Recently, I had a meeting with an old colleague with whom I hadn’t spoken in about 4 years.

As soon as I finished telling him about Paula, he goes: "We could use your services."

I kept on yapping—justifying our offering, when he said something along the lines of: "Enrique, you offer something that I need and I trust you."

That's when I realized that I did not need to do any selling here.

In fact, I had already made this sale years ago, before Paula was even a company.

I sold it with high-quality and high-integrity work.

I’ve always known that  hard work and honesty pay off eventually, but this still was a refreshing experience.

I struggled to decide whether I wanted to post this, as it seemed a little too self-promotional.

But I was proud of that moment and there is a lesson here worth sharing.

There are too many people out there thinking you need to cut corners or be a shark to succeed.

That you need to say what you need to say.

That you need to do what you need to do.

That slightly overpromising is just part of the drill.

"Everyone else is doing it, how else do you compete?”, you’ll hear them say.

In some ways, it’s hard to blame them. After all, I’ve seen them take the cake over and over again.

And I have no doubt that my company would be growing faster if I was willing to say what the other person wanted to hear—whether I believed it or not.

Or if I promised things that can’t be delivered just to get the ink on the dotted line.

Or misled people, banking on being so deep into the project by the time the smoke cleared, that they wouldn’t be able to back out.

Practices that are disappointingly commonplace with big projects.

But I was raised to tell the truth.

And this meeting was a nice reminder that the honest way also pays dividends.

Maybe not as fast.

Maybe not as big.

Maybe not as often.

But probably far more sustainably and, most importantly, without letting myself down in the process.