Stop lying to yourself and others. Get in touch with reality. Identify what’s true.

The best way to make decisions is to…have the most accurate data, or the truth, as much as possible to make the most informed decisions.

So often we live in a fake reality, we live in our minds and believe what we think is true without actually stress testing them in the real world, or getting the actual numbers to be right. So many people make up numbers, or stories and it’s not what’s true and real. We need to live in and understand reality to actually be effective in shaping real world outcomes.

This is as important in business and investing as it is in personal relationships or anything that matters. We can only really make profound changes if we get in touch with reality, and identify what’s true. It’s better to do it sooner than later, to avoid having the pain of a reality check because you are just plain wrong in your assumptions.

Did our ego get in the way because we didn’t want to be wrong? And or, were we just too lazy to actually find out the real answer? Trying to convince ourselves or others that something is true, when in fact, it’s false or grossly off.

Is what you’re saying actually true? How can you find out if what you say or believe is true? How do you know you’re not wrong? How often do you say something but if you looked back, you actually just made it up and it may not even be right?

In the world of investing and accounting, it’s an exact science of measurement. It’s black and white, it’s one area of life where we don’t need to have any gray. There should be little room for error or making up important financial numbers, but it happens all the time. I myself and many others have made the mistakes before. It robs us from actually knowing how well we did or did not do.

re·al·i·ty

noun

1. the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.