As a young know-it-all early in my mortgage banking career, the President of the company where I worked would often suggest that I liked being “right.” And he would ask, “Do you want to be dead right or alive right.” I’m not sure that I cared either way, as long as I was right. 

I’ve recently observed others doing what I did in my 20’s, causing me to wonder what the “need to be right” is all about.

My educated guess is that it’s about ego, low self-esteem and self-worth, over-coming past slights, hurts and other unresolved issues. Looking back to when I was most active as a “righter,” that was all true.

My friend Craig Elias, Founder of SHIFT Selling, Inc., observed recently that, “We can be right or we can be rich (successful), but we can’t be both.” That’s exactly what my boss was asking back then.

Today, I’m interested in being successful, even though my ego still tempts me to be right.

If you find yourself choosing “right” over “rich” and want to change that, try asking more questions and opening yourself to the ideas and suggestions of others.

Letting go of the need to be right doesn’t make you wrong.  It reveals things you’ve probably not considered, which gives you more options, improves your decisions and leads to greater success than what being right makes possible.