeah. Yeah. I just want to be respectful. So for me, I care nothing about the testimonials I can tell by your voice. I can literally tell by your voice. I can, I literally know whether you're full of it or not just as we all can if we tune into it. So it's, it's, it's so much deeper than that for me. And what also comes up with me is how could we say.

[00:29:27] You know, it's one way or the other and, uh, persecution or no, or whatever, like we're, we're all human, we're all here experiencing it. We all get to make our choices. And it's just like this conversation. We choose this, keep it in a civil tongue. Um, there's been a couple, one thing, especially I did not really appreciate.

[00:29:45] Uh, but you just move on and that to me is the human experience. So how am I supposed to say someone should or shouldn't do anything if, if it ends up causing a higher elevation for everyone? Yeah. How true Adam? How true? Like, I, I must admit, um, in my own life, um, and I've shared about this number of times in the complete entrepreneur.

[00:30:16] I have a series of foundations that back in my twenties, I really thought about what are the principles I want to build my life upon. And, uh, one of the principles was tell the truth and, or be a secret, the truth actually. And the other principals would trust. Think of it as a triangle. So you got the bottom left-hand corner of the triangle is truth.

[00:30:39] The bottom right-hand corner is track and the top is what we're all doing right now. It's called learning. So I got truth trust and learning, and I began to reflect on this and I thought, but what does truth and learning, give me, I'll tell you what it gives me. It gives me enlightened. If I'm really a focused on being a seeker of the truth and wanting to learn everything that I give them, lots of admin and enlightenment is amazing for an entrepreneur because enlightenment means you see things in the marketplace.

[00:31:10] Other people don't see, you see things in potential business relationship. You don't see because you're seeking the truth. Um, you're seeking your truth and you're looking for looking for things, um, uh, in, in, in there's opportunities. But, but you're also prepared to learn that when you make mistakes or you say something you shouldn't, and let me, let me share a story.

[00:31:34] I remember many years ago, uh, I was at a conference and I had a meeting with a prospective, um, uh, partner. And, uh, at the end of the meeting, my conscience was playing and I was thinking, did I say something that could have been, uh, received in a different way? Did I not share appropriately? Um, in that situation, did I tell a, was that a lie of our mission?

[00:32:03] And I remember the next day I went to that particular guy the next day at the conference, and I sat down with him. I said, I just want to clarify this. It's really been really important for me to do this. And, and I clarify these, no, you didn't start as a great, I'm glad of that to this day. We still have that partnership to this day and we have done millions and millions of dollars together.

[00:32:25] Yeah. And the reason why the bedrock of the relationship one is one of transparency, one of one of truthfulness, and it's so exciting, their circumstances. So I'm really appreciating all the feedback we get in there. And for those of you on stage and everything like that, this is the complete entrepreneur I were talking about the truth at what does that mean for an entrepreneur to really tell the truth and to be a seeker of the truth.

[00:32:54] So, Glenn, it's wonderful. Thank you for being so patient. It's great to have you here on the complete entrepreneur. What's your thoughts on this topic? Thank you, Michael. And, uh, Aloha from Hawaii. So I ran into gunny Buckminster fuller in the early eighties and began to read his writings and books and his whole idea around integrity test reached into my soul and to begin to, you know, to work on me.

[00:33:27] And since that time I've found it had been part of 19 different companies and number of non-profits and now I'm in this role of looking at nonprofit. Capitalism is the next evolutionary step of, uh, of where we're going with capitalism. And it's this whole idea of, um, of social capital is really important to me and the people that I partner with create relationships.

[00:33:54] Have dinner with, uh, the idea of just being the authentic self of who all of us are, is a, uh, assistant critical aspect of, of my life. And, and I feel like that that's got to be reflected in every community that I'm part of. And I look at organizations as, you know, as being part of that community and looking at our Ohana of, of, uh, of our, of our acting local, but, uh, paying attention to the global impacts and how can we be socially, uh, contributing to the, to the good of the whole, uh, you know, and in every decision in every aspect.

[00:34:36] And so when we talk about marketing materials, we talk about branding. It's really important to be, to be, I think in integrity of, uh, of who we are and what we're bringing to the world and doing that with, uh, you know, from the heart and from a consciousness of, of collaboration and, uh, and caring and mutual support.

[00:34:59] So that's where I'm at on this. And I really appreciate your discussion about that and, and consulting work that I've done. We've used a book called the revolutionary agreements, uh, like in a truth, telling and organizations, you know, fortune 50 companies to, um, you know, there's research that says 80% of employees will not tell their boss.

[00:35:21] The truth about what's going on in their organization, even when they know that that situation will impact the livelihood of that company, it's excessive that company. So we simply do not have, and haven't had a truth telling culture and permission to be who we are and to bring our whole selves to work in, in, in everywhere.

[00:35:44] So it's a, it's a culture thing, and I'm doing what I can do and my small little world. And I appreciate the conversation here to, uh, to bring that consciousness forward. So Mahalo, it's great to hear for your Hawaii gland, and it's wonderful to have you on the complete entrepreneur to really share your thoughts on this topic.

[00:36:04] It's interesting. You brought up something there, which is employees don't want to tell the boss of the truth. I was sitting down watching Netflix, um, this past week, uh, a documentary. I love that history documentary is love and this one was on the samurai. And I'm particularly interested in that period, period of history around 1,580 or thereabouts.

[00:36:26] And there's this Shogun and, uh, the Shogun heater Roshi decides that he's going to go because he conquered Japan. He's going to go and invade Korea. And so he said Julie's general there and there's troops and stuff. And they're coming back to him with these glowing reports, how everything is doing really.

[00:36:47] The fact is it was a disaster, but they couldn't tell him that they actually had to tell him that everything is doing really well. So he goes and has a, you finally get some industries from China because they got involved in the, in the war. And the Chinese sort of said, um, here, we'd like to give you these, these robes never think anything.

[00:37:06] Great. They're obviously being subservient to me. Thanks very much. That's great. Cause I've won this war and then finally they give the terms and writing and anything's going to be terms of surrender. And they're actually asking for his surrender and the robes were for him to wear, to be subservient to China.

[00:37:27] And at that was when the truth finally came out of what actually occurred there. Yeah. And you all will hit the fan and all that sort of stuff. But yeah, it's, it's, it's incredible that where people, when there's not a culture or a willingness to hear the truth and this where I talk about the distinction of being a seeker of the truth, and I've a culture of seekers of the truth.

[00:37:52] When there's not that culture there, then what happens is entrepreneurs will get lies. And when they get lives, they can't solve the problems. And when you can't solve the problems, it's going to impact your bottom line. Let me tell you, and you might wake up one day to no longer have a business. Sorry, here's a question for you.

[00:38:11] Colin. You've raised lots of money over the years and everything, and sat down with investors and all that sort of stuff like myself. I've done the same thing, but you've taken a look at the projections forward and, or you've written the creative, the projections. I'm many of these projections in all these financial statements to get raised and get series a funding, soon bees and all that sort of stuff.

[00:38:35] Are they almost like lies many times because don't, shouldn't you just like double your numbers because you know, the investor's going to have them anyway. What's your thoughts on that one called?

[00:38:50] Yeah. They call him or maybe we can skip across to I'm here. I'm here. I'm here. I want to flip it on here. I want to flip it a little bit. I want to that. Let me tell you, I love the fact when you're in this room, calling your, your, the devil's advocate quite often and closes, I actually did have a devil's advocate thing and a story where I did lie about something that saved my company.

[00:39:19] And it's very rare. I didn't want to go down that path. That's a, that's like, I think it's 20 years ago, so I think I'd be okay. But there are moments in times where not everybody needs to know everything, but I want to flip it. I want to say what about absolute truth? So I have. I'm M I'm involved in a company as an e-commerce company.

[00:39:40] And we had an employee who, uh, did some very bad advertising and all of a sudden we were down, we couldn't pay the supplier, we couldn't pay the Chinese supplier. We were basically insolvent. We were insolvent the company. And so what I, you know, I'm talking to the CEO and I said to that person, you know what?

[00:40:03] We just gotta be brutally honest. And we just told them the truth. We told China the Chinese supplier. We said, look, we had an employee, they did bad advertising. We overpaid on the advertising. We don't have the money to pay you. Here's exactly what happened. And we literally turn the situation. We paid them off over two years, very slow payments or year, year, and a half or something.

[00:40:28] And we actually got ourselves out of that situation. But let me, let me say this. When you have a problem more often as offers, we try to hide it. What if we shared the absolute pain and truth with our suppliers, you know, right now is $19,000 to get a container across the Atlantic it's or Pacific, sorry, Pacific.

[00:40:53] I guess it comes to Pacific point is it's expensive. What if we share that truth with our suppliers? So we need another 5% off because we got to cover that if we don't get. We can't actually sell our products. And by the way, this is a true story. Another one where we did this and they lowered the price.

[00:41:10] The fact of the matter is share your pain with your suppliers and your, the truth. And we try cause we're all great. We're all good at what we do, but when things screw up, we don't do that, but we should. And when you do that, you can actually improve your situation. Absolute truth is, is slightly different than your topic, Michael, but it's sort of in line in a different way.

[00:41:37] No, I think it's right. Smack bang in the middle, actually. Colin. Um, maybe I could share a story happened to me 25 years ago, deep as a long time ago. Uh, I woke up one day to discover that, uh, I cut a long story short. I woke up one day, discover I'd be shocked if for $1.6 billion and a small business to suddenly fill a $1.6 million cashflow hall is impossible.

[00:42:04] The first thing I did was I actually visited, um, all different creditors. I personally went to them and I said, this is what. Guys, I'm going to be really upfront with you. Uh, this occurred, we're hoping to get some of that money back and all that sort of stuff. Um, but I was transparent and I said, look, you have every right to go along.

[00:42:27] And, uh, lawyers are doing and all that sort of stuff get lawyers at. And by the way, you won't need lawyers because we will be completely transparent with you. Um, but you're more than welcome to, um, and it was actually a really difficult thing, but at the end of it, uh, not only did I feel better, but I knew that I actually still had them on site.

[00:42:50] And those suppliers were in supportive, just like you did with your supplier column, where you had to pay them off across a period of time and things like that. Um, I'd done the same thing. I've had people come to me over the years and they say, Michael, something stuffed up. Uh, can I pay you this much per month across the next 12 months?

[00:43:11] And I have a completely different attitude to that sort of behavior compared to someone who tries to do a runner, I completely different attitudes, but you know what most people do with Michael? You know what they do, they say, oh, the texts in the mail, all it'll be there in two weeks. Oh, I just have, I'll do this.

[00:43:28] Or I've talked to my, my, my accounts on vacation. No, that doesn't work absolute. When you're in trouble, share your pain with your supplier. Well, let me tell you Colin. I had, that actually happened to me as well. And in the end, I said to the sense of the guy who owed me money, I said, I'm going to go sit in your reception right now.

[00:43:53] And I want my check and if I don't get my check, I will share exactly. What's happened with every person in the reception. I got my check straight away, but yeah, it's, it's, um, it was a difficult circumstance that's for sure. Uh, and, and that, that, um, uh, and that situation, but yeah, like, I, I agree with you calling on that talk world, but, um, it's interesting question.

[00:44:20] Should we tell the truth? Should we tell the truth? Should we engage, uh, engage our suppliers, engage our clients in a very truthful and open and transparent way. And what's the benefits of that? What's the risks of that. I'm going to put a, push it a little bit further. Should we tell a significant other the truth?

[00:44:42] You're still at the office, you know, you're still at the office, you know, you're not supposed to be at the office because you're supposed to be home at dinner. Uh, you're going to be special nod or whatever, and you call a, and she, she called up or he calls up and goes, where are you? Oh, I'm in the car. And I'm on my way.

[00:45:02] Isn't that a breach of truth. It breaks through your soul contract. Like that's the demise. No. I agree with you, Adam, but you know, we, how many, how many Hollywood movies have we seen where that's exactly what happens. And it's almost like that's just normal behavior, but something's going wrong. Something just feels off doesn't it.

[00:45:27] And maybe it's a conferences, but going, uh, rearing up inside ourselves. All interesting questions. So, but I'd love to hear from you cute. What a name cue. The only cue I know is from star Trek and he put the whole of humanity on trial, but so cue, hopefully you're not going to do the same to us. It's great to hear you hear from you for on, on the complete entrepreneur.

[00:45:51] So cute, welcome. But what do you got to say on this topic? Um, thanks for the space. Um, Adam, I want to give you some kudos on what you said about hearing it in the person's voice. That's very important. If you have that skill set. That's awesome. And, uh, Glen is far as transparency and connecting that to the truth.

[00:46:10] I want to give you some kudos on that too. Um, because the thing is, is that we live in a different world today. A lot of us here. Well, some of us here we're, we're, um, adults before the internet existed and now we live in the internet world. So transparency is a part of our society, but it's usually fake transparency.

[00:46:33] You know, a person wanting to show you what, um, how awesome they are in regard to business. They want to show you their best side. They want to show you what they're capable of. They don't want to show you there. They don't want to show you their challenges. Um, and when it comes to truth, um, the way I feel about truth when in business and in relationships is you got to handle it carefully because truth is a subject that usually has to deal with some type of aggregation, friction conflict.

[00:47:04] And when you're bringing that to another person, um, you have to kind of be careful with it. You kind of have to look for two truths. I think you got to look for the truth that shows that you care. What I mean by that is you got to look for what the other party is getting out of this and try to make sure that you emphasize how important it is for them to get what they are getting out of this, um, on the relationship side and on the business side.

[00:47:31] And then of course, bring your, bring, bring the fact that you're telling the truth about something that can conflict with that, because I look at true truth. Like that's what truth usually does it conflicts with the relationship, um, the business relationship or the personal. And so, um, you definitely want to be able to be truthful, but then you got to take a look at me and true with yourself because a lot of people are not true with themselves in regard to business and relationships, they aspire to be something that they're not, and they claim that they are that exact thing.

[00:48:03] I think that it's a lot better when you get the collaborative effort and the way you get the collaborative effort is you focus on another person's. Um, I wouldn't call it truth. I don't think that's the best word to use for it, but they're what they're getting out of this deal with you. You try to make sure that you let them know how important that is to you.

[00:48:23] And then you can bring your truth to the fact that you might not be as good as you think you are. You're on your way. You believe in yourself, you believe in what your company can do, but you're having an issue. And if you can balance the two, you can really do great because, um, like Adam said, you can hear it in someone's voice when they're confident or when they're full of BS.

[00:48:48] And when a person's full of BS, that doesn't necessarily they're mean they're actually full of BS that just nervous business and relationships can be the cause of strokes in all and suicides and all kinds of stuff. So, because of all the stress that goes into these relationships that determine the quality of our lives, I think that we really have to put a lot of focus on what the other person gets out of it.

[00:49:13] And then it'll calm us down. And it'll allow us to have the highest level of efficiency because what good is truth without efficiency, they have to go hand in hand. And once you can get that collaborative effort by balancing what the other person, the other party's getting out of it and your inadequacies and what you can do to bridge the gap between the two.

[00:49:35] I think that you're going to be hot. Like, uh, you're going to be hot, like fisheries, and you're going to fry

[00:49:46] burned and like a volcano in Hawaii. You know, I love everything you said there. Did you want to step in there? Whatever, I'm just, yeah, it was, it was great. What you shared that. And I think there's a really good motto. That's um, entrepreneurs would be very wise to adopt you have two years and one math use them in those proportions.

[00:50:08] And I think what you're, you're talking to the acute is the fact that, you know, what. It could be that you have a truth and your supply, your customer, your staff member, whoever it is, you, your family member has a particular truth about the same issue. And the reason why I say that is not always, I think, black and white, quite often, it's the view they're viewing through their own filters or they're viewing things through their own perspectives and stuff out that they are the party.

[00:50:41] And to listen to what that perspective is, is so, so important is so important. So you can understand their truth. Ultimately, in some situations, there is the truth. There's the truth. What we don't want to do is, is propagate our truth as being the truth in every circumstance. Cause it may not be, it may be one of those learning circumstances and we need to go through a learning time of go, oh, I can think of that.

[00:51:11] That's why you're taking this perspective. Thank you very much for helping me add so I can see that now. And then you, then you, then it's a collaboration, it's a collaboration of working together and things like that. And that's really where entrepreneurship gets a drive from that collaborative, that synergistic sort of force that drives businesses on through that startup stage.

[00:51:33] It's so, so important to be able to do that. Is that, that collaborative feeling a friction? One of the things I love about my business partner is we don't always see things the same way. We may be talking about the same thing. We may even have the same dad on the topic, but we don't see it the same way.

[00:51:54] And it's like on shopping's on. And, uh, we get a better outcome at the end because Y we're collaborating and we're seeking first to understand rather than to go long in towel, which is all exciting stuff. So, um, Q do you want to add a few more things to that? I know we're coming towards the end of our hour, but it'd be great to hear from you.

[00:52:17] Thank you so much. Um, I appreciate the space and the great, uh, level of organization in the moderation. Um, what I like to add to it is how many times have we, as, um, a parent success, having some level of success being approached by somebody who was looking at. From one angle, they were trying to sell us something or get us involved in something.

[00:52:39] And they didn't even concern themselves about what would make that important to us. And that's just a tragedy because it's solid truth. It's not like what they don't have is good. It's just that they didn't take the time. Like you said, Michael, to dig in and find out what, what motivates you? Um, are you a royalty person?

[00:53:01] Are you an equity person? Um, what, w w what drives you? What are you into, and of course I have a deal for you, but I've definitely don't. Um, Taylor, I definitely don't have a cookie cutter deal. I like to be able to bend and move and shake with my clients and make sure that I'm taking care of them in the best way possible.

[00:53:21] So let me tell you a little bit about what I've gotten. Um, and you tell me a little bit about what you're into, and then I'm sure that we can find a way to, um, get excited about it versus telling the person, you know, what, I'm not interested at all, uh, sorry, this isn't going to work simply because that person didn't do what we're advising, um, what we're reminding ourselves to do, which is make sure you find out what's important to that person.

[00:53:47] And then you can, you can come together because. You can't close the deal without two people, you can't get a relationship without two people, and you need to be able to emphasize how, uh, the, the, the, the attributes of the other person, you need to be able to magnify those. And you need to be able to solidify the things that they're challenged with.

[00:54:08] And that's how I feel like you can just steam roll through everything where I'm in a I'm on a sales floor, and I'm closing all the deals for the company and the owner. And the only reason I'm closing all these deals and the other guys are not, is because I'm actually digging in a little bit, just to find out why a customer wants to do business with my company in the first place.

[00:54:26] And then I know how to tailor that to them, even though it's the same package, we're still in the same stuff, but I just know how to give them that experience in that relationship, because I'm going to end, um, a non long-winded. So I'm going to go ahead and cut it off. I just think that the best things in life are when you're actually getting stuff done with extraordinary people.

[00:54:47] And when you can take a person who was not deal, that was not extraordinary. And you just turn it into something extraordinary because you know how much flame you are, how much gas you bring to the fire, and you put it forward on both sides. Thank you so much. Thanks. Love that queue. Really do appreciate it.

[00:55:04] I love your enthusiasm as well. It's a really good just to follow up with that. I remember taking, uh, one of my daughters, um, to a conference in the, in the us and, um, and she said, oh, so we're going to, she, she was coming to all the meetings with me and just to like, give her some experience with that. And she says, our dads who we're going to be selling to.

[00:55:26] And I say, we're not. And she said, what do you mean? I said, it's really simple. We're going to listen to them. And if we can help them out, then we can be able to help them at and helping Matt, maybe you need to go somewhere else. But what we're going to do is we're going to help them out and that's what we're going to do.

[00:55:45] And you want to go also to share with them what we actually can do, why we can actually help them at and, uh, with our products and services and everything like that. We're not going to be backward in coming forward, but it's all about listening. And I love that. Love that. Love it, love it, love it. At times the energy people are dishonest.

[00:56:07] People then surrounding yourself with good people. If you spend your energy on positive things, great things happen. I have to say this was phenomenal. This hour. I was a little confused at the beginning. I got it. Now. I love the topic and I know Michael. I want to let you know. We've got Mr. Wonderful for shark tank, uh, next in the next month.

[00:56:32] Uh, startup club. So if you're interested to join that, but Michael finish it. Yeah, that'd be great. I'm looking forward to that. That's for sure. Uh, so much has been happening with, start up, start up a club. If you haven't signed up to receive the newsletters and things like that, to be kept up to date, please go to startup club and sign up and you've really got to do that.

[00:56:55] Cause there's a start up. That club is the biggest club on, on cloud pads. There's obviously a real need from entrepreneurs to be able to have these sort of conversations we're going to be here next week at 5:00 PM Eastern time on the complete entrepreneur, invite your friends, invite others, rake having your, those people on stage.

[00:57:14] Appreciate your willingness to share all of the you on stage. And, um, it's great having you regulars come on stage as well. Uh, really do appreciate your insights. Uh, my moderators. Thank you, but also all of you in the audience. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being there. You inspire me every single week, um, and to come on the complete entrepreneur and to host this.

[00:57:41] So thank you all. But next week, next week, we're looking at the topic of, is there a right time to be angry, a little bit different? Is there a right time to be angry and as an entrepreneur. It's a critical decision we sometimes have to make is should we really be angry? And how do we become emotionally intelligent as entrepreneurs to know when we should be angry, really great topic, intelligent.

[00:58:12] You're not going to get angry. It's easy. And one day you'll just be able to control it completely. Well. Adam loves to hear for your next week of that. It would be great to be able to get that insight on that and your thoughts on that. Like we've all really enjoyed your input today. So thanks very much for that.

[00:58:29] I really do appreciate it. I pray you all have a great week this week and may your businesses be enormously successful?

How to say "No" - to loved ones
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