A Letter from Chris Suarez
I 100% AGREE WITH THIS STATEMENT
Recently I have found myself using the expression “100%.”
Someone says something that I agree with and I answer with, “100%.”
Someone asks me if I'm willing to help them out and hop on a call and I answer with, “100%.”
Someone says something nice about another person I know and I answer with, “100%.”
Someone asks me if I am hungry and I answer with, “100%.”
What does that really mean? Could I have agreed with 93% of what they said? Could I have been about 86% willing to help out? Is that person actually 86% nice in my opinion? Was I really 91% hungry?
This popular expression didn’t originate with me. I have just adopted it. In my case, I have used it as a phrase of agreement and alignment. I hear it being used by friends, business partners, family members. It has found its way into popular rhetoric. Why? First, because we want to quantify anything and everything that we can. A number makes it easier to see where we are.
Tracking and counting and calculating and measuring are all good things.
For our real estate business we track our home sales, our volume, and our revenue.
For our finances we track our income, our expenses, and our net worth.
For our personal health we track our calories, our exercise, and our weight.
Quantifying is a positive thing. It helps us set goals, work towards goals, and accomplish goals.
But not everything can be measured - or at least we shouldn’t so easily and automatically put a number on it.
This new expression “100%” allows us to agree and move on. It allows us to join in on an opinion without really having to do any thinking. We have even replaced the words “exactly” and “agreed,” with this more inauthentic percentage, because we can’t be sure in that moment where on the spectrum of agreement we may fall. So we opt into being 100% sure.
Why? Because it’s easier. We don’t have to commit to forming, developing, or even thinking about our opinions or feelings on the matter. And if we aren’t careful we will find ourselves out of alignment with our true self and true beliefs - one “100%” at a time.
This doesn’t mean we should be looking for disagreement. It doesn’t mean we should be searching for our differences with others or their statements. Clearly, the world has enough of that. At times though polarization isn’t about disagreement, but rather, about agreeing and going along with a group, a crowd, or a movement. It becomes agreement without really taking the time to think about what we believe, how we feel, and how other’s opinions line up with our values. In fact it is easy to allow other people’s opinions of another person to become our own opinion. And quickly we 100% believe something about someone through not our own eyes, but those of others.
Remember, the purpose of measurement and tracking and attaching numbers to anything is to hold ourselves accountable to something that is important to us - our business, our wealth, our health. It causes us to pause and think deeply about why we want something, feel something, or are willing to work towards something. Don’t blindly agree at a 100% level. Give your agreement and alignment the time that it deserves to form a conclusion. And then? Well then you can say you are “100%!”
Chris