I happened to be in the same room as one of my mentors yesterday when he was on a consult call to another one of his clients.  Whilst I wasn’t “listening” it was impossible not to notice the tone of the statements he was making.  This is not word for word but there seemed to be a fairly consistent note of things like:

“You’re the most impatient person I think I’ve ever coached”

“I don’t think you’d do that for more than 5 minutes”

“You would never behave that well in that situation”

“Why do you think you could do that?”

etc. etc.

As I thought about it later I realised that my mentor was giving a huge gift to his client.  He was telling them the truth and being frank with them.

You see many of us build worlds around us where we never have to listen to or live in a place of real truth. Because the fact is most of us don’t want to be told the truth, we want to be loved, encouraged and inspired.  We want to know that we are OK in spite of our own self loathing in many cases.

And whilst this is OK it is really something we need to find from a complete source of truth like God, not our clients and associates.

We need truth in our lives to ever grow.  If I am a jerk for example I don’t want to know that but I NEED to know that if I am ever going to change.

Tiger Woods needed someone in his life to tell him the truth of what he was doing so he might have found help earlier.

Bernie Madoff needed someone in his life telling him the truth before he developed a full blown fantasy business world.

Sports people who cheat need someone in their lives telling them the truth that winning by cheating will pass quickly but the shame and pain of being exposed or even just knowing that they didn’t do it on their own will last for a lifetime.

You may need someone in your life to be frank with you so that you can change, grow and ultimately succeed in the very areas you are trying to make happen right now.

One of the most empowering moments in my life was when God spoke to me directly and said: “Dean, are you ever going to stop feeling guilty about making money. Are you ever going to take the abilities I gave you and create wealth so that you can give more away?”

That one frank moment so changed my life that I now engage mentors and people who will tell me the truth about myself at every opportunity.  Who are you going to put into YOUR life to do this for you today?

Stay Inspired and Stay Safe ~ Dean Letfus

The Ethical Investor

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