Sheldon Adelson shares his father's rule: never lie about anything. One lie creates a chain of deception that eventually unravels. Carmichael adds that honesty works as a leadership tool when you give candid feedback and never punish people for telling the truth.
Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is never lie about anything. Over to you, Sheldon Adelson.
I don't know, I'm outspoken because I could never make a— I couldn't be a liar. I can only tell the truth. I would be a very bad liar. My father told me— my father never left me with anything material, but he left me the richest, as rich as I could be, with values. And he always told me, never lie about anything. You've got to be honest, because if you lie about one thing, the second time somebody's going to ask you, you're going to make up a lie to cover that first lie. And then pretty soon you got a whole chain of lies, and then you're completely exposed.
So this is an interesting one for me. I don't know if you can never lie about anything. I think it's something that you can aspire to do, and I think sometimes a little lie might be okay. You know, white lies. If your wife asks you if she looks good in this dress, you know, little, little white lies that might hurt somebody's feelings otherwise. And I think The ones that maybe try to avoid are the bigger ones that maybe you lock yourself into. The challenge with lying is that you have to remember your lies for the next time it comes up, and keeping track of all your stories can be a challenge. In my business, I really value honesty and openness, and it's something that I encourage from my team. And I think if you're gonna make important business decisions, then you need to have the right information. And the key to getting that out of your team is one, you being honest with people, right? Giving them honest feedback. Sometimes it may be harsh and you can soften it and you can encourage them to get better, but giving them honest feedback on what's wrong. I try to surround myself with people who like getting that feedback, who then want to grow and continue to get better. And then also not punishing people when they give you honest feedback, right? If you are attacking somebody for telling you that they made a mistake, then they're not going to tell you the next time. They're going to lie about it. So make sure you're not giving them that punishment. They want encouragement, they want to come back and keep doing it again for you. Just as a quick example, I'm taking over a company right now. We have 50 people on the team, and I needed to hire somebody to run it because I don't have time to run it. I'm doing this stuff for you guys, and I'm happy to coach and mentor and train, but I don't want to be the CEO. So I hired somebody away from his job, and he's at this big job, you know, big company, no worries about security and any other issues kind of all taken care of. And I convinced him to come work for me and take on this slightly riskier opportunity, but grow something a lot more successful and have more growth for him because I answered everything honestly, right? And I try to take that approach. I may not always have the best answer, and I may not always have the answer that you want, but it was something that he appreciated, and he knows that every time that he comes to me, I'm going to give him my honest feedback and an honest answer, and hopefully we can use that information to keep moving forward. At the same time in the business, we've got 8 key staff members that are important positions, and I met with them all individually, and I met with them all as a group to understand what they liked, what they didn't like, how I can make things better, how I could improve, and encouraged again honest feedback. Like, tell me what you don't like, tell me what we can fix. And that really helped us build the relationship up and hopefully continue that honest dialogue. One of the most consistent feedback that I've gotten from everybody, they They understand there's things that could be improved. They understand that I want to run things in a different way. What they love is that they always say, "I appreciate your transparency, your openness, and your honesty." The question of the day today is, is it ever okay to tell a lie, and if so, when? Leave a comment below and I'm going to join in the discussion. Thank you so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, and I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot. A venti espresso.
