If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
—Mark Twain, author and humorist
Truth leads to Trust and Trust leads to Success.
This is the last of the four chapters of My 13 Rules focusing on interaction. Nothing in this entire book will ring with integrity more than Rule #10, Tell the truth.
Living a Lie
Nobody likes the idea of having a negative label attached to their name. I’ll tell you the one to avoid like the plague—LIAR. It’s been said that even if you tell the truth for the rest of your life, once you lie, you are known as a liar. That’s how much of an impact even a single lie can have on your character in the eyes of others. You can never be trusted again. The worst part about lying is that, once you start, you’re on that slippery slope to the bottom. You then have to cover up your first lie with a second, then a third, and so on. At that point, you won’t care if you destroy any innocent people who get caught in the tornado path of your lies. Pretty soon you’re on a runaway stagecoach to self-ruin because others will soon figure out that what you said never actually happened.
Some people become so entrapped by their lies that they begin to believe they are the truth. But the real truth is, unless you can first be honest with yourself, you can never be honest with others. Your life becomes a “living” lie. You’re a fraud—a complete fake. You’re nothing. Here’s a hammer to your head: IF YOU ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH, THEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO KEEP TRACK OF YOUR LIES.
I remember being on a radio talk show some years back when the moderator said to me, “Joe, isn’t it true that all salesmen are liars?” I said to him, “I can’t speak for other salespeople, but I can tell you I’m not one. If you want me to lie, cheat, or misrepresent anything, then I don’t want your business. Period.” I’m sure that approach cost me some business over the years. I probably would have gotten away with it, and my sales record would have been bigger than it already is. That’s not Joe Girard. I have to live with myself. I would have to go to bed each night for the rest of my life tormented by the truth that I am a fraud.
But I sleep well at night with peace of mind knowing that all of my 13,001 sales were above board. I think I am prouder of that than I am about the fact that it was a record-setting number that stills stands to this very day.
Nothing positive will ever come from anything you ever do if it’s not based on the truth. If you don’t believe that, then this chapter should rattle your skull. Yes, you can lie and get away with something for a while—but not forever. YOU will get caught because a lie never lives to be old. Sooner or later, you’ll be tracked down like a filthy rat, humiliated before all your family, and labeled forever as the liar you really are. TELL THE TRUTH OR DIE!
If you really want to understand truth, start by looking at what’s wrong with something first. You heard me right. If you study the bad things about something, trust me, it will leave a lasting impression on you. You’ll straighten out in a hurry. It worked for me. I saw things as a kid growing up in the ghetto that I’ll never forget, as grownup people fell under the spell of the false promise of a lie:
Observing the stupefying and violent effects of alcohol on grown men in the local bars as a nine-year-old shoeshine boy
Seeing the same bums on the same street corners looking in trash bins for their future
Watching people I recognized get picked up by the police for vandalism, theft, and gang fights
Coming home at night to a father who was interested only in how much change I had in my pocket
Once you understand the consequences of the dark side, you’ll soon learn to appreciate the power of goodness and truth and how it applies to everything in life. Ask any soldier returning from combat after seeing death close up how much life is cherished now, something that might have been taken for granted before watching the violence of death snatch the life of a close friend in an instant right before his or her eyes.
Remember Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s novella A Christmas Carol? His appreciation of goodness, compassion, and truth was realized only after his pathetic life was paraded before him by the ghosts of his past. That’s when his eyes really opened up as he realized the truth about his ugly life. Scrooge got a second chance, but that was in a storybook. The rest of us have only one chance in life—and it’s for real.
My Costly Education
When I was a kid, we didn’t call it lying. We simply said we were “BS-ing” each other. Back then I had the good fortune of attending catechism (bible school) classes at a local Detroit Catholic church, St. Bonaventure. It was there that I learned about the importance of truth from a very special man, Father Solanus Casey. He was a very compassionate and inspirational monk (currently going through the review steps that will most likely lead to his recognition as a saint in the Church). Knowing about some of the trouble I got into growing up, you might be wondering if I skipped a few of his classes. Well, it’s true my youth was certainly filled with a few left turns here and there, and I can’t say I followed his wisdom every day, but he did touch my life. Father Casey taught me some things about truth that have stayed with me my entire life, not the least of which is self-respect—living with yourself. For that, I am eternally grateful.
My first lesson in appreciating the importance of telling the truth was a real wake-up call. In what I consider my first real job, I worked for Abe Saperstein, a small-scale home builder in the Detroit area. He was a pretty smart businessman who would buy vacant lots in different neighborhoods around town, build small inexpensive homes on them, and then sell them. Nothing fancy, but priced right.
As I mentioned in the Introduction, Abe was a decent man who took me under his wing and treated me like a son. In many ways, he was “the father I never had.” He taught me practically everything I knew. I learned the business by working my way up from digging foundations to running construction crews. I eventually became the owner when Abe retired. It wasn’t big bucks, but it was promising, and I made enough to feed three special people who had entered my life—my wife, June, and my two kids, Joe and Grace. Unfortunately, the one thing Abe never taught me about was how to balance good business judgment with trust.
I trusted just about everyone I dealt with. If someone said they were going to do something for me, I believed them. I actually thought people told the truth in business. I guess I was pretty gullible back then. I didn’t have everything in writing from people, just their word or a handshake. Sadly, my trusting nature cost me a bundle as I fell victim to a salesman who was no better than a lying con artist.
It happened when I found a parcel of land at a bargain price big enough to build about 50 houses on it. I got excited! I could save money by spreading the construction startup costs over several homes at the same time since they were all next to each other. Now the reason the land was so cheap is that it was completely undeveloped, meaning no sewers were in. That was a big deal for Detroiters who wouldn’t buy homes that had septic tanks.
The salesman representing the property assured me he had personally gone down to City Hall and checked. The sewers would be installed by the following spring, just a few months away. Fantastic, I thought! Once I bought the property, I would build a model and start selling from it. I took out a very high interest rate loan on the land to get started. I expected to have that loan paid off in no time since this was going to be a sure thing. I could only picture myself reeling in the dollars. Well, not quite.
I trusted, I believed, and I got screwed—and good. The truth was I was blind as a bat. I built the model, got the signs up, ran ads, and started to actually get quite a bit of traffic. People liked what they saw, and the price was right. But they all said the same thing: “We’ll be back when the sewers are in.” I sat there and waited and waited. No one was coming in to actually buy, and no one was putting in any sewers. That’s a bad combination.
Pretty soon everyone seemed to be hitting me up for money I didn’t have. I owed on the land, building materials, you name it. Before long, I was behind on everything. I even had to park my car away from my home at night to keep it from being repossessed and towed away by some collection agent. Things were out of control. I was in trouble.
Finally, I went down to City Hall to find out for myself what the holdup was on the sewers. Well, you guessed it. There were never any plans for sewers on that land—not now, not ever. I had been “walked downtown” as we used to say—screwed royally. And it was my own fault. I never bothered to check out the salesman’s story, and I had nothing in writing. I was $60,000 in the hole for what amounted to a worthless piece of property. But that wasn’t all of it! I dumped an additional $40,000 of my own money into building the two models along with a partially completed road! You might call it “my $100,000 lesson.” That might not sound like a lot of money, but back in 1962, that was the equivalent of about $720,000 in today’s dollars! Try that one out on your attitude machine!
Let me tell you, for a guy who was kicked out of high school, my education wasn’t cheap. For what that cost me, I could have probably gone to Harvard back then, bought its library, and still had money left over to buy every house on that land I got sucked into buying. An interesting sidebar to all of this (as I mentioned earlier in the book) is that years later, I would be invited to speak before the student body at the Harvard Business School to give them a little “street” wisdom.
Everything I had done over the past 10 years to try and get my life back on track seemed as though it had just hit a brick wall. I felt like a truck going over a cliff. The pressure it put on me and my family was enormous. My house was foreclosed on. We were thrown out. Both of our cars were impounded. Even putting food on the table became a challenge. There I was with a wife and two kids—and we had nothing.
Whenever I read about today’s housing crisis and the thousands and thousands of people who are losing their homes to foreclosures, I really feel for those families. I think back to my own living nightmare. Nobody came to our rescue. We had to do it on our own.
I went looking for a job by bus. All I wanted was a bag of groceries for my family. It was hard to come to grips with this. It seemed as though my reward for trusting was to have everything taken away from me, leaving me and my family empty-handed. Believe me, that can leave you feeling very bitter about doing the right things. I will never forget the moment when I realized I had been lied to. The face of that snake will live with me forever. Would you ever want to be remembered by anyone that way? If you lie, especially to a customer, they will bad-mouth you and your name to everyone they know. Girard’s Law of 250 will be your downfall. You’re as good as dead.
I must confess, I did have a few fantasy thoughts about “getting” this guy who lied to me about those sewers. Thankfully (for him), I didn’t. I think that would have been a slap in the face to the memory of my mother (and to Father Casey). That’s not the example they set for me. Even though it seemed so unfair and wrong, I blamed myself for being so stupid. I was about as depressed as I could be. Although you couldn’t have convinced me at the time, there would be a rainbow after the storm for Joe Girard.
Don’t Stop Trusting
As bad as things were, that incident is where it really all began for me. I didn’t become vengeful. I just learned to be a little bit smarter about how I went about doing things in the future. And it worked. The rest, as they say, is history. Without ever having sold a car before in my entire life, in just three short years I would be the number-one salesman in the world!
So what’s the lesson here? For me, it’s almost impossible to talk about truth without discussing trust and character. I learned just how deceitful people could be as I actually went into bankruptcy over that real estate deal. But I was determined not to let it destroy or lessen my belief and trust in myself and others. THAT’S THE LESSON HERE!
In fact, I actually became more determined than ever to become successful. It’s been said that “you haven’t met yourself until adversity is at your doorstep.” I know I certainly met myself that day at City Hall. After a strong wind rips and tears away at everything that holds you together, if you’re made of the right stuff, there’s always one thing left that’s still standing—your character.
Life has a funny way of taking sudden twists and turns and creating unexpected opportunities. Some people call it luck. I call it Girard’s destiny. I believe it was meant to happen. The old saying “When one door closes, another opens” is very true. It certainly was in my case. Had it not been for that nightmare, I might never have achieved the success that I did. In spite of that experience, I never stopped trusting in myself or others.
You can’t let one incident rule your life. Once you stop trusting and believing in the people who make a difference in your life, like your customers and business contacts (not to mention your family and friends), you might as well put your best outfit on and climb into a coffin because the end can’t be far away. Only losers go down that road.
Nobody ever said life was fair, so quit blaming the world for your shortcomings. Just be smart about making sure important commitments are in writing. Learn from your mistakes and move on. Many people can’t do this. They prefer to spend their time plotting ways to get even with someone who cheated them or lied to them. When that happens, you know you’ve reached the bottom. Soon honesty and trust are replaced by vengeance and hatred. If that describes you, congratulations—you’ve just signed on to work for the devil.
Stretching the Truth and the Art of Deception
A question we’ve all heard before is, “Are there ever times when a lie is not a lie?” That’s not as easy to decide as it sounds. There are times when honesty can be a matter of degree. For example, telling a “white lie” or half-truth for the better good or protection of people, especially in life-threatening situations, or, for simply kind and compassionate reasons, is not necessarily wrong or a bad thing.
I’ve been in situations myself when I’ve had to stretch the truth a little. For example, I can remember complimenting a couple on how cute their son was when they were in my office. The truth was, he was a very ordinary and scruffy-looking kid. Sometimes common sense rules.
Stretching the truth is one thing; deceiving someone is an entirely different thing. Now you’re trying to cheat someone out of something that’s theirs—you’re stealing. I once heard a story about a woman who was visiting the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy some years ago. She noticed a man handing a slip of paper to the tourists who parked their cars nearby. He asked for and received a sum of money from each driver. The tourists thought they were paying for parking. A woman, who spoke Italian, examined one of the pieces of paper and saw that the man was actually insuring the parked cars against damage in case the tower fell over. Even though it might have been legal, clearly this parasite was taking advantage of tourists who didn’t speak the language, and he knew it.
Any way you cut it, deception is still a lie, no matter how slick you package it. Deception has many faces.
One in particular is a bit shortsighted and not a very smart business approach, although very commonplace. Believe it or not, the idea of “padding” the price with a few extra bucks is an everyday practice in every retail business. The customer isn’t the only one trying to get the best deal. Right? Heed my advice here.
Instead of trying to squeeze every nickel you can out of a customer in one deal by cheating them out of a few bucks, why not take the high ground? Use your imagination and focus on the real opportunity on the horizon: try to squeeze every year of loyalty out of them for the repeat deals ahead. This is more than a matter of conscience. It’s good business sense. Think about it. You only have to sell them once. After that, it’s all about servicing them with care. Doesn’t this make more sense?
Whatever a customer’s experience is with you, that’s the impression they will communicate to everyone they know. This is a classic case of where Girard’s Law of 250 kicks into high gear. If you’ve been less than above board with them, especially on what they paid you for something, it could cost you a bunch of money. Your reputation is now on the hot seat, and that could take years to repair (if at all). If you’ve cheated them or just taken “food off their plate” when they weren’t looking, the world (your world) will know about it quickly! What do you want them to say about YOU? What don’t you understand here? Tell me that isn’t YOU.
By the way, I’m not talking about just what’s bad business judgment. I’m talking about the difference between what’s morally right and wrong. How would you like someone to nail you for a few extra bucks by inflating the price of a new flat screen TV you want to buy? How does it feel being in the other guy’s shoes for a change? Not such a good fit, is it? Remember the guy who sold me that land? Well, that’s exactly what you’d be doing to someone else.
Of all the dishonest things you can do to a customer, overcharging them—swindling them—ranks right up there with intentionally selling them a defective product. YOU’RE A LIAR AND A CHEAT! Why the hell would you do that to someone?
Every day we hear of people who continue to do this without giving it so much as a glance. Bernard Madoff, the biggest scam artist of all time, did it for 30 years! LYING FOR GREED will take your life down to the bottom faster than all the hard work you put into trying to get to the top.
Yes, it’s a matter of conscience and compassion. If you believe in the Bible, Luke is very clear on this point in the New Testament: “Whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to you in return.”
When I was in the Army back when I was 18, I could have exaggerated about an injury I received when I accidentally fell off the back of a troop transport truck and injured my lower back. For weeks the entire upper part of my body was taped up from my armpits to my waist. When the Army doctors interviewed me about the accident, I could have easily lied about never having an injury to my back before I joined the Army. But I told them the truth. I did have an injury to my back about three years earlier when I was practicing a dive and hit the diving board in our school’s pool. Had I decided to just keep quiet about that swimming pool accident, I probably would have gotten away with it and received a discharge along with a disability pension.
But I would have had to live with myself and my deceit for the rest of my life. Every 30 days, a check would arrive in my mailbox, and each time I opened that envelope, it would speak to me in clear words, “Here’s your ‘30 pieces of silver,’ Girard.” My brief stay in the Army ended with a medical discharge and, thankfully, without a pension. It was one of those times when getting nothing was better than getting something. But I did get something—a lifelong commitment to being truthful—and that’s priceless.
You’ll hear lots of reasons why telling the truth is the right thing to do. Some are obvious. It speaks well of your character and earns the respect of people around you. However, it might be the negative consequences of lying that provide the greatest motivation to tell the truth. A lie can easily cost you a promotion, money, or a friendship—maybe even create a dangerous situation for yourself. While it may be tempting to do it, you just don’t want to take the chance of being caught.
You’d think anyone of average intelligence would realize this and start telling the truth. Unfortunately for many, the temptation is too great. Instead, they become pros at lying. They learn to “perfect” their lies so convincingly that they appear to be the truth. They’ve thought about everything: how it sounds, how likely is it to have happened, and, of course, the bottom line—how believable it is. Half-truths begin to look like the whole truth. This is where deception becomes an art form.
Over the years, there have been some very high-profile cases in the corporate and financial world where deception is witnessed on a grand scale. Executives are caught red-handed lying under oath during grand jury investigations where misdeeds cost investors and hard-working people billions of dollars in lost jobs, pensions, and life savings.
The Dos and Don’ts of Truth
Sometimes it’s not what you say that determines whether you’re telling the truth, but what you don’t say. Let me explain. You might hear someone else say something that you know is not the truth. Maybe an important point was conveniently (or intentionally) “left out.” By not correcting an obvious misstatement of the truth, you too are indirectly lying. This actually happens quite often. Many people will take the coward’s way out when they hear someone lying because they don’t like confrontation or might be afraid of losing their job. In other cases, they might see an instant opportunity for immediate personal gain.
For example, if the boss is handing out bonuses at the end of the year and accidentally calculates a slightly larger check for you by mistake, or gives you someone else’s, by saying nothing and accepting it, you have just met lying’s twin sister, cheating.
My Army experience is another case where, had I not said anything to those doctors, that wouldn’t have meant that I wasn’t lying. Yes, silence can be a lie too. I had an obligation to “fill in the blanks” about what really happened.
We’re all human and tempted from time to time to compromise the truth, even just a little, because it’s either convenient or we can gain from it personally. While I could give you many examples of things you should and shouldn’t do, I think you’re all intelligent enough to understand the obvious. Instead, I’d like to suggest a few guideposts that will keep you on the straight and narrow path of honesty.
Four Things You Should Do
1. Be true to yourself.
In order to like other people, you must first like yourself. Knowing who you are is being truthful to yourself. If you like what you see, self-respect will be your reward.
YOU CAN NEVER GET BEYOND THIS POINT BY “LIVING A LIE” ABOUT WHO YOU ARE.
2. Think twice before speaking.
Think carefully before you speak. Ask yourself, “Is what I am about to say the truth?” If it is, open your mouth and let the words fly out.
I learned this technique trying to cure a case of stuttering I had growing up. It worked. It also works for telling the truth.
If you think first, you won’t rush into saying something you’ll regret later.
In the end, YOU ARE WHAT YOU SAY.
3. Think of another way to say it.
Sometimes in a workplace situation, it is necessary to get a clear, truthful message across to someone, especially if a job situation is on the line. One way to do this is to mention the positive things about that individual.
Encouraging positive performance can help to create change rather than resistance.
Using this approach also avoids having to tell a lie.
4. Temper truth with kindness.
If the truth in what you’re going to say will hurt or embarrass someone, find a positive way to say it that still gets the message across without hurting them.
Their feelings and emotions should be a strong consideration, especially if you know them to be sensitive.
Putting someone down only makes them fail quicker.
Four Things You Should Avoid
1. Don’t exaggerate.
There’s a fine line between exaggerating and lying. The truth is something that should be respected for what it is.
If you develop a reputation as one who exaggerates the truth, people will become suspicious of anything you say. You will not be trusted.
There may be times when you will be asked to tell a lie to cover up for someone. Don’t do it. It’s not always easy to resist, especially if the request is coming from a supervisor or one of the higher-ups. Your honesty will either earn you new respect or confirm you’re working for the wrong company.
Covering up and lying for kids is probably the worst thing a parent can do for a child. It sets the wrong example and gives the impression they don’t need to be accountable for anything.
Kids will always remember where they learned that from, especially when they get caught lying and it costs them a job or, worse yet, a marriage. This is not how you want your kids to remember you.
3. Don’t ask others to cover up for you.
For the same reasons you shouldn’t cover up for others, don’t put others on the spot by asking them to cover up for you. In many ways, this is even worse, especially if you’re in a position of authority. The reality is, YOU’RE A COWARD! Tell the TRUTH! If you don’t want to be bothered by a call, then tell your secretary you can’t be disturbed right now, not that you’re out of town.
Unless you’re operating in some illegal or immoral manner, you shouldn’t have to lie!
4. Don’t tell “little white lies.”
You have to use common sense in determining how to say something so that it is not a lie. We reviewed a few examples of that. But make no mistake: there’s no such thing as a “white lie.” A lie can never be the truth any more than counterfeit bills are real money.
The danger is that “little” lies eventually become big lies. There’s no stopping them then. When that happens, your character is on the way down. Soon you will not recognize yourself when you look in the mirror.
Here’s the bottom line on the dos and don’ts of truth, short and sweet: Truth leads to trust, and trust leads to success.
Your Name and Your Word
This is the last of our three chapters on interaction—how we communicate with our customers, business partners, and other special people in our lives. In fact, this chapter, “Tell the Truth,” is probably the most important of My 13 Rules. How you respond to this rule will most accurately define WHO YOU ARE ethically and morally as a person.
No matter what you do, if you want to stay ahead in the game, always tell the truth. The old saying “TELL THE TRUTH AND YOU’LL NEVER GET CAUGHT” is the simplest advice I can give anyone. If you want to sleep well at night each day of your life with no regrets, nothing will give you greater peace of mind than living the truth. You will never be haunted by nightmares of things you said or did that cheated or deceived someone out of what was rightfully theirs.
As you’ve probably sensed by now, “Tell the Truth” is more than just another chapter in this book to me. It’s a very personal matter, probably because I have been lied to and cheated so many times in my life that it has taken on a very special significance. For me, telling the truth strikes right at the very heart and soul of who you are. When I see and hear people lying to each other, I get angry. When it’s done to me, I feel violated. The truth is that sacred.
In spite of all the liars and cheats that roam this world, there are a large number of people who will never violate their obligation to be truthful. If you have people in your life like that, you are fortunate indeed, for they are living examples of hope for the future.
In my life, I had the privilege of knowing three such people who had faith in me:
Jack LaLanne, the fitness and health guru, for his honest and candid remarks to me that changed my health habits for the rest of my life.
Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, theologian and author of The Power of Positive Thinking, for his faith in my positive attitude and ability to help others.
Lowell Thomas, world-renowned news broadcaster, writer, and global adventurer who, after hearing me speak, encouraged me to write a book about my experiences (which I have now done five times).
They are the special people in my life who pointed me in the right direction. Their inspiration, encouragement, and honesty played a significant role in helping me personally chisel my way through life to a rewarding and successful career based on truth and integrity.
One of the most important things you can do to make sure you always tell the truth is to look around you and take note of all the things you have experienced or attained in life that came from being truthful. These are truth’s gifts to you.
It might be something as simple as a car or a home that was acquired through your honest hard work.
Maybe it’s a family vacation you’ve saved up for.
But most of all, think of the relationships you have made with others—a spouse, your kids, or maybe just a very special friend. Think of the honest and faithful relationships you have formed with them by being truthful and trusting, not because either of you had wealth or power, but because you were simply respectful of each other.
That’s what truth will get you in this life: rewards and gifts attained with integrity.
When you look at all you have, think about ways to grow and expand those relationships and things you have attained honestly in life. And be sure to share your good fortune with others who have less than you. If you don’t think you have much, let me tell you about something you do have that’s quite valuable that you can share with others right now. One of the few things you can always give in this life, and still keep, is your word. Cherish it. It has your name on it.