It's hard to tell the truth when you lie to yourself

We don’t like to admit that, but we all do it. Sometimes it’s small. Sometimes it’s systemic. Either way, those lies pile up. And before you know it, they shape the way you lead, the way you communicate, and the way you see your business.

It’s subtle. You tell yourself the team is doing fine. You tell yourself the numbers are holding steady. You tell yourself the culture is solid, the clients are happy, and your leadership is working.

And maybe it is. But maybe it’s not. And here’s the problem—you’ve repeated the story so many times that you don’t notice what you’re leaving out.

We all know someone who tells a story where you were actually there, and only about 10% of it is true. But the more they tell it, the more they believe it, and eventually they erase the actual memory. I think that’s called confabulation. And look, I’m all for “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story,” but when it comes to your business—it needs to be facts.

They’ve said it so often that now it feels like fact. That’s when the danger kicks in.

Because you can’t fix what you refuse to acknowledge. You can’t grow when your version of reality is based on comfort instead of clarity. And you definitely can’t lead other people if you’re still busy protecting yourself from the truth.

It’s hard to tell the truth when you lie to yourself. And most of the time, we’re not doing it on purpose. We’re just tired. Overwhelmed. Stretched. We’re running at such a pace that anything outside our current view feels like one more problem to manage. So we tuck it away.

We say, “It’ll get better next month.”

We say, “I’ll deal with it after the next hire.” 

We say, “That’s just how it is in vet med.” 

We say, “I just need to hire another DVM or tech.” 

We say, “All we need is…” or “If we can just…”

No. That’s just how it stays when no one leads.

I see this every time I sit down with a practice and ask a few hard questions. 

What’s your average transaction value over the last six months? 

What’s your employee turnover cost? 

What’s your preventive compliance rate? 

How many team members are producing under their role expectations?

What I usually get is a pause. A shrug. Then a general feeling. 

“It feels busy.” 

“It feels better than last year.” 

“It feels like the team is happier.”

You want to know the hard truth? Feelings aren’t facts.

You’re not a bad owner or manager for running on instinct. But you’re going to stay stuck if you don’t validate your instincts with evidence.

Because here’s what happens when you build your business around the lies you’ve told yourself.

You start making safe decisions that protect your ego instead of what’s best for the practice. You avoid hard conversations because you don’t want to challenge your own narrative. You surround yourself with people who tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to hear. You blame “the industry” or “the culture” or “the team” instead of asking, “What’s my part in this?”

Eventually, you lose the ability to separate truth from defense. You convince yourself the problem is external when it’s actually coming from the inside out.

And that’s not a leadership problem. That’s a you problem.

We all lie to ourselves in different ways. Some of us say we’re too busy to delegate, when really we just don’t trust anyone else to do it as well as we do. Some of us say the team doesn’t need training, when really we’re afraid they’ll leave after we invest in them. Some of us say we’re being patient, when actually we’re avoiding the accountability conversation we should have had six months ago.

We say, “I’m just waiting for the right moment.” No. You’re not. You’re avoiding discomfort. You’re protecting your image. You’re delaying the truth because the truth forces you to confront your own gaps.

But here’s the thing. The truth doesn’t care about your timing. The longer you lie to yourself, the further you drift from control.

Eventually that gap between what’s real and what you wish was real gets too big to ignore. You’ll hit a wall. Burnout. Team members walking out. Cash flow issues. And suddenly the truth comes crashing in—louder than it needed to be—all because you didn’t check yourself earlier.

I know people who avoid the truth because the story they’ve created is easier to live with. It helps them sleep at night. It keeps their pride intact. It makes them feel like they’re doing okay… when they’re not.

But let me tell you something. You don’t get bonus points for maintaining the illusion. You don’t earn respect by looking in control while everything’s falling apart. You earn respect by being honest—with your team and with yourself.

That’s what real leadership looks like. Not pretending you have it all figured out. Not hiding behind busy. Not dressing up dysfunction with positive spin.

It’s saying, “This part isn’t working.” It’s saying, “I haven’t been on top of this.” It’s saying, “I need help.”

You can’t lead without self-awareness. And self-awareness doesn’t come from comfort. It comes from confronting the gaps and being willing to do something about them.

So here’s your reminder.

It’s hard to tell the truth when you lie to yourself. But it gets easier when you stop pretending. You don’t have to have it perfect. You just have to be honest.

That’s where progress starts. 

That’s where clarity lives. 

And that’s where real leadership begins.