The power of the U turn

The freedom of not being right

“Would you rather be right, or would you rather be happy?”

This is a frequent question in recovery circles, usually delivered with a sage nod, as if to say we all know the answer is that you’d rather be happy.

I’d rather be right.

I’d rather be right because I do believe there is often a right and a wrong, and the right is important. To do the right thing matters in relationships, at work, in our families and communities. Right and wrong exist. Ethics are not fungible. It is more important to be ethical than to be comfortable.

I’d also rather be right because I am often correct, especially in my assessment of business issues, and I like to have that competence acknowledged and rewarded. Which will surprise no one who knows me who reads this. That’s the kind of “right” which I’m examining today; thinking that we have the right answer for other people.

The business competence part is what I lead with because I can prove it. After a long career, I can list which organizations I once worked for that should have listened to what I said at the time. They don’t exist anymore. Lots of companies go out of business. I like to think some of them might still have been in business if they had listened to me rather than fire me or discount my warnings.

But my assumption that I am correct extends into every area of my life. I have narratives about which person in my community is going to struggle, which candidate will be best for a particular office; what trend or hyped next thing is really going to make an impact, and which will fizzle out.

What are the pros and cons to an attachment to believing you are right?

On the pro side, it allows me an ongoing assessment of what is important to me, and what I believe is ethical. I am super judgy about social media – the men that run it, the business models that monetize our attention and time, the algorithms that promote division and conflict. Over the past few years, I have left Facebook and Twitter. I mostly participate in LinkedIn and Instagram out of business necessity, and on a pretty limited basis. I would get more attention and readers if I put this newsletter out on LinkedIn instead of substack. But I believe it is right to get paid for my intellectual property – or at least have the potential to do that in the future, rather than donating my IP, time and energy to make Microsoft, the owner of LinkedIn, more money.

I also know myself. I could totally get craven for more likes. That’s thin ethical ice for me.

On the con side of being judgmental is the hubris of it. Hubris is spiritual pride, it’s overweening. It blinds me to other people’s perspectives, wisdom and understanding. If I think I know the one best way for you or a group of people to do things, I am cutting myself off from your lived experience, desires and wisdom.

I’ve been an executive coach since 2016. And the first lesson of executive coaching is that it’s not about you. It’s been a great place for me to practice not being right. Not being judgmental. Not giving advice. Honoring and reflecting back what I hear the other person saying, thinking, believing. I’m there to be helpful, and that’s all. I’ve got over 900 hours of executive coaching under my belt, and that’s a lot of time to put aside what I think is right, or next, or due. I didn’t realize what a valuable practice that would be for me.

Believing I know what is right for me, or a business where I am in leadership, or a community in which I participate, is one thing. I can be wrong, but I also am implicitly or explicitly in a situation where I get a vote.

Believing I know what is right for another person – ANY other person -- is where I get into trouble. I don’t get a vote. Sometimes I wish I got a vote. I think I know what’s right. But my long life, and long career, has shown me how many times I get it wrong. The stories I tell myself about what an individual should do and the consequences of what will happen if they don’t do the thing I think they should do have shown me so many times how often I am flat out wrong.

And it is freedom. Last week I was talking to a friend about my book manuscript. I’m getting ready to do my final revisions, and was talking to my friend about a troublesome section of the book. The section wasn’t working, and I wasn’t sure why.

It wasn’t working, she pointed out, because the chapter in question was essentially me holding forth on what I thought was right, in a way that wasn’t helpful but divisive. There are plenty of spaces, including this one, where I am holding forth about something. There is a time and place for me to exercise my competence.

This chapter wasn’t one of those places.

I could tell my friend was worried about how this critique might land. I immediately realized she was right, and that the solution to the problems in that section was about making it more about the material and less about what I thought was right. And that’s a kind of freedom, the humility to understand, oh, wow, I’m totally going in the wrong direction here. Time to make a U turn.

I don’t think the choice is between being right and being happy. I think the choice is between being right and being free. Free of the need to control others, to assert your will, to be the boss. It’s about wearing “right” lightly, and prioritizing your relationships with others; honoring each person’s right to make their own decisions and have their own stories and even to suffer the consequences of their choices and learn from them.

Being wrong often enough that you can change directions quickly, letting go of what you think is right in pursuit of the freedom to make a U turn when needed – that’s the gift.