[Simon Sinek] Delayed Honesty

Honesty always has to be honest. Honesty is really easy.

Just tell the truth. But honesty doesn’t have to happen in the moment.

For example, I went to see a friend of mine’s play, and it was easily the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

If she wasn’t in it, I would have walked out. It was awful.

And at the end of the performance, I hung out with my close friends and family in the foyer.

And she eventually came out and was still in costume and makeup.

Her first question was, “How was it?” I am an honest person.

But she is all jacked up on adrenaline and emotion. Now is not the time, but the thing is I can’t lie.

We lie all the time to protect other people’s feelings. You get a gift, and it’s the ugliest sweater you’ve ever seen in your life.

And we go, “Oh, my god, I love it. Thank you!” You don’t love it, so don’t say you love it to protect them.

But you don’t have to be honest in the moment. So what I said was, “OMG, I am so proud of you. It was so nice to be here and watch you do your thing. It was so much joy to see you on the stage.”

It was all true. And that was it, done.

The next day, when all the adrenaline had come down and there was no more emotion, I called her up and said, “Can I tell you what I thought of the play?” She goes, “Yeah.”

And then I told her point by point why it sucked. But we had a rational conversation the next day.

And I think we make this mistake all the time in our relationships, which is that we think we have to be honest in the moment, but we don’t read the room and understand that there is too much emotion to have a rational conversation.

It’s not the time for rational feedback. You meet emotion with emotion. You meet rational with rational. You can’t mix them too.

Sometimes, we are rational, but they are emotional, which means we have to stand down. So what I learned about honesty is we have to be honest, but we can actually delay. You have to meet rational with rational and emotion with emotion.

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*출처:
https://youtu.be/S5h4h166OUE?si=OYYIzSyujC_WYONe