Skip to main content

Never Stretch The Truth — It May Snap Back In Your Face

A cover-up only adds to the loss of credibility

Never stretch the truth
Insider
Columnist

One day a man named Truth and a man named Lie stood by a river just outside of town. They were twin brothers. Lie challenged Truth to a race, claiming he could swim across the river faster than Truth. Lie laid out the rules, stating that they both must remove all their clothes and at the count of three, dive into the freezing cold water, swim to the other side and back. Lie counted to three, but when Truth jumped in, Lie did not.

As Truth swam across the river, Lie put on Truth’s clothes and walked back to town dressed as Truth. He proudly paraded around town pretending to be Truth. Truth made it back to shore, but his clothes were gone, and he was left naked with only Lie’s clothes to wear. Refusing to dress himself as Lie, Truth walked back to town naked.

People stared and glared as naked Truth walked through town. He tried to explain what happened and that he was, in fact, Truth, but because he was naked and uncomfortable to look at, people mocked and shunned him, refusing to believe he was really Truth. The people in town chose to believe Lie because he was dressed appropriately and easier to look at. From that day until this, people have come to believe a lie rather than believe a naked truth.

Famous Fibs

How often do we reject certain truths in our personal lives or in the world around us for the sake of our peace of mind?

Several famous fibs come to mind: Your table will be ready in a minute. We service what we sell. Money is cheerfully refunded. It’s on the truck. One size fits all. Never needs ironing. And the classic: The check is in the mail.

Many people don’t believe what they hear because they’ve been burned in the past. That’s a shame. What kind of society have we created? Why can’t people tell the truth? Don’t they realize that a cover-up only adds to the loss of credibility?

As the father of three children, one of my rules — especially when they became teenagers — was to tell me the truth immediately. I insisted David, Mimi, and Jojo tell me the truth about anything bad they had done or were a part of. And I had to know right away — not a day or week later. If not, they would face severe consequences.

That philosophy seemed to work for me, and quite frankly, I’ve always believed that telling the truth is the best policy. In business, it’s a must.

At MackayMitchell Envelope Company, we don’t tolerate anything less than honest negotiations and delivery guarantees. Envelopes today can be beautiful, colorful, complex products with foil, embossing, or unique in a variety of styles. It can be a very complex manufacturing process.

Honesty and integrity are paramount all along the supply chain. Nobody can match us day in and day out, job after job, envelope after envelope, smile after smile. Our customers know we’ll do what we promise.

We also avoid vendors who are not upfront. Surprises from a vendor eventually can impact how we deliver to our customers. Customers wouldn’t stick around for long if we made their job harder. Can you blame them?

U.S. President John F. Kennedy said in a commencement address at Yale University, “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

Dancing With Lies

Of course, there will always be those who connive to dance around the truth for their own benefit.

The wife of an art dealer, who was anxious to sell some Gothic tapestries to a renowned art lover, was amazed and annoyed when her husband awakened her at 3 a.m. one morning and commanded her to say, “I’ll pay you a million dollars for your Gothic tapestries.”

An odd request, she thought, but sleepily, she complied, repeating the suggested words, and then rolled over and went back to dreamland.

The next morning, the dealer told his potential buyer, “I can swear on a stack of Bibles that at 3 a.m. this morning, I had an offer of a million dollars for those tapestries.”

Alas, a shady business never yields a sunny life.

Mackay’s Moral: Speaking of truth, we should have regular checkups to avoid truth decay.

This article was originally published in NMP Magazine, during the week of December 2023.
About the author
Insider
Columnist
Published on
Dec 01, 2023
More from NMP Magazine
NMP
We Don't Care About You

The signals that unplugging the CFPB sends

Ryan Kingsley
NMP
Anger Manages Everything Badly

Keep your career in balance by keeping your emotions in check

Harvey Mackay
NMP
The Human Touch Works Wonders

Sometimes buyers need emotional intelligence, not artificial

Lew Sichelman
NMP
The “Why” Of Setting Your Goals For 2025

How to build a roadmap that turns wishes into wins

Dave Hershman
NMP
Masters Of Tomorrow

How to get on lenders’ most-wanted list

Erica Drzewiecki
NMP
When Disaster Strikes

When disaster strikes, being prepared and proactive isn’t just smart—it’s how mortgage pros become trusted allies to their clients

National Mortgage Professional

Webinars

OriginatorTech Deep Dive: Using AngelAi To Flood Your Pipeline With Leads And Close Faster

Join us on the next OriginatorTech DeepDive to see how you can flood the new year with new business! We’ll sho...

Webinar
Feb 18, 2025
Investor Confidence in Today’s Non-QM And Why Originators Are Paying Attention... A Virtual Town Hall

We host Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions for a special 2021 edition of their virtual town hall series they ran fro...

Webinar
Apr 08, 2021
How to Help Real Estate Pros in a Post-Refi World

Hear from Melissa Merriman, REALTOR® with The Melissa Merriman Team at Keller Williams, on what real estate pr...

Webinar
Mar 18, 2021
Connect with your local mortgage community.

Meet your your colleagues, both national and local, by attending an event in your area.