I Was Wrong, And It Seemed No One Noticed

Ever wondered why huge guys have soft voice and slim guys have strong loud voice? 

Most people who have spoken to me on phone or read my online articles before meeting me always have this look of bewilderment on their face. Some try to hide it but I always notice it before they finally banish the look. The look says, "Is this really the Michael? Looks nothing like I imagined." And frankly, it is that they've imagined a bigger Michael both in status and stature. I always like those moments.

But there is a bad side to this huge reputation people build for me upfront. I know that I talk/type online like I'm 100% sure of what I'm saying and sound like I know too much; it's all a writing style. No one likes to read an author who is not sure of what he is saying and keeps contradicting himself or writes with a weak rambling style. So I seldom/never use words like "I think", "In my own humble opinion" "I may be wrong" and "This is just my opinion". Why? Because they weaken the entire article. When you write, it is implicitly your thoughts, opinions you are writing and, always, you may be wrong.

So yesterday, I found out about an article I wrote that was wrong, Very wrong. It was the article I did about our economic situation. In it I made a graph of our GDP and Inflation rate, and said we've been regressing in real terms (factoring for inflation rate) than the positive growth figure we see on newspaper headlines. I took the figures from a World Bank databank report and I didn't factor in the base price used for GDP calculation. I simply tagged the figures as Nominal GDP instead of real GDP that they were (over a period of same base price). It was my PhD in Accounting friend, sir Francis, who helped me uncover the error.

I will look for the post and include the disclaimer "This has been found incorrect. And I noticed first."

Again, I was wrong and no one noticed.