There is a sentence that applies to more transaction files than many people would care to admit: Narratives do not replace normalization.

An owner may have chosen to underpay himself. He may have been trying to preserve cash. He may have been wearing multiple hats. He may have had personal reasons for taking less than market compensation.

All of that may be true. None of it changes the adjustment.

That is what some people refuse to understand. In valuation, the existence of a reason does not eliminate the need for normalization. In fact, normalization exists precisely because reported financial results are so often shaped by personal decisions, related-party dynamics, tax strategy, convenience, or simple wishful thinking.

The market does not pay for sentiment. The market does not reward personal explanations. The market cares what the economic reality of the business is after it has been stripped of distortions.

That is the work.

Not to preserve the story. Not to soften the outcome. Not to protect the transaction from its own economics.

To normalize. To analyze. To conclude.

If the adjustment is market-based, it stands or falls on market evidence. It does not rise or fall on how persuasive the owner sounds when explaining why he chose to run the business differently.

Too many people want valuation to accommodate the narrative. That is precisely backwards. The narrative is what must yield. Because value is not built on the story management tells itself. Value is built on normalized economics.