For much of my life, I tried to avoid uncomfortable situations or confrontations with people. In my avoidance, I would skirt around the truth (and in some cases outright lie about something) to avoid the pain that the truth would make me feel and experience.
I did this for a long time.
I’ve been on a journey; and especially in the last 10 years or so, I’ve been really working on it. I’ve been instructing myself every time I feel like I want to go into avoidance mode to instead “go into the hard place.”
It’s not easy. In fact, it’s very painful at times; but just like you experience going through a really tough physical workout and you’re finally done, you feel so much better afterwards.
Telling the truth can sometimes feel like that. I guess I’m writing about this because it seems tough to come by “truth” in our national conversation as a country. It’s also because of a number of situations I’ve heard about involving individual major gift officers and organizations, where avoiding the truth just seems much easier and less painful than confronting it.
Believe me, I understand. Having to tell the truth to a donor can sometimes be difficult. No one wants to have to tell a donor the project they funded isn’t going as planned, or it’s failed. No one delights in having to tell a donor the organization isn’t handling the pandemic well and may be on the brink of closing. No one wants to talk to the CEO and tell her that her inability to have a vision is causing major donors to look elsewhere. No one wants to tell a manager that they’re hurting the major gift team with their lack of care and accountability.
But I urge you to go “into the hard place.” Because, while it can be incredibly painful, telling the truth has a profound way of setting you and the situation free.
When Richard and I decided to team up as business partners, I clearly remember the two of us sitting in my living room and talking about what we valued. One of those values was to tell the truth to each other no matter how painful it was. Thus, the name Veritus, from the Latin root meaning “truth,” was born that day.
I wish I could tell you that it’s always been easy since then. No, it’s been quite difficult. But over time, and through some painful moments (and realizing that if we told the truth we weren’t actually going to die), we’ve put ourselves in a good place of trust and care for each other.
You know these moments when they come up in your personal and professional life, when skirting or avoiding the truth would be an easy way to handle an uncomfortable situation. But now, more than ever, I want to nudge you to go to the hard place and tell and speak the truth. It really does set you free. (Tweet it!)
Jeff