March 14, 2023

The phrase "too good to be true" appears on the internet about 27 million times, according to Google. These words may sometimes protect us from deception, but do they also cause people to reject great opportunities?

When you really think about it, this phrase tells us not to believe in anything unusually good. Isn't life itself "too good to be true?" What about sunsets, autumn leaves or your favorite meal? None of these things necessarily had to exist.

Napoleon Hill and W. Clement Stone's book "Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude" tells the story of a man who invented a device that could detect oil beneath the ground. He went on to locate a particularly large deposit of "black gold" but couldn't believe it.

The man thought it was so "too good to be true" that he destroyed his invention and gave up. Eventually, someone else found the oil. The same thing can happen when people see great bargains and pass them up out of fear.

Of course, we all need to watch out for scams, low-quality equipment, incompetent service providers and so on. But there should always be solid reasons behind each decision, not just a negative reaction to anything that seems "too good."

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