Earlier today, I was messaging back and forth with a client of mine who had tagged someone in one of my facebook posts that don’t like me. I sent my client a message saying “don’t expect him to chime in. I called him out, he hates me.”
My client asked me what I called the guy out on to make “such a nice guy hate me” and I told him the truth. This guy wrote a book about being successful, telling others he was successful, when in fact he was average at best. He got successful by lying to others on how to do it.
We ALL know people who’ve lied, cheated and shortcutted their way through life. These are the same people who, unbeknownst to them, get messages like the one above, sent about them on a regular basis.
It’s easy to take a short cut. It’s easy to manipulate people into thinking you are who you say you are, but when a real motherfucker shows up and calls people out, everyone calls the only real motherfucker in the equation, an asshole. Trust me, I’m called an asshole at least 1-10 times a day, if not more.
Truth is, I’m not an asshole. If you ask those around me, I’m one of the most giving, genuine people they know. I just have a deep down, unrelenting hate for bullshitters. What makes this hate worse, is I see it everywhere. It’s like The Matrix, I can’t unsee the bullshit and I damn sure can’t just go along with it.
Have you ever seen the episode of Chappelle’s Show where they have the segment on ‘When Keepin It Real Goes Wrong‘? Sometimes I feel like I’m that guy. Meanwhile there is always something that reminds me why I should always keep it real. I just don’t need to go to the extreme they do in that episode.
The one thing that nobody can say about me is that I didn’t earn this shit on my own. Lots of people say they are self made but very few made it themselves. No one handed me shit. No one paid my bills, no one gave me priceless free advice and nobody gave me a free ride.
That being said, I don’t owe shit to anyone and it feels good. i also don’t have anything to hide that someone could hang over my head. I’m the very definition of a free man and damn it feels good.
The only downside is that I get pissed when I see others taking short cuts. I see the lies, deception and bullshit that goes on in business deals.
When I was a LO I was always brutally honest with clients. if I couldn’t get their business with with brutal honesty, I didn’t want it. Sometimes people would leave me for someone with better fees, then come back and find out that the other person was lying. I hurt for those clients probably more than they hurt for themselves. I know the pain of being lied to by someone you trust.
It hurt so bad that I wanted to make sure I was never responsible for creating that type of pain in someone’s life. I would have never made a good thief or con artist, I got too much compassion and empathy for humans.
That being said, I’ve built my business and my life around honesty and being real. No one has their thumb on me, no one tells me what is right or wrong and no one can blackmail me. i don’t have much, but what I have, I earned. I see myself as the consulting world’s Redman. Still keepin it real in the hood, refusing to sell out, and still GOAT.
I treat my clients that same way, when they’ve done the work and have arrived at the place they set out to get to, none of their competitors can legitimately hate. I mean they can talk shit, but they gotta respect the hustle at the same time.
This is not the case with their other competitors so it forces them to focus hating on someone else than you. Which means you win, and you are the better person. It doesn’t mean you make the most money and get the most clients though. Matter of fact, the absence of lies often means the opposite. For some sadistic reason, people love to be lied to.
This is the reason so many salesmen lie for business. First off, it’s easier to lie than set real expectations. Second, it’s almost like the consumer wants to be lied to. They need a promise that’s too good to be true, in order to make a move, then act surprised and hurt when it worked out exactly as they originally suspected.
It’s almost like prospects are begging to be lied to, and we are just fulfilling a self righteous prophecy. I can promise you this though, in a world full of stinky bullshit, you can be a breathmint of hope to the right people if you just keep at it until you find them.
in reality, the biggest lesson I’ve learned by doing life the hard way, is I don’t owe anyone shit. I’m debt free, bullshit proof and whatever anyone says about me is probably the truth, like it or not. This is a lesson in freedom, a lesson that must be learned the hard way.
After all, we see the same people who take shortcuts having to start all over time after time. We see them running from the call outs of their peers. We see them for who they are after a while and they become nobody, Meanwhile society eventually respects everyone.
My suggestion to you, is that if you are tired of hiding behind the bullshit, you simply come out with the truth. The damage it might do to you, surely underweights the upside of respect and money that the marketplace will reward you with by being real.
Not to mention how the universe aligns its interests with yours when you get real with yourself and society. You owe it to everything you’re gonna earn to be real, authentic and unchanged by sheep’s opinions. It’s the Closer’s way.
