If you knew the source of much of the most unbearable pain in your life, would you let it go? The more I examine myself and work with other people, the more I see how tenaciously we hold onto what is causing us pain.

For example, I was mediating a dispute between two men who really care about each other and are both passionately dedicated to the same important mission. They had locked horns over what? An accounting entry!

We all know what it is like to get trapped into defending ourselves over something, which with the passage of time is seen as petty. How could we possibly back down because, damn it, we know we are right.

In working with people, one of the most powerful questions is: What are you defending?

You might want to ask yourself that now. Go to some moment, some area of your life where there is even just a little pain. What are you defending? What are you protecting?

Peel back the layers. It might have something to do with needing to be right.

From an early age, in western culture at least, we are molded into this. Gold stars for being right. To the principal’s office in shame for being wrong.

Then we try to apply the same technique to relationship. Much pain in marriages, for example, comes from one partner desperately trying to do the right thing by the other and feeling hurt because they are not getting the gold stars.

It’s a prison.

Each of us has a choice. Would you rather be right or free?

All of us coach or mentor others in some way, encouraging people toward an ever more authentic life. Here is one of the keys of coaching. Look for where and how the person is getting his or her sense of being right.

Invite them to see that, with or without this, they are already “all-right.”

People don’t usually let go of self-sabotaging behaviors just because you point them out. There has to be some direct experience of the benefits of change.

In our presence these people no longer need to defend their actions or their points of view. This is the beginning of their freedom. Here is a person in their life who appreciates them for who they are, someone for whom they can’t do it right and they can’t do it wrong.

What a difference people like that have made in my life!

Sometimes what needs to be done is a really tough thing to do. Leaders have to terminate employees, unpopular things have to be said and so on. In such situations, people usually see what is needed long before they are willing to admit it to themselves.

The most successful executives are those who have closed this gap between seeing what needs to be done and admitting it. They read people and situations quickly, and act with remarkable effectiveness.

I am sure you have had experience of how you missed something which later seemed so obvious. You probably noticed that your mind got caught in what you hoped was there. The truth was too inconvenient to admit.

It takes an aggressive kind of honesty to see what is really there and act on it. This is the “grit” in integrity.

In working this with people, the most common reasons I find for missing what is there to be seen are: (1) concern for appearances and (2) fear of action. The way through such concerns and fears is not so much by effort or will power. I have seen people try to prod others with comments like, “You must be more bold” or some such. And of course nothing much changes.

The way through is a gritty desire for truth.

For example, I was working with an executive who was creating a new management structure. He synthesized differing points of view in the boardroom to propose a solution that seemed to make everybody happy. Only trouble was the new plan was too convoluted to actually work in practice. Obviously, to re-work this whole thing with his board was going to be immensely inconvenient. He struggled three days trying to convince himself that maybe it could work. But it had to be changed. As soon as he admitted the truth and accepted what needed to be done, the whole process—intense and challenging as it was—become fun to deal with.

A good coach can awaken the pleasure that is to be found in seeing and acting on what is true. Trying to make things look right and people feel good, avoiding sticking one’s neck out, is such a hell in comparison with the pure joy of seeing and acting on what is there to be done. The simplicity of living all out.

When we get a taste for that, we lose our appetite for seeing only what we hope is there or what is convenient to see. We come to trust that, while what is actually present may at times be challenging, it will always be a whole lot more fulfilling.