I recently ran across this quote from Jason Zweig (technically, from his father), and I can’t stop thinking about its implications for my work and on our lives.
There are three ways to make a living:
1) Lie to people who want to be lied to, and you’ll get rich.
2) Tell the truth to those who want the truth, and you’ll make a living.
3) Tell the truth to those who want to be lied to, and you’ll go broke.
My first curiosity with this quote relates to my work as an advisor (think, coach).
Think about a youth sports team. The coach has the responsibility to take a lot of undeveloped talent, finding that worth investing time and energy into, and finding the best path to improve on that talent without diminishing the average or lowering the performance of other team members. No easy task.
But how many members of that team are driven by the peer pressure to be something they’re not to fit in, be accepted, or belong? How much pressure is on the coach from parents and other supporters to make miracles where talent is lacking? In other words, how much emphasis does the situation place on lying to those who want to be lied to?
Telling the lie, extending the never-ending promise that improvement and success are just around the corner, can extend the life cycle of any paying customer. But it accomplishes nothing beyond enriching the coach.
But what do you do in this situation where you can’t tell the truth to someone who wants a lie?
The coach’s greatest challenge is to get the player to recognize the coach’s true version of the player’s story.
This is the only honest and truly helpful way to tell the truth to someone who wants a lie.
This is a challenging, if not nearly impossible, task. It takes a lot of finesse, patience, development of trust, and risk. But the master coach develops the talent far enough to convert the one who wants to be lied to into one who is ready to hear the truth.
And then the coach makes an honest living that lasts only for the necessary time to develop that talent to its full extent.
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