I love when people start a sentence off with, “Well, they say…”, followed with some axiom or quip. When I was younger I always assumed the ‘they’ that people were quoting were very distinguished professionals who had created the axioms or quips. I thought maybe groups got together to create these catchy sayings to make it easy for the rest of us to understand complex issues. I was real young when I thought this way, obviously very naive and deep down I think I hoped that what ‘they’ said was true, because as soon as I heard that ‘they’ had spoken I listened.

Who are ‘they’?

Not sure if it was one day or over the course of many days when I began to realize that people who qouted ‘they’ had no clue who ‘they’ were. Who is this elusive, catch phrase starting, ‘truth’ dropping group? I started to look at the people who qouted ‘them’ and looking at the results in their lives. Many people who quoted ‘they’ lived lives that did not inspire me. I started to question ‘them’, the people always referred to as ‘they’, and I quickly realized that ‘they’ were never known individually, and that ‘they’ had clever sayings but very limited ideas on many things. The sayings were in many times much cleverer than the actual advice.

I don’t know who ‘they’ are, and they definitely don’t know me.

When I started my first business, I consulted with anyone who I knew that had their own business, and asked them their thoughts about partnerships. Almost everyone one of them shared what ‘they’ had to say about partnerships, but none of them had any personal experiences to share. In fact, almost every person that I spoke to on the subject refused to have a business partner of their own becasue ‘they’ had spoken out so harshly against it. Luckily by this time I had overcome my earlier naivete and I was quick to see through the clever sayings. I did start my business with a partner and it was, to this day, the best decision I have ever made in my professional career. It turned out to have the exact opposite effect that ‘they’ warned me of.

How to handle the elusive ‘they’.

• Just question what ‘they’ have said.
• Ask yourself who ‘they’ are, each time ‘they’ are quoted.
• Look at the person who is quoting ‘them’, what results are they getting?
• Do your own due diligence. Next time you hear on these quips, research the facts.

Steve D’Anunzio has an incredible book called ‘Prosperity Paradigm’ and in that book he has a line that says- “Merely thinking differently is not enough- you must think the opposite.” I love this line and think it is a great thing to try when one of the messengers for ‘they’ have spoken. Common sense is commonly wrong.

Please leave your comments on this post, I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Thank you.