You can be honest and still not be telling the truth.
I was prepping my team to meet our new point of contact before our official client kickoff. I mentioned that Sharon was the director of UX that we’d be working with over the next 6 months, and she was going to brief us with some larger context that would help make us successful.
The next day, we joined the video call, introduced ourselves, and it was the client’s turn.
“Hi, I’m Shannon and I’m the director of UX here.”
Wait, what?
Did she say “Shannon?”
I had told everyone that she was “Sharon.”
Turns out I had gotten her name wrong in my head from the beginning. I don’t know how many times I had said it out loud in front of her (hopefully none).
I was being honest with my team by introducing her as “Sharon.” I truly believed what I was saying. But I wasn’t telling the truth, even though I wasn’t lying or trying to deceive anyone.
Humans are honest without telling the truth a lot of the time.
It happens in business too. I hear it a lot when I talk to agency owners.
“The market is tough right now and clients aren’t buying,” many of them say.
It’s honest. And it’s also validated and reinforced when asking peers and colleagues who report the same.
But is it true?
Because I also hear from other agency owners who are closing 6-figure projects and swamped with inbound requests and work. And their peers say the same too.
So which one is actually true?
We might never know for sure. Both groups are being honest and may be describing only the part of the market they can see. But it’s worth noticing which one you’ve surrounded yourself with, because it’s probably the one you’ll end up believing.
What are you being honest about that might not actually be true?
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