When Honesty Is The Best Policy

Good day peoples,

Not long ago, I taught you how to use the art of gossip to your utmost advantage. Not surprisingly, I received quite a few angry reactions from some readers claiming that a man shouldn’t have to resort to these levels to get good results. They say that we’re supposed to be men of honour and that we live by the code of trust. True, we have a code, but it’s in place to protect our friends and families, no one else.
 

Sometimes we simply have to bend the rules and, if we don’t, some other dude will come along and beat us to it.  Remember: We’re not here to spread goodwill and win awards. It’s all about the nut, the bottom line, taking care of our families by making money. Of course, there are certain times when we need to be extra careful with our words and actions.
 

In this article, I’ll focus on when honesty is the best policy; pay attention because this is important. Honest.

When You’ve Given Your Word

A true mans word means more than most people can fathom. If he’s promised something and made it clear that he’s given his word, then he can’t really turn around and do the opposite this is an example of when and where honesty is the best policy. To go back on one’s word can have very grave consequences. In fact, heads roll when vows are broken in the world I know. Also, you can forget about ever being trusted again if you squelch on a deal. When you’ve given your word, honesty is the best policy available to you.

When Dishonesty Makes Someone you Respect Look Bad 

Your lies are your own and should never reflect someone else’s image or deeds, particularly one of your colleagues. No one should be accountable for them but you, and if you are willing to tell a lie in order to achieve an end, be prepared to deal with the backlash that comes along with it. Keep in mind that when you speak on behalf of another person or organization, you have an added obligation to be direct and straightforward, this is clearly a time when honesty is the best policy.
 

Also, never do anything that makes your family look bad in the eyes of others. This is the quickest way to earn yourself a world of pain and misery. I’ve said it before: The family should be placed ahead of all else.

When Your Reputation is At Stake

A lie can easily come back to haunt you, so be careful when dealing with people you may work with again. A quick and easy score is never worth your long-term status and future profitability, so don’t jeopardize your position or career by making false claims that won’t go unnoticed.
 

If you do tell a lie in order to get a result and it’s uncovered, you’ll have to deal with all kinds of lingering allegations of corruption as well as a stream of inflammatory comments from others. You really have to weigh the benefits. Is it worth the headache you will likely receive if and when the truth is revealed? This is an instance when honesty is the best policy.

Lying May Not Actually Be Necessary

This happens quite often: One of our friends gets a bit flustered and starts telling lies and digging himself into an even bigger hole. Usually it turns out that if he’d just kept his mouth shut in the first place, he wouldn’t have had to start hitting the mattresses over some beef. When you can choose between outright fabrication and merely denying knowledge of something, this is when honesty is the best policy. Both are dishonest practices, but outright lies are more likely to land you in some serious hot water. Politicians are the true masters of deflecting and evading certain incriminating allegations. Watch them and learn.

the audacious truth

An Iron Fist In A Velvet Glove

Good day peoples,

Let’s get right down to business. You’re probably wondering what the title means, an iron fist in a velvet glove. First off, it describes a style of doing or taking care of business. Whether in politics, foreign affairs, business relations, or on the street, a man who hides an iron fist in a velvet glove is a man with the diplomacy and tact to resolve things rationally, and the guts to unleash his iron fist when circumstance demands it.

I’ve got to admit, though, that harnessing power is a tricky thing, especially in a bureaucratic era of “communication strategies” and “research and development” departments. Gone are the days of making quick, cutthroat decisions. Gone are the days of throwing an office tantrum and busting a few chairs in order to get the attention of your office drones. And, perhaps most tragically, gone are the days of pounding an iron fist on your desk and insisting that it’s either your way or the highway.

In short, the days of the stern disciplinarian seem to be numbered. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the vicious iron fist has been put to rest in some museum, it’s just that you can’t always be a war monger. As you, my peoples, must know by now, you can’t just go running around tossing everyone who crosses your path. Severity, after all, is often the simplest way to get things done. Just don’t abuse it so that it loses all impact.

So in this installment, let’s look at an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Diplomacy is a Velvet Glove

To be a good diplomat, it helps if you’ve already established a reputation for diplomacy. Just be careful not to go overboard. Most political diplomats are so bound by their duty to work out compromise that they can never bring the hammer down and call a spade a spade. However, if you know your colleagues and they trust your judgment, you can walk the line between tactful diplomacy and putting your foot down. Persuasive rhetoric and the patient willingness to listen are key tools you should have in your back pocket when mediating or resolving a situation. If this doesn’t work, though, don’t go dragging your story to your supervisor or the human resources department. Sure, these are the people assigned to deal with stalemates, but they’ll just file some paperwork that will get shuffled around and lost. More importantly, if you’ve exhausted every diplomatic angle, the situation now calls for decisive action, and true leadership begins where diplomacy ends.

Communication is a Velvet Glove

It helps to know a bunch of your colleagues, to share stories and wisecracks, to eat with them and keep each other up-to-date. What I mean is that you’re killing yourself and adding to your personal workload if you don’t socialize with the people you see every day. After all is said and done, these are the people who will protect you if they like you, and they’ll expose you or ignore you if they don’t. So talk to them. Encourage their stories and their little tidbits of information. If you gab a little bit, you’ll establish a code of trust between parties. If you don’t, you’ll be out of the loop, on the outside looking in.
 

Reveal the iron fist when: someone betrays your trust. If you’ve established a code of trust and that is broken, it is treason, and that turncoat must pay a price.

 

Flexibility is a Velvet Glove

The next step for the tempered businessman is to be man enough to admit his own mistakes. Even an untouchable godfather is prone to making the odd mistake, so it is important to recognize a mistake early on and then accept responsibility. Despite the error, dealing honorably with the situation will foster respect in colleagues and business partners because they will recognize that the inverse is also true; if you accept your own mistake, it means you’re dead-right the rest of the time. And that, my friends, inspires confidence and builds trust.
 

Reveal the iron fist when: you know damn well you’re right.

Positive Reinforcement is a Velvet Glove 

It’s no secret that most people live dull, boring lives and need a stiff kick in the pants once in a while just to get things in gear. More often than not, the office drone is a drone because his life is about going through the motions, while never standing out from the crowd. So pat the guy on the back once in a while. Tell him he’s doing a bang-up job, even if a trained monkey could replace him with very little decline in productivity. If you can get a smile out of your most apathetic worker, then chances are some of the other ones will have a skip in their step, pleased with that whole “significant contribution” crap you fed them during their last evaluation. Having said all that, don’t make a habit of it. Above all, be fair, but if someone doesn’t respond to your pat on the back, it’s time to bring the hammer down.
 

Reveal the iron fist when: compliments have only stroked your henchman’s ego, instead of motivating him to get it in gear.

Making Money Hand Over Fist

It takes balance to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove. However, once you find a way to rule gently but firmly, you should very rarely have to reveal that strong iron fist.

the audacious truth

Securing Your Family Legacy

Good day peoples,

Great sports players secure their legacy when they are voted into the Hall of Fame. It is the highest achievement and mark of a successful career that these great athletes leave behind when they retire. Their goals, touchdowns and game-winning buzzer shots will be honored and remembered forever. But you don’t need to be Michael Jordan or Gary Lineker to secure your legacy. A true man creates a name for himself by creating a strong family legacy. Don’t be forgotten like those other fools. Take control of this aspect of your life so that you can be the one to shape what is written on your tombstone.  Here are a few ways of securing your family legacy.   

Know Where You Come From  

Your roots are the foundation of securing your family legacy. If you don’t know where your ancestors are from, now is the time to find out. With all of the resources available on the internet, there’s no excuse not to take this initiative. However, the simpler thing is to make some time to sit down with your grandparents, great aunts and uncles, and find out the true story behind your family’s ancestry. Honour the customs and nationality of your predecessors just as you want your own children to honor you.   

Have a Kid

Maintaining a family legacy means that you need to start a family. Get busy with your wife, or marry that chick you've been fooling with and consummate, and have a kid or two, especially a son who can literally carry on the family name. It’s not enough to simply pop out a few children, what kind of character will they build if you are never around the house and don’t care about their lives? Be a mentor to them and prepare them to approach work and life with the same respect and enthusiasm that you do. Get involved and help coach your son’s football team and lead it to the finals. Teach him to use his hands and pay his dues by fixing things around the house. Someday he will be passing these same lessons on to his own kids.

Establish a Family Property

One of the greatest family traditions involves passing on an inheritance to your kids and grandkids. It is a symbolic gesture, like turning over the keys of your operation to an employee who will continue to implement your business plan when you decide to retire. Don’t just leave your family your money or a collection of Rolex watches, securing your family legacy means establishing a common meeting place. Invest in a nice cottage up in the country and make sure it stays in the family when you kick the bucket.

Host Family Holidays

When Thanksgiving or Christmas rolls around this year, reach out to your extended family and invite them over to your house to celebrate the holiday. Securing your family legacy means settling any beef you have with those crazy cousins of yours, putting away your pride and focusing on establishing a strong yearly tradition. Bringing together different generations of your family from different cities will only strengthen your ties. Once you’ve established this tradition, don’t cut any corners. Be a generous host and throw lavish reunions that will be remembered and talked about for years to come.

Security You Need 

Follow these steps to securing your family legacy and make your mark on this world. You’ve only got one chance to leave behind a little piece of you when you’re long gone, so give your children and your grandchildren and even your great-grandchildren a family legacy to take pride in.

the audacious truth

Going From Nobody To Somebody

Good day peoples,

Let's face it; even if you're not some egocentric freak job, you want to be a star. Even if it's for a fleeting moment, a few times a year, or every time you get rejected in line at some fancy club with overpriced mojitos, you have, at one point, wanted to be more than Joe Nobody. You wanted to be Joe Somebody, or actually Mr. Joe Somebody.

Start Small, Move Up The Ladder

People nowadays want everything yesterday. Nobody has patience anymore. It's no longer just about instant gratification; it's about instant gratification that someone else works for on your behalf. You can almost never amount to anything in life or appreciate what it is to be a somebody unless you start off as a nobody .

So what if you start at the bottom of the food chain? Seeing things from the ground floor up lets you see what it takes to distinguish yourself from the dudes around you. Don't kid yourself into thinking you can be a success overnight (remember; it takes 10 years to be an overnight success).

 

Let me further illustrate this point by telling you about my a dude called Mikey. Mikey is a fine boy but he has no understanding of the word "patience" or having a good work ethic. He tells me all the time, "Dude, I want the big house with three garages (he actually says tree garages, but I digress), I want the Mercedes, I want the expensive wines..." That's when I pull him by the ears and tell him, "Mikey, outside of these trust-fund idiots, do you see who typically has these things, these fancy cars and large homes? It's fat old f*cks, not young turks. What makes you so special that you can skip steps?"

The concept is easy, boys. All these guys with fancy things? Guess what? It took them a while to get them. First they started with the small house that they paid off and turned into a down payment on a bigger house, which they paid off again to get the big house with the fancy marble walkway. Ever notice the gray hair and potbelly on guys with mansions or in exotic sports cars? Lesson here is, don't expect at 29 what everyone before you got at 59. Understood ? Good. Now on to some practical advice. 

Ways to Becoming Important

There is never one single thing you do that can transform your importance instantly. Even if you are elected president, you get there by climbing the ropes and being different levels of a somebody first. Unlike the movies, no Italian kid, black kid or Hispanic kid is going to get plucked from some slum or ghetto and win the presidential election because he promises voters he is going to "keep it real." So here are several pointers:

1- Get Money

Buy your way into being important. The more money you have, the more people want to lick your ass and the more crap you get for free. Go figure. There is nothing like walking into a place and saying, "I need to spend a lot of money," to get you noticed. But this is fleeting importance and having cash isn't enough to make you a permanent somebody.

2- Have Street Cred 

Once you are made or even if you are associated with a crime Family, you are a somebody. Having a reputation on the streets helps, how you go about it is a whole other article.

3- Make a big move

There is nothing like a big move to get you noticed. Whether it's a big fraud, a large merger or an important speech, you can climb up the significance ladder pretty quickly by doing something that will be archived in the history books (whether it's the ones that get stored in a library or in the CID's private collection of mug shots).

4- Be an expert

Everyone always needs the opinion of other people. Even I could admit when derivative pricing models theory is above my head. I have to call a schmuck who can tell me what the hell that is. But when I call, I want to call the best because I know the best knows what he is doing and how he can help me before I even open my mouth. It's not enough to be an authority on something, you have to be the authority to get recognized. So instead of being satisfied as a regular lawyer, accountant, computer geek, whatever, be the best in your field. Have some trait that is exclusive to you and don't be a generic idiot like most people.

5- Take risks

This is hit and miss, but in life, certain risks pay off. There are too many examples of things you can do, I'm not going to waste my time listing them, but just remember that very rarely do guys like Harry "The Boring Office Clerk" make it big.

6- Have a Spiel

You want to get noticed? You want to stand out from the crowd? Have some unique "thing" people remember you by. It could be a unique look (none of that earring or dyed hair crap though), a unique way of talking, a smirk, a gesture, whatever. Have something that makes you different, an original spiel that's your calling card. Like if you live in I don't know Texas, be a white guy with brown hair and you'll stand out among the blond cowboys all around you. In Miami, be the only guy that wears black day and night, and doesn't know a word of Spanish. Throw in a British accent or something for good measure. The point is be quirky, be eccentric, have a presence, but don't look like a fool.

7- Have a Lady With Significance

It's amazing what having the right woman on your arm can do for you. Have some cursing, low-rate chick at your side who looks like she just stepped off a zombie movie set and you'll get one kind of reaction. Have a classy, sophisticated, cultured woman whose self-confidence makes your own back straighten up (I bet you all just straightened your backs), and you will win by association. After all, the latter kind of ladies are in high demand; if she is with you then it means you got something, that others don't.

8- Talk to People

Be connected doesn't hurt. The more people you know, the more people you have conversations with, the more you can open doors for yourself or others. Don't be a Rolodex whore who collects business cards like a bum collects tin cans, but be someone who talks to people with a hidden agenda and stays in touch. A rainmaker of sorts. Be the guy that gets things done. Be Joe, the guy that knows this guy or that guy. That sort of thing.

9- Have Power

This is the most obvious way to become a somebody . But accumulating power isn't straightforward. Having a position that inherently has power attached to it is the easiest way to go. Being the CEO of a company, a big-shot consultant, a mayor of a major town, a college dean, the boss of a gang, a bank manager, whatever, all of that helps. But you already have to be a somebody to get to those positions. So place yourself into positions where you can wield power and influence and inevitably the rest will follow.

Hang Out With Power

There are other things you can do too, but they are all gimmicks that have a fleeting effect. For example, being the leader of some posse can make you feel important, but if your "crew" is full of rejects from the Love Connection , how does that help you?

 

It all comes down to doing a combination of the nine things I mentioned before. Some are more effective than others, some bring immediate results, some are part of a long-term plan.

In the end, being a somebody isn't all it's cracked up to be (people always want a piece of you, you become a bigger target for your enemies), but it doesn't suck. Especially when you don't have to pretend you're some neurosurgeon anymore.

Watch your backs and keep your noses clean.

the audacious truth