I heard this statement today from a friend and when I asked them how they came to that conclusion the person making the big statement had nothing concrete to back that up.

Just the other day I heard someone also refer to Elon Musk as owning the ‘greatest’ car company in the world.

This is simply not true. It is not accurate.

In this world, facts do matter… regardless who is attempting to thwart them. Facts are important.

Everybody can see the facts when they are out in the open so there is no point in attempting to rubbish them or frame them in a pointless comment, or by using a groundless set of figures to state a half truth.

‘We are the number one company, they are the best company in their field, this is the finest item on the market….. we have the best products and customers prefer ours to theirs’

Hogwash!!

General, sweeping measurements don’t work that well. Big, grand statements add no real value unless you can ground them in realistic, truthful and tangible measures.

Tesla might be the largest or,to maybe be more precise, the highest valued car company in the world due to its stock price, but it it doesn’t make it the ‘greatest’.

For that statement to be accurate it would take a whole lot of other benchmarking etc… blah, blah, blah.

A company should not be defined in generalisations and neither should you be… we should always ground ourselves in the clarity of facts and in the accuracy of truths.

The reason for taking this up as a point of order now, is because I believe we should also be clear on what happens when we get complacent when using big words or sweeping statements to describe ourselves or others. We should be aware of how we might inaccurately describe what we are doing or how we are describing who we are to others and even when we are trying to be honest with ourselves because we are too loose with the words.

We need to be grounding our own and the realities of others in actual fact.

When you hear such statements thrown around like, ‘you can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it because you are super smart’ or ‘with some focus and the right training you can conquer all’….

you have heard these statements, we all use them. In truth, they are not helpful.

It is not true. They are not true statements…. they are motivational and inspiring in many cases, but they are not true. They are misleading and can probably set up any individual for a journey into vagueness.

For instance, you can not be an NFL quarter back and be starting in the line up in the Super Bowl just by hard work and putting your mind to it, because there are so many other factors to be considered.

No point in telling yourself that you can achieve that level if you are an average Joe.

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What is true is that you can improve you skills enough so that they can be measured from day to day and you can track that change.

You can go on to celebrate that improvement and recognise that you have achieved a tangible change. From that change you can accurately asses how well you are doing when you compare to….

You; always compare to yourself, benchmark to the you of the day before or the you of the last time you made the previous measurement.

Be your own target. Inspire yourself, by referring to yourself.

That is what you should be using as your comparison. Compete with yourself.

I’m doing so, you will drive personal success.

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You might go on to become the top player or the best performer or whatever on the day, or in the week, month etc etc, because of the fact the score is being measured and put on the league table that holds all the measures. You have scored more or putted more or however the measure is portrayed, you have done more than the others – you are top because the results say so and that’s a good thing.

You can then say your are number one on this league and you can claim that as a fact!!

…But to be the greatest, to claim to be the greatest, well that has to be considered on so many various levels.

Think about it.

We are still debating over who is the greatest boxer of all time.

Even when I know it is Muhammad Ali.

Fact.