It is an immutable law of business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises but only performance is reality.
Harold S. Geneen
No matter what business you are in, people are people. They work at all different levels and produce different results. When things go wrong there are those that use words to confirm or deny their involvement or their actions. There are those that promise they will or will not do it again. And there are those that offer explanations as to who did what and why they ended up doing or not doing what happened. What makes business work is the fact that somewhere amongst all the people working someone actually performed the job and got it done. Performance is reality, no matter what else happens, no matter what kinds of words people say. It is all about performance.
Relationships work pretty much the same way as business, in terms of performance. There are those that use lots of words and actually do nothing they said they would. There are those who provide elaborate explanations and still let us down. And there are also those who make promises that they never really intend to keep. The solid, honest relationships in our lives are with the people who perform the way they say they will. If they tell us it will be done, it will be done. No matter what. These people have our backs and their actions demonstrate that time and time again. We love all these people, they make up our lives and we make up theirs. Over time we eventually figure out which people in our life fit into which group, and we grow wise when we stop blaming them and learn to manage our own expectations.
Words are powerful. They can change our lives, our habits, and our expectations. Too many words and very little performance makes life feel more like a stage play rather than reality. Knowing who does what they say they will makes our lives better, which means in turn WE need to be the people who actually perform. We must be the one who says it will get done, and do it no matter what or else our words are meaningless. They are just more words out there in the universe without any substance. To have solid, trustworthy relationships we need to be that person first.
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