Perception versus reality, the importance of "walk the talk"

In a world fully connected where events are one click away from being shared to the whole world, perception of facts become critical. Nowadays is more about that immediate reaction that you have when you share something, rather than the actual fact, looking from different angles and eliminating bias when analyzing those events. One of the disciplines that I had when I was taking my Master Degree in Cybersecurity at UTICA College covered “threat intelligence” and during the entire term most of the work was done around the “critical thinking” subject when analyzing evidence. The whole idea was to try to eliminate bias as much as possible when reviewing the data. The challenge here is that you don’t just flip a switch and you are ready, it is a continuous process, it takes time, practice and discipline. All these words are counterproductive to nowadays “immediate reaction” reality.

This “immediate reaction” reality created by social media also brings another side effect, which is: immediate rewarding. In order to “fit in”, many people will raise a flag that please the majority just to feel welcome and be part of something “bigger”, even if deep inside the passion about that particular subject doesn’t really exist. But they got lots of "likes", and that's what really matters. The old saying “actions speak louder than words” is slowly fading away and bringing a new reality that is exactly the opposite.

In the article “Why It's Crucial to Walk the Talk as a Business Leader” from John Boitnott, he says “the underlying point here is that actions and words matter and have meaning. Aligning them is all part of living with integrity.”, this is exactly the point: actions and words! Just vocalizing that is important to “do something” but you never really do that “thing” creates the perceptions of “do as I say, not as I do”. Don’t take me wrong, it is hard to implement that in real life, because vocalizing something is so much easier than actually doing it, and in the social media era, you can just write nice things, get a bunch of “likes”, feel that you did your job (since you got immediate reward) and never follow through to show the actual results.

I’ve noticed this pattern in many areas of life, not only in a workplace, but also in regular activities. I’ve been through a 100 lbs weight loss journey and as a result I wrote the Ready, Set, Achieve book, that talks about this process. I’ve seen people buying the book, advertising in social media that they will change their nutritional and fitness goals. They got lots of likes, words of encouragement in the comments field, and most of them felt rewarded, like they already accomplished something. As a result, they didn’t follow the program and one year later, they didn’t achieve their ultimate goal.

When this happens in a personal level, the only one that is affected is you. But when you are leading a group, and you don’t walk the talk, you start losing trust from the ones that really matter. You won’t feel that immediately, because you shared a great vision, great plan, and nice words, you got immediate feedback (likes, retweets, comments), you feel you are in the right direction; heck you feel that you already accomplished something. Well, you didn’t, and you are just lying to yourself if you think that way.

The only way to walk the talk is to incorporate what you preach into your daily activities, and consistently execute it. We are creatures of habit, and as described in the book "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business", "habits are what you choose them to be." When you walk the talk, you are choosing a path to follow, it may be a hard path, but you need to build this habit of following through this path every single day. If you want to lead by example, make sure to go through this path, build your own scars and facilitate the journey for others to follow.