Truth Sells!

Aside from the ethical considerations, experience proves that the most persuasive people are telling the truth. 

Where does this axiom fit your desire for a fulfilling worklife? And how does it affect your search for it? There are four critical junctures:

• In knowing the truth about yourself;

• In learning the truth about the world in which you want to operate;

• In presenting yourself to potential employers, partners or clients; and

• In negotiating deals which work well for you and for them.

 The Crystal-Barkley process always starts with the ME side of the equation.  For, if you fail to know who the ME is in terms of demonstrated capacities, values, and desires, you condemn yourself to putting on your best face, acquiring the veneer of who you think you ought to be to fit the circumstances.  Like a veneered piece of furniture, showy but vulnerable.  The cracks are easily visible at close view, and it will not hold up when challenged.  Most of us would prefer to have our futures depend on a more solid framework.  We’d like to be of use – and to be paid commensurately for that – rather than be for show alone.

 Realizing that careful scrutiny of who you are always produces reinforcing and enabling information, the patience to examine your personal history for the clues is sustained.  Far from being a boring or fruitless venture, it becomes a rather exciting process of building the foundation for decision-making.

 Then, the requisite next step is to move to an exploration of that specific part of the world on which you would like to make some impact.  We are fond of saying at Crystal-Barkley that rewarding decisions are the consequence of knowing two realities: Me and My World and making an appropriate match between them. 

How much simpler it becomes to approach people to whom you wish to sell your ideas and services when you are confident you can, in fact, accomplish what you say you can.  You deliver a doubly attractive proposition when it is clear you understand where they feel the need.  It’s not a matter of magic and mirrors – polishing a thin veneer to successfully conduct an interview; rather it’s an opportunity for you to describe exactly what you wish to do relative to their needs. Simple? Not quite, but demonstrably possible with disciplined preparation.  Who wants to go through a typical interview again, anyway, feeling off balance and without sufficient information to address the real issues on the mind of the other person?  That is not an inviting scenario.  In contrast, you have it in your power to project yourself as virtually irresistible.

Finally, to make a deal which makes honest good sense for you and the people agreeing to relationships with you is ultimately satisfying.  Fears are eliminated that you may be discovered to be something less than they thought.  What a good feeling it is to be free to be who you are, using the best of your abilities to accomplish what, in truth, matters most to you and those who would benefit. 

Yes, truth outsells pretense.  So, leave the snake oil to “The Music Man.”