Integrity

Integrity is your best friend. It will never betray you or put you in a compromising position. It keeps your priorities right. When you’re tempted to take shortcuts, it helps you stay the right course. When others criticize you unfairly, it helps you keep going and take the high road of not striking back. And when others’ criticism is valid, integrity helps you accept what they say, learn from it, and keep going.

Integrity is your best friend. And it’s also one of the best friends that your friends will ever have. When the people around you know that you are a person of integrity, they know that you want to influence them because of the opportunity to add value to their lives. They don’t have to worry about your motives.

If you’re a basketball fan, you probably remember Red Auerbach. He was the president and general manager of the Boston Celtics from 1967 to 1987. He truly understood how integrity added value to others, especially when people are working together on a team. He had a method of recruiting that was different from that of most NBA team leaders. When he reviewed a prospective player for the Celtics, his primary concern was the young man’s character. While other focused almost entirely on statistics and individual performance, Auerbach wanted to know about a player’s attitude. He figured that the way to win was to find players who would give their best to find players who would give their best work for the benefit of the team. A player who had outstanding ability but whose character was weak or whose desire was to promote only himself was not really an asset.

It has been said that you really don’t know people until you have observed them when they interact with a child, when the car has a flat tire, when the boss is away, and when they think no one will ever know. But people with integrity will never have to worry about that. No matter where they are, who they are with, or what kind of situation they find themselves in, they are consistent and live by their principles.

In the end, you can bend your actions to conform to your principles, or you can bend your principles to conform to your actions. It’s a choice you have to make. If you want to be successful, then you better choose the path of integrity because all other roads lead to ruin. To become a person of integrity, you need to go back to the fundamentals. You may have to make some tough choices, but they will be worth it.

Integrity begins with a specific, conscious decision. If you wait until a moment of crisis before settling your integrity issues, you set yourself up to fail. Choose today to live by a strict moral code, and determine to stick with it no matter what happens.

Have a great weekend.