Article Three Steps to Truth
Stan Smith talks about determining what’s true in life (and food marketing)
March 16, 2015
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Stan Smith on why he believes the pursuit of truth is foundational for a meaningful life.
Silver Hills co-founder Stan Smith spends a lot of time thinking about truth. He believes it’s something we need to fully understand if we’re going to be successful and happy in life.
“Truth is knowledge that we know is correct,” he says. “There’s a lot of enjoyment in telling ourselves lies, either avoiding truth or convincing ourselves that something we know isn’t true really is.
This is probably most significant in the food industry, where we’re told things are healthy that are actually harmful. Companies will manipulate the messages about their product in order to mislead or at least change a person’s perceptions about it.
Looking beyond what we’re being told and seeking out the truth is something really significant in how each of us needs to live our lives. We need to know what the facts are. We need to say, ‘this is important’ and to pursue knowledge.
I like to think there’s three steps involved:
- First is acquiring the knowledge; in today’s world there’s a lot out there, so you have to have a desire to really pursue it, find it and learn from it.
- Second is to actually implement what you’ve learned into your personal habits; it’s almost like you don’t learn more until you use what you do know.
- Third is having an attitude of humility or openness to have your own ideas challenged. Because some things you might assume are correct, sometimes aren’t. You have to always be open to changing and learning new things.
If you keep going through those steps, it’s amazing how much good information is out there and how much truth you can incorporate into a company and into your own life. There’s almost no end to how much you can learn if you keep focused and moving forward.
Truth is one of the six core values we’ve built our company around.
Learn more about the other five here.
