477 | What Always Having To Be Right Says About You

Chris LoCurto 0:00
What always having to be right says about you the impact that has on others, and some tips to overcoming this unhealthy behavior that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks, I hope you're having a fabulous day, wherever you are. On today's show, we're talking about always having to be right now let's let's get this kind of out of the way first, sure, you might have information that others don't. And so you may actually be right as I do my air quotes. But this is different from having to be right all the time. That's what we're talking about today. It's very different. The first is a statement of fact, if I know something, and I'm right about something, I'm just right about it. That's not what we're discussing. We're not discussing whether or not somebody is right, what we're discussing about today, is it behavior pattern. What is it like when you have to be right now I know everybody listening to this has never experienced that. Right? None of us have ever felt the need to be right, folks. Here's the deal for many people that compulsion to be right to prove their point to not allow others to have their say, etc. That can actually have some incredibly unhealthy side effects. And this is something that we need to look at as individuals and say, How much does this affect me? What are the side effects that I have? It can distract us from things that really matter, it can reduce our happiness and definitely increase our stress. I can promise you this. When you have to be right, you increase your stress. I mean, there's there's no doubt about it, right? Because what are you doing in the moment? When you have to be right, you're stressing that you are right. So it increases your stress no matter what. It can also impede our learning, it definitely impedes our understanding. It definitely impedes our growth. One of the things that we talked about in next level life is that when you stop being able to gain quality perspective, in other words, when you've got the right answer no matter what, when you're not willing to ask questions when you're not willing to seek to see if maybe you aren't correct, maybe somebody's got a different take or a different understanding. When you fight to be right. You stop the perspective gathering process. You make it impossible for you to continue to gain perspective, because your focus is only on being right. But think about this as well. What's the other side of the coin, the people you're proving your point to, they can feel unloved, they can feel shut down. They definitely can feel unvalued to you. So setting other straight is an exhausting exercise in futility, but lots of people will go to extraordinary lengths to prove a point to be heard, and to in their minds, when. So when we come back what's behind this compulsive behavior, why it matters, and what you can do about it, if that's you, right after this. Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, than you know, the number one issue, when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication, to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication, the best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style, and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, the best way to do that is to go to Chris locurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team to day get it for your family members. Today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate go to Chris recruiter.com/store Today Alright, so what is underneath the surface if we take a look just at our in a Western culture, right? Like if we just take a look at now we've got people listening to this all over the world. So I can't speak to your cultures. But I can speak to an American culture. I can tell you that the desire to be right is deep rooted in Western culture. From elementary school, we are rewarded for being right and we are reprimanded for being wrong

In the book, strengths finders 2.0 talks about how that if a and I'm gonna kind of probably mess this up. But like, if a child comes home with five A's and one D or one F, I can't remember what it is. But the concept is, is that they have all A's, and one really bad grade, that somewhere around 74% of American parents would make that child bring that grade up. His question is, what if the child sucks in that area? What if that's never going to be strength of theirs? Look at the areas that they've been strong. And what we focus on No, no, no, you can't fail. You have to fix that. So being wrong can carry with it the sense of humiliation and even worse shame that people seek to avoid. Right? So why do we spend hours glued to a TV watching talk shows or newsreels? Well, because we want to feel part of the debate? Because seemingly, we want to hear both sides, which most likely, we don't most likely won't we want to do is hear both sides so we can pick which one is right and then jump on that bandwagon. We want to we want to see who gets shamed or who gets kicked out. We want to determine who's right and who's an idiot. We want to be on the winning side, and we want to feel in control for once. Why do we spend our time glued to stuff like that? It's actually not helping us? You know, in so many ways, it's not helping us. Now, I'm not saying that you can't get informed, I'm not talking about being informed. I'm talking about when it emotes specific things inside of you that it has a specific control inside of you. Right. Those are the things that we're talking about. Think about it. We feel good about ourselves when we are right. And unfortunately, the rest of that is we feel good about ourselves when somebody else is wrong. An American writer once wrote the four most beautiful words that are common language. I told you so. And unfortunately, that's true for many people. Why do we Why do we not want to follow what somebody's giving us good direction, I'm the for decades. My job is to help people get to great perspective to get to write answers to get the right information, not for me to be right, to help somebody get right information and do something about it change the lives, right. But it is amazing how many times somebody doesn't want the right information. Somebody already has an answer. And they don't want the right information. They want to keep going on and trying to in trying to make their thing work. And when it doesn't work, the biggest fear that they have is that the person who has the information is going to come along and go see I told you so we feed on being right. And we absolutely hate it when we're wrong. Right. And the crazy thing is it's very black and white thinking it's either about being right or it's about being wrong. What are we not focusing on? What's great information that helps me become a better person? What's the right information that helps me to make better decisions in life? Instead, what we have a tendency to do? Is battle like crazy for our opinion to be right or not and to be heard as well. Not Hey, is this information, right? A great sign of somebody who's not battling to be right is somebody who is able to say, well, this is what I'm, this is my understanding. This is how I see it. What thoughts and questions? Do you have somebody who engages in a conversation and doesn't go no, I'm right, you're wrong? No, this is the only way. Right? That that is somebody who's not struggling? It's amazing. When you find somebody who's able to go well, you know, and even know the answer, right? Know exactly what the answer is and go Well, what are your thoughts? Not fight for the answer to be right or be the only answer, but instead they engage a conversation.

Why would they do that? To hopefully help the other person one get out information that may show that they know something that you don't, but to if you are correct, then you can help that person maybe through their process to get to the right information, right. So as soon as someone pushes back on our position when we are having to be right. When they push back on our point of view when they push back on our information. We recoil many people feel I'm going to use a heavy word here assaulted, right? Normally we would say attacked many times we feel like you're pushing back on my information I'm you're attacking me right? Think about that. You know, we turn to our arsenal of facts when that happens. Let's let me pull out even more facts so I can defend myself. When that doesn't work, then we start to throw Barb's In the fight gets ugly. What do you see in that? That actually isn't having anything to do with the right information that has to do with a person being in victim mentality. The person who has to battle to be right. When somebody pushes back when they respond with barbs with a litany of facts, you know, attacks, then what do we see? It's no longer about the information. I'm not saying that it actually was about the information in the beginning. It may have been may not have been. But it's no longer about the information. What is it about? It's actually about their worth. So point number two, what's the real struggle for most people? Well, it's what I just said, self worth. Look. Even if you're right about something, it's good to be careful when using that information. Dale Carnegie said once that you can't win an argument you can't because if you lose it, you lose it. And if you win, you lose it. What is it? It's an argument. It's a battle. What is an argument based on personal feelings? It's actually rarely based on the information. Because if we have different information, if I see one thing one way, and you see something another way, or I have different facts than you have, then presenting the facts in a discussion is, well, here's why I found this, here's the information. If you completely disagree. If I'm not emotionally attached to my worth in that moment, then I can just be okay. Well, we completely disagree, we see things differently. There you go. Thanks for the discussion. Right doesn't have to go any further. What happens when somebody disagrees with our facts? What happens when we get into an argument? The argument is not based on a discussion about facts, the argument happens when we become emotionally attached to our belief about the facts are we become emotionally attached to not losing worth? There are so many discussions that I've had with people that know that the thing that they're fighting for is wrong, they know that the information that they're battling with is actually incorrect, then they found out early on in the conversation, but they can't let go, they can't lose their worth is tied up in it. And so they continue to push and push and push and push and push and even to the point and again, think this is you know, this is what we do for a living is help people to get right information, right? To get the better information so they can make better decisions, not to prove them wrong. What happens is if somebody's emotionally attached to their opinion, their facts, their whatever, then even when we say hey, listen, we don't need to talk about this. We can shift to another direction, we can talk about something else, we can work on it. No, no, they got to keep coming. They got to keep battling. They got to keep pushing their information. The crazy thing is what we tend to help them to see is that they actually knew that the information they had was wrong in the beginning, or somewhere in the conversation. But they chose to what they believe is to not lose worth. They chose to battle to try and regain worth, which is regaining control in their mind. Unfortunately, what ends up happening, if it's somebody who's willing to, you know, be vulnerable, is that they recognize oh my gosh, I struggle with the need to be right. I struggle with having to be right. So

we do this for a living. We're able to see this stuff, we're able to help people through it, we're able to continue to discuss this kind of stuff. What happens when it's in everyday relationships. We can easily damage relationships when we insist, insist on asserting our own rightness. So why do we do it? What's the real struggle for most people? Well, there's a couple of reasons that people struggle. The first is the fear of failure or being wrong. If I'm wrong, I've failed. Fear of failure is massive. For most people, people don't want to fail, they don't like to fail. So the fear of failure or being wrong, says that they're a bad person. There's the there's the fear of humiliation or being shamed if I'm wrong. How are people going to respond and listen, I gotta say, many times, we don't respond well when somebody is wrong. Many times we will treat them like crap, we will do the I told you so or we will do the, you know, look down on them. Not treat them with dignity because we're attached to our need to be right and when that person is proven wrong. Then our chest puffs up our E Go inflates, which is what our lack of worth, right? If you need to shame somebody for being wrong, that has absolutely nothing to do with the other person, that's all about you. That is every bit about you, right? If you wear a mask for insecurity, because you're never measuring up is another reason that people struggle, you know that they have to be right, because they're so insecure that they've got this mask that says that, you know, we would call it pride, I'm better than I'm making myself better than I actually think that I am. So our sense of worth and value can get tied up in knots, with being right with needing to justify or be justified with needing to be approved. The crazy thing is the human condition is one of brokenness. The things that we're talking about, I mean, it's not just something that's a tiny struggle, this manifests in so many different areas. Today, we just happen to be talking about this specific topic of having to be right. The brokenness is ingrained in our thinking and behavior from childhood. It is in our root system. The thing you need to ask yourself, is some great perspective gathering questions that lead you to where you aren't? Did you feel the need to make mom and dad proud? Did you feel the need to appear to have it all together? Did you feel the need to justify yourself and prove your point? Did you come from a family that valued people being right? Did you come from a parent that, you know that praised you when you had the right answer and, and distance themselves from you when you didn't? And there's a whole lot of things that can point to your root system. As to why you are where you are. The key is not going back and becoming a victim not going back and making monsters or, you know, villains, it's standing perspective, can I change? Can I do something different? Can I make a different decision, when we come back, recovering from having to be right all the time, and learning to grow through the struggle? That's coming up next.

Speaker 2 17:26
Freedom, it's so powerful,

Unknown Speaker 17:28
I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed,

Speaker 2 17:30
I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am, and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there that had a really big impact on me, that's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard. But it's going to be even better. On the other side.

Unknown Speaker 17:48
For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I want to say lifegiving. For me, it really was,

Speaker 2 17:53
you know, I would go to next level life again. And probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto 18:01
If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, this same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have. Or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chris locurto.com/next level life.

So how do we self manage? How do we grow through the struggle? So we've got three steps of what you can do. And again, this is not exhaustive. This is what you can do today. Step one is to acknowledge the action folks, this is this applies to so many things that we teach, it's so important to actually know the thing that you're struggling with, it's so important to recognize the action and what's going on. I do this thing I can see that I'm doing this thing, I can see that I'm struggling in this area. Admitting that there's an issue that needs to be corrected is the first step to resolving it. The more self aware you become. It's amazing how easy it is to see the struggle that you're having when it happens. It was so funny, I recently I get to work at the ridge. Two days a week, Sunday is a day a work day for me up at the ridge. And if I can make Tuesday's happen, I try to make Tuesday's happen, where I'm working up at the ridge and I was working on this project. And I wanted my wife with me ahead. So I told her I just I'm like, Hey, you should be back. You're helping me with this thing. Why not? Because I really truly needed to help. I love being around my wife. I want her to be back there with me. And so we were both working on things that have to do with the farm. I was putting together a A big hoop coop to raise a whole bunch of meat birds. She was working on our monsters garden. And so I'm like, Hey, you should come back here and help me. She goes, Yeah, you should also come to the garden and help me to do this, this, this, this, this, this, this. And I just looked at her and I smiled, and I'm like, Okay, you're good. You don't have to be back here. And the interesting thing is, the very first thought I had in my mind was, Why am I telling her she needs to be back here. I, I immediately focused on the self awareness of what is my struggle? My struggle was, I miss my wife, I wanted her back there and in the back pasture with me. I wanted her to spend some time with me. It was also 97 degrees, and I was sweating like crazy. And I wanted somebody around me, so I don't know. But instead of becoming defensive to her response, how would we normally respond? Oh, sure, I'll come here help you if you come help me do all these other things. The victim mentality says, I guess you don't want to spend time with me. I guess your stuffs more important than my stuff, whatever. I mean, come up with anything right. When we're self aware, we go, why am I struggling? With my wife not being back here with me? Is it because I think she doesn't love me? Is it? Because I think she doesn't think what I'm doing is I don't know, come up with whatever, right. When you're self aware, it's easy to go, Oh, wow. I just want my wife to be around me. I just want to be around her. Oh, that's funny. She's got things that she needs to get done. They're just as important as the things I'm doing maybe more important, and maybe less important. I don't know. But she has things that she needs to get done. Let her go do her stuff. You can go spend time with her tonight. All right. That's self awareness is focusing on what's my problem? Not What's her problem? That self awareness is focusing on? Why am I having a struggle? Not? I need to be right about something because how could it go? If I needed to be right? It's 97 degrees back here. I've got this thing. I can't do it by myself, I need your help. You need to come help me. I don't know I'm this is just what I'm coming up with write. We need to discover what is the struggle that we're experiencing? What is the feeling that we're having, right? What is the action that we are committing? That we need to be really self aware about. So just to kind of understand how important it is. If you know anybody who's been through a 12 step program, some sort of similar recovery course, ask them how important it is to be self aware.

They'll tell you very quickly. If you don't think there's a problem, then you'll never fix it. That's that's the thing that they will help you to see. If you can't see that there's a problem, you're never going to do something about it. You'll always be a victim. And I'll always be somebody else's problem. So acknowledging and admitting our feelings and actions is called self awareness. Step number two. Step number two is to address the deeper need. I do this, because I do this because I'm afraid others won't respect me if I'm wrong. I do this because I don't want others to know I have weaknesses. I, I do this because I need to be strong. And if I'm stronger than strength means that I'm right. I, I do this because I feel like I have to prove myself to other people. I do this because if I don't win the argument, then I'm a failure. Or even worse, maybe I look like I'm a fraud, right? Because I fought so hard for this thing, and I didn't win. You've got to dig deep. You got to dig deep and find out. Why are you doing the Why are you doing the action? Why do you have that struggle of needing to be right? Why are you taking on the argument? Why are you taking on whatever, right? The deeper the deeper you dig, the more you're going to discover the element of control that you're afraid of letting go of. So think about it. Every bit of that battle doesn't have anything to do with being right. Every single bit of that battle has to do with being out of control, or trying to get into control. None of it has to do with being right. None of it has to do with being wrong. All of it has to do with control. Step number three. Step number three is to ask yourself a question. Now, again, when you're insisting on being right. Some examples of some questions that might be helpful are What's my motivation from pressing my point with them? What is my motivation? Why is it so important that I keep pressing my point? While pushing this hard helped me or them more at this moment? That's a really powerful one. I can't tell you how many conversations I have been in that when I see somebody struggling super heavy, and I'm still pushing information. I stopped when I go, dude. Is this even gonna help them? Nope, they're not in a place that this is helpful. Or maybe I'm the one who's struggling? Why are you pushing this information? This isn't helpful stop, knock it off. Right? Sometimes you have to find out by asking the question, will this actually help them? Another question is what's preventing me from listening more? And insisting less? Man? That is such a great question. Why? Why am I not listening? Why am I pushing so hard? Why am I insisting right? Another question is, what's an appropriate and measured response? In this situation? So in other words, am I already done? Did I already give good information? What's appropriate to this? Am I going over the top? Am I spending too much time on this? You have to come to a place to recognize if you've already if you're self aware, and you recognize that you're struggling with being right, a great place to be in is, if I already know that then what's the point of continuing? Should I have given an answer? And if the answer is yes, great. What's the appropriate answer? What's the appropriate measurement of my response? You're you're probably already done. You could be done with the conversation, you could back out of the argument, you could back out of the discussion. Because you've already said enough. Right? Another question is what new perspective? Can I offer this person? Instead of information? Is it possible, you're needing to be right, right? We're talking about you're insisting to be right. If you ask yourself the question, Is there new perspective I can offer? What you may discover in a heartbeat is? No. I actually don't have new perspective. If I had new perspective, I would have given new perspective. Right, you might find out immediately. Nope, I actually don't have anything I can help them with. So important to ask that question. Another question is, what new perspective do I need to gain in order to respond better? If we're being self aware, we recognize that we're struggling, then what happens if we actually just listen?

One of the things we teach in strat plan all the time is, hey, leaders, you're gonna go back and you've spent a week here, gaining phenomenal information, your team doesn't know what you've learned. And so you can have a tendency to go back and tell them what to do. Don't do it. Go back tax, the collective intelligence, invite them into being a part of the solution. Yeah, but I already know the answer doesn't matter. Yeah, but they're not going to come up with anything better than they already know. Doesn't matter. First off, you don't know that. Second, you know, because what did they do? What did they come up with something that you hadn't thought about? Second is, even if you know the answer, you've got the direction, you know, everything that's supposed to happen, by treating them with dignity and allowing them to speak into the situation. They take ownership, they see that you actually care if you can use some of their ideas, do it. Right. You are, you might, you know, again, these folks are coming from a week long, super intense, prospective gathering event that's given them information on how to go fix a bunch of stuff. But what happens when you allow the people who didn't get to come to the event to be a part of the process, you gain, potentially, you gain new perspective that can absolutely change the way that other people receive you, that can change the way that other people choose to take ownership of their roles. You go back and try and fix something in your business, and you're just telling people what to do. You can't really guarantee that those folks are going to take on the same ownership that you have. So focusing on I do this becomes I'll do this instead. If I have great self awareness, if I recognize why I'm doing the things that I'm doing, if I ask a bunch of questions, then instead of being in that battle, instead of fighting to be right, what I may discover is a great way to not lose worth or focus on my worth, and a great way to grow, have better communication, have better conversations, have better relationships. So when our interaction with others focuses more on them than us, we learn and grow. We have better relationships. we care more about relationship than control. So if your focus remains on you, your point, your win, then you're giving up all of these things. So what does always having to be right say about you? Simply put, it means that you value control over a relationship. And folks, that's not really living. So hopefully you have enjoyed this today. We hope this has helped you today as you take this and put this into place. As always, take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.