“The point is how do you know the Guarantee Fairy isn’t a crazy glue sniffer.” -Chris Farley
If we could banish the term, would we miss it? Are guarantees even valuable? Who can really guarantee anything? We aren’t guaranteed our next breath, so how do we go around guaranteeing stuff to people?
Let’s grant guarantee this, for the short term, it feels good and can work. The proverbial item breaks, return it, get your “money-back” guarantee.
In the longer-term, guarantee is a joke. It’s downsides too numerous to count:
- A false sense of security
- Playing to our most difficult emotions, our fears
- Masquerading as a substitute for the real work, the tough decision, the process of growth
- Occasionally, serving as the vehicle of choice to perpetuate frauds, scams, and rip-offs against us
This happens all day long in financial planning and various investment products. Guaranteed income. Guaranteed protection of principle. Even guarantees on returns (illegal, by the way). And, a whole host of others.
Unfortunately, guarantee is a sales pitch that often works. While it should give you ideas to run away, it often leads you in. In the end, no one can really guarantee anything.
There is one thing very close to a guarantee. That guarantee is you, your contribution, your effort, your consistency, God’s reason for you being here. The only guarantee is that you are you. What are you going to do with that responsibility?
I guarantee you may not know!
