932. Do You Want To Be Right Or Find What's True?

Today, I unpack a powerful idea from Ray Dalio’s Principles:

“To be effective, your need to be right must not be more important than your need to find out what’s true.”

How often are we more focused on proving ourselves right than actually learning something new?

This episode explores:

• The difference between being right and being effective
• Why pride in what you “think you know” limits your growth
• How being fixated on your opinions blinds you to the truth and better decisions
• The risk of surrounding yourself with yes-men and shutting down feedback
• How to stay curious, collaborative, and open to course correction
• What it really means to conform to reality and find the truth in both life and leadership

Whether you’re in a conversation, in conflict, working with customers, or trying to lead your team, this episode will challenge your mindset and help you spot your blind spots before they cost you your potential.

🔁 Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough.

Transcript

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3, 2, 1. Let's get it. Welcome to episode 9 32 of What's Your Problem, the podcast. I'm your host, Marsh Buice and here on What's Your Problem? We deal with the three universal problems we all face, adversity, uncertainty, and complacency. And you need some skills to handle the adversity, embrace the uncertainty, and never settle again. And all those skills are within, you don't have to download an app. You don't have to get on an online course. It's, they all start with a letter C, communication, curiosity, creativity, continuous learning and action, and productive confrontation. So the better you are at working in those skills every single day, you're gonna be RFA. You're gonna be ready for anything. Do you know everything? No. Are you ready for anything? Absolutely. So today I titled this episode, do You Wanna Be Right or Do You Want To Grow? And this was inspired from Ray Dalio's book Principles. And there was a passage in there, man, that just it, it made me just stop the bus. So let me read to you what he wrote. He said, to be effective, you must not let your need to be right. Be more important than your need to find out what's true. And then he went on to say, if you're too proud of what you know or you think you know. Or how good you are at something, you're gonna learn less, make inferior decisions, and fall short of your potential. Bro, that's a lot to unpack here. So let's get at it. Let's start what it means to be effective, effective. Means that you can deliver the goods. You're not just talking about it, you be about it. You're producing and you're setting an expectation, and then you're meeting it. That's what effectiveness means. That's impact. But Dalio says, if your need to be right is bigger than your need to find out what's true, you're not gonna be effective because finding out what's true requires curiosity. It means that you're gonna have to suspend your judgment. It demands that you ask questions, not just give opinions, not just be the I got you guy. I got you. Not trying to trap people. That's not what finding the truth is. See when you're always trying to be right. That's rigid, but finding truth. Is fluid. It's that discovering factor. See, if your default is always on being, right. What happens when you're always trying to be right? You get defensive, you're fixed minded, and you're emotional. You shut down feedback, you shut out people, and over time you ultimately shut out growth not only for yourself but also for others as well. But truth on the other hand, truth is an actual state. I actually looked up the word. What is true? It's not a preference. It's not a feeling, it's reality. And the thing about reality is it changes. It changes like the weather, like weather conditions shift. So if you're going to find the truth, that means that you have to adjust to those conditions. That's adaptability. That's wisdom. But if you're too proud of what you think you know, or how good that you think that you are, you're gonna stop learning because what you know today is gonna be outdated tomorrow, and it's gonna be obsolete a half decade or a decade from now. Your skills are gonna erode and your relevance will fade. And here's the danger, you'll start making inferior decisions. Not because you're incapable, but because you're unwilling to consider other options. You don't draw in smarter people. You don't create space, and that's important. You don't create space for diverse input, and you surround yourself with a bunch of yes men and in the name of being, right. You're the loser. And Dalio doesn't stop there. He said, if you end up having this mindset of having to be right, this leads you to fall short of your potential. What you could have been, what you could have built, what you could have experienced. If only you would've stayed open. So lemme ask you a question. Are you trying to be right in your conversations today? Or are you genuinely trying to discover what's true? And dude, this isn't just a professional question. This is in every area of your life, in sales, in relationships, in leadership. See, when you're trying to find the truth. That requires humility. It requires collaboration. It's a dialogue, not a monologue. It requires the courage to say, you know what? I see your point of view. I might be wrong. Tell me what you mean by that. Help me understand that. Can you argue for the other case as much as you're trying to argue for yours? Can you suspend your chance to speak? And put somebody in a corner trying to be right, suspend all that and just say, how do you see it? What's your point of view? Because see, everybody's shaped by different experiences. Everybody comes from diverse backgrounds. And so just because you have all this experience, just 'cause you've been doing this 20 years. Bro, I will learn from the guy who's been doing this. 20 minutes doesn't matter to me. I'm a sponge. I'm open to learning because I don't want to get rigid in my thinking. I don't wanna get locked in because if I do, I'm not gonna live up to my potential. I'm gonna surround myself with inferior people and make inferior decisions, and I'm not gonna grow. I'm not gonna learn. I'm not gonna evolve. So when you're in these cross airs, man, you're like, bro, am I trying to be right? Am I mean, ask yourself when you're working with customers, am I trying to be right, right here? Or am I trying to discover the truth? What's, what's the thing the customer's really saying? Maybe, maybe I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to speak, I'm trying to force something down the throat.'cause I got a quota to me. What if I just discovered what's true? What? What does he really mean? I hear the words, what's the meaning? What's the intention? That's what truth is. What's the intention? That's what effectiveness is. It's the intention, right? What's the intention here? You're trying to be right. Are you trying to discover what's true? And I'm not saying like don't make a plan, make plans. That's cool. Start with something. I'm not saying you just float along, make plans, but when conditions shift, don't bulldoze reality to fit the plan. You just adjust the plan to fit reality. That's strength. That's what wisdom is. It's applied experience. Bro, the strongest people I know aren't the ones who insist that they're right. They're the ones who insist on chasing the truth. You gotta look at it like a treasure hunt. You listen, you ask, you adapt, and you make these tiny course corrections every day. All along the way. Mark Randolph, the co-founder of Netflix, said it best. He wrote a whole book about it. Nobody knows anything, and that includes you. So go find out, ask better questions, invite better people. Build a better version of yourself, not by being right, just suspend your opinions. Don't be so quick to speak and cut off from listening. Just chill. Relax. What's their POV? What's their point of view? Keep your opinions to yourself. Be flexible and fluid, and be willing to be wrong on the way to discovering what's right. That's the truth. Alright, let's get outta here. Thank you so much for being a part of What's your problem? The podcast. We are all over the world. Literally all over the world. It's cool when I, when I go into my app, I can see like places of the world where we are like the listens and it's growing man. And so you think you're sharing it with someone here stateside. And someone else picks it up across the country. You just never know where the dots connect. And I can't do this without you. Okay? I'm not trying to be right, I'm trying to discover the truth, just like you. Alright with that, let's get outta here. Keep it simple. Keep it moving. Never settle. Stay tough. Peace.