Blueprint >> Power of Honesty

Disclaimer: This document is in raw form as I process and distill 4 years-worth of my personal development notes. Expect some typos and cryptic language for now. I will be updating frequently and polishing up.

Prescription: Be honest.
Related Concepts: Be More Authentic, Top 10 Values, Alignment, Integrity

What is Power of Honesty?

The idea that honesty is the ultimate power. Increase your ability to be honest.

Why is it Important?

Honesty is actually extremely power. Honesty builds your confidence, cuts through deceptive people, and makes you attractive and high-status. Being consistently honest makes you feel good.

Power of Honesty Videos

[coming soon...]

Power of Honesty: Key Points

The power of honesty — increase your honestly threshold.

Honesty is the superior strategy because those who play games of deception, or outright lie, waste a lot of creative energy. They are also not being authentic, which will lead to eruptions, crises, and neuroses.

An important distinction is to be made between honesty with others and honesty with yourself. Being honest with yourself is absolutely, 100% critical at all times. Never, ever, is there a case where you should be allowing self- deception. Honesty with other people is highly desirable, but virtually impossible on a practical level in everyday life. White lies, or omissions of information, are simply necessary to function. Just don't let it get out of hand. The more honesty you can tolerate to practice with others, the better off you'll be.

Honesty is hard because of the costs you must bare when you're honest in some situations. For example, to be 100% honest at your job evaluation might cost you your job. Sometimes the cost is too painful or tedious to bare, like telling your girlfriend that you don't like her dress. It's also possible to be brutally honest to the point where you are revealing too much information, more than the other party even wants to know.

Honesty and authenticity give you incredible power, in several ways. First, you become extremely confident and grounded when you know you are always honest with others, even at great cost. Second, other people see your authenticity over time and get drawn to you because so few people are willing to be brutally authentic. Honesty can be a very valuable thing when no one around is brave enough to give honest feedback.

Your ability to be honest even in though situations is a measure of your integrity, strength, and ultimate success.

It is possible to paint yourself into a corner where lying becomes very tempting or even necessary. For example, if you are hired as the White House Press Secretary, your job is to basically lie, and if you need that job to pay the bills, the only question is, What the hell were you thinking? This means you've designed your life poorly. You should strive to eliminate all sources that cause you to be dishonest in your life.

The problem with dishonesty is not moral, it's psychological. When you lie you are telling your subconscious that there is something wrong with what you're doing. You are out of integrity and it becomes hard to then be principle-centered. You lie to others, so you cannot trust others, and it becomes very difficult to enforce your own standards on yourself. You lose the ability for self-control. And self-control is the critical key to all success, so don't make that bargain.

Why do you feel you need to deceive people? That would mean you're doing something that deserves to be hidden. But if you're creating, and contributing properly to the world, you don't need to hide it. In fact, you need to learn to express it better so your influence spreads. If you have to be dishonest about what you're doing to be successful, then what you're doing is not in your Zone of Genius, so you are selling yourself short.

Feeling that you have a right to be dishonest or a need to be dishonest is really selling yourself short. Millions of people out there are happy and successful and honest. Thinking that you must be dishonest to be wealthy or successful is a huge limiting belief and will in fact sabotage you.

By being dishonest what your really sub-communicate to yourself is that you are not worthy of being known. That what you do must be concealed from others because it will not be accepted or will bring shame. If what you do brings true shame, and you know it, you are out of integrity because you continue to do it. And if it doesn't actually bring shame, but you don't like the idea that other people will think badly of you, then you are out of integrity because you are too weak to stand up to the false opinions of others.

Honesty is really a problem of delayed gratification. Dishonestly can only be justified in the short term. E.g., If I tell my wife about my affair, she will divorce me. Okay, but in the long-term, you are paying for it with your integrity. That loss of integrity will cost to so much more in the long-term because you will be unable to live in your Zone of Genius, not to mention all the other possible problems like her finding out anyways and being even more upset at you because of the added insult of your deception.

The bottom line is, honesty is good because it takes personal discipline and self-control to always be honest. The simple act of practicing honesty in tough situations is an exercise that builds willpower, integrity, and self-control. That is the real value: you did something that few others would have the strength or balls to do, and the effects of that will spill over into all aspects of your life.

References