Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Hello, my name is Skip Pogue, and I'd like to welcome you to Imagine the possibilities.
[00:00:19] If we want people to trust us, truly trust us, are we being honest with them?
[00:00:25] Honesty and trust go hand in hand.
[00:00:28] But honesty truly comes first.
[00:00:31] Honesty may feel risky at times, that you're kind of going out on a limb by being honest with someone, but honesty is the foundation of lasting trust.
[00:00:43] We're going to explore honesty before trust in our personal, our professional and our spiritual lives.
[00:00:52] Why does honesty come first?
[00:00:54] Honesty is truth in action.
[00:00:57] Trust is belief in that truth.
[00:01:01] Think of it this way. Honesty is a seed.
[00:01:05] Trust is the tree that grows from it and bears fruit.
[00:01:09] When honesty is missing, suspicion fills that void.
[00:01:15] Ask yourself this question, do people trust me because I'm honest or because I haven't yet given them a reason not to?
[00:01:24] There's a big difference in that one, we've established trust by being honest. The other one, they trust us, but they're just waiting for that one lie and they'll no longer trust us and it will be really hard to ever establish trust again.
[00:01:45] Let's talk about honesty in our personal life.
[00:01:49] When it comes to our personal life, the hardest person to be honest with is ourselves.
[00:01:55] Sometimes we're. I don't know if deceptive is the right word, but we'll say, I'm fine, it's not that bad, everything's okay, I'll deal with it later.
[00:02:06] But we know it's not true. Self honesty isn't self criticism, it's self clarity.
[00:02:15] If we're honest with ourselves, we see things the way they truly are.
[00:02:20] And I've said this in a lot of podcasts, we can't heal what we won't face up to.
[00:02:27] What truth have you been avoiding?
[00:02:30] How might admitting it bring peace or growth?
[00:02:33] I think there's times we all avoid some truth and it doesn't allow us to have peace or it doesn't allow us to grow. And we've got to really be honest about it, honest with ourselves.
[00:02:47] How about our professional life? I think in it, we have to look at integrity over the image we have.
[00:02:55] I think a lot of times in our professional life we're tested, we have pressure to perform, we know we have to do certain things, and we oftentimes feel pressure because we're not sure if we're doing them right or we're not sure if we're even doing them. And I've experienced that more than one time in my life.
[00:03:19] We have pressure to make them happy and make them understand that we're really trying to please them. Is that a good way to establish honesty or integrity in your professional life?
[00:03:34] We try too often to protect our reputation.
[00:03:39] What we've established is who we are and what we're capable of.
[00:03:45] And sometimes in order to protect that reputation, we're not always honest with people.
[00:03:53] We have to think about it. Credibility comes from transparency, not perfection.
[00:04:00] I think the fact that being perfect, establishing a level of perfection that we think we can do, is almost a human fallacy. We can't be perfect.
[00:04:16] When we make a mistake, we need to admit, hey, I made a mistake.
[00:04:20] Or sometimes if we're working with a client or a co worker or our children or our spouse, we need to tell them that, hey, we made a mistake and we need to tell them the hard truth because that's the only way we're going to gain respect from it.
[00:04:42] The fact is, people don't trust perfect leaders.
[00:04:46] They trust honest leaders.
[00:04:49] Honesty Bill's honesty builds confidence in teams and organizations.
[00:04:56] Really important that we're honest all the time.
[00:05:02] What about in our spiritual life?
[00:05:05] Just like we owe honesty to other people, we owe honesty to God.
[00:05:11] But we have to remember God already knows what we've done.
[00:05:20] Faith doesn't require performance.
[00:05:23] He simply wants us to acknowledge it, to let him understand that we know what we've done. And we need his help to say a simple prayer like lord, I'm tired or I'm confused is not a weakness.
[00:05:42] It's just a way to demonstrate our faith.
[00:05:46] When we pretend with God, we oftentimes distance ourselves from God.
[00:05:55] Here's something I'd like you to do.
[00:05:58] And really, no matter what level you are in building a relationship with God, you can do this.
[00:06:06] Take five quiet minutes sometime this week and speak truly, truthfully to God.
[00:06:15] No request, no rehearsed prayers, just simply have the conversation with truth being the basis for everything you say.
[00:06:29] When we look at truth, there's always the potential for a chain reaction to occur.
[00:06:40] Honest people raise trustworthy children, strong families, have an ethical workplace, and ultimately lead to better communities.
[00:06:51] Every truth adds light and that light spreads.
[00:06:56] One honest moment.
[00:07:00] One honest moment can reach further than we'll ever see.
[00:07:06] Here's some things we need to do.
[00:07:09] We need to be honest with ourselves.
[00:07:12] Take a moment. Write down one truth you've been avoiding, that you haven't said to yourself just one, think about it. The whole basis of honesty is that we first have to be honest with with ourselves.
[00:07:32] And we need to quit avoiding truths that we know we need to say out loud.
[00:07:40] We need to make sure that we truly are working toward fixing those truths to make them honest, to make them something that people trust.
[00:07:52] Be honest with someone else.
[00:07:55] Tell them a kind truth that matters.
[00:07:59] I truly care for you.
[00:08:01] Be empathetic.
[00:08:03] I understand what you're going through.
[00:08:06] Whatever it is, say a kind truth that matters to someone.
[00:08:16] Be honest with God.
[00:08:21] Tell him what's really in your heart.
[00:08:24] He already knows.
[00:08:27] He already knows. But we need to affirm that with him. We need to let him know we're trying to build a personal relationship and that's a two way process.
[00:08:39] So we need to ultimately let him know how we truly feel about stuff, what we have going on in our life and everything else.
[00:08:48] Now I believe he already knows and what we are doing is simply confirming to him and allowing him to help us in some way.
[00:08:58] He knows what's best for us when it comes to these things that have us upset or we're not accomplishing what we want or whatever it is in our life.
[00:09:07] But he can't help us unless we're honest.
[00:09:11] When we live honestly, trust is established. Naturally, people understand. Hey, I can trust Skip.
[00:09:21] If I ask him a question, he's going to be honest.
[00:09:26] If we do something, let's say financially, he's going to take care of his promise. He's going to do what he says he's going to do.
[00:09:39] Honesty anchors our lives in peace.
[00:09:45] And without peace, we can't truly be happy.
[00:09:49] So we need to make sure we're honest all the time.
[00:09:57] Let's just look back on what I've said.
[00:10:01] If we go through this like I talked about, there's some key points.
[00:10:09] One is if we want people to truly trust us, we have to be honest with them. We have to tell the truth sometimes honesty, and I'm sure you've had it happen. I've had it happen. I can tell you that I needed to be honest with somebody. I needed to tell them something that it's not criticism, but it's something they need to know.
[00:10:35] I also know if I don't do it in kindness and with honesty, it's probably not going to help either one of us truly. Probably not.
[00:10:47] When it comes to what I talked about in our professional life, the only way we can build a better us and a better job, or whatever we call it, better teams, better company, is through honesty.
[00:11:07] That simple.
[00:11:09] Again, looking at our spiritual life, God knows what we've done.
[00:11:17] He knows how we feel in our heart.
[00:11:20] But we need to be honest with him.
[00:11:26] He trusts us. He knows what the truth is.
[00:11:29] He simply wants us to admit it.
[00:11:35] And the reason he wants that is so he can help us, that he can build, that our faith becomes stronger and that he can build a personal relationship with us and we can build the same thing, a personal relationship with God. And I assure you that if you are able to obtain that and everybody can, that it's like a whole new level of being with God, a whole new level of faith.
[00:12:04] We look at relationships, I think the biggest thing involves our families, our loved ones, people we care about.
[00:12:15] I think there were times that I didn't respond.
[00:12:21] I didn't lie well, I guess a lie by omission is a lie. And there were times that I omitted things that I should have just been honest about. It would have been so much easier. So much easier.
[00:12:37] So when it comes to our relationships with our spouse and our children and everybody else, I can tell you from past experience that we need to have honest conversations, and we need to have those on a fairly regular basis.
[00:12:59] Otherwise, that relationship, instead of being built on stone, is built on sand.
[00:13:08] There's so many things that I think are practical takeaways, but I think the ultimate one is honesty's the best policy.
[00:13:18] Honesty in our life should be the only policy that relates to building trust.
[00:13:26] Because if we're dishonest with ourselves, with our spouse, with our children, with any family member, anybody we work with, people we know, and everything else, we're never going to be trusted.
[00:13:43] And if you think about it, if we have a lot of mutual friends, and most of us do, if we're dishonest with one of those friends, they're going to tell the other ones.
[00:13:55] And I talked about ripple effect. That's going to be a ripple effect that we don't appreciate.
[00:14:00] But if they were being honest, then it's going to be hard for us to rebuild everybody's trust.
[00:14:08] Honesty anchors our life in peace, and peace is what we need most of the time.
[00:14:15] Before I close, I want to tell you a couple things.
[00:14:19] The best place and you can sign up is Substack for my podcast.
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[00:14:35] If you're not a member of Substack and don't want to join and you have a comment, feel free to write me on. Imagine the possibilities.
[00:14:45] Lifegmail.com I wish you much success.
[00:14:52] Remember that your future belongs to you.
[00:14:55] Stay humble, be kind, love unconditionally, laugh often hope that you have a super day and I pray that God blesses you in a super way.
[00:15:10] Thanks again and God bless.
