Tag Archives: integrity

Outward appearances

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I remember looking at a house that was for sale. At first glance it looked like a nicely remodelled home. But upon closer inspection, it was a house being flipped with shoddy workmanship everywhere. It was missing baseboards behind the toilet. Hardwood was placed on top of the old floor and ended at the entrance to the closets. Electrical sockets didn’t match. And, the kitchen cabinets were dated and looked liked they were painted over with wall paint.

It didn’t take long to realize the house was rushed to market and would take considerable amounts of money to remodel after purchase. In an attempt to look good, a lot of the goodness was compromised, and the seller would have been better off selling it as-is rather than poorly attempting to update the cosmetics, without really addressing the challenges.

I often wonder about people who only worry about looking good. The question arises, what are they trying to hide? What are they sacrificing in order to worry about appearances? What are they losing out on because change is risky?

Are they learning from their mistakes or hiding them? Are they growing or are they stagnating at a point that looked good? Organizations can be the same. There are countless stories about companies not seeing the opportunities of the future because they are stuck in the past. Like Blockbuster not buying Netflix when they had the chance.

What would people say? That’s not what we do? What if the change reflects poorly on us?

How many opportunities are lost because it was more important to keep up appearances, to look good, rather than to make a few mistakes along the way of finding a new and better path?

Friendtegrity

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Just to be clear, friendtegrity isn’t a word. I just smashed friend and integrity together. That said, it is likely you read the word and knew what I was going to talk about.

I’m listening to Trevor Noah on Steven Bartlett’s podcast, Diary of a CEO. In it they are discussing friendship and Steven asks Trevor, “How do you define a bad friend?… How do you spot one?”

Trevor says, “I don’t think you spot them, I think you feel it… And I think it’s a lot easier for us to spot than you think it is. One of the easiest ones is, can you be yourself? You know, sometimes they’re not a bad friend, they’re a bad friend for you, because you are not revealing yourself to them. And so they are being friends with the idea of you but they are not being friends with you. And then you leave thinking, I don’t feel good. But they don’t even know you, so you can’t blame them for being a bad friend.”

Trevor goes on to say, “I almost think there is no such thing as a bad friend, you are just in a bad friendship… because they could be a good friend to somebody else… this is just a bad friendship for you.”

When I think of my connections to good friends, I see that my own integrity is intact. I feel comfortable enough around them that I am revealing my true self. I am comfortable with them, we can have pauses without having to fill the silence. I can be vulnerable. I can tease and joke without there being concern for harm or defensiveness, and in fact laugh at myself when the teasing is directed at me.

It’s a lot different with a bad friend, a friend with whom I feel I can’t be my true self when I’m with them. That is a friendship that doesn’t have integrity, it doesn’t let me reveal myself and so the bond is only a surface level bond. The chemistry of good friendship goes beyond that.

When you have friendtegrity, that’s really special. You can spend hours together, because you don’t have to fill the time. And equally, you can spend months or even years apart and when you meet again it’s like the time gap disappears. That’s the power of a good friendship. When you have it, you can feel it. And if it’s truly authentic, the feeling isn’t just yours, you and your friend feel it, because you are both revealing your true selves to each other.

Promises to keep

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One of my favourite poems is Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’, and my favourite stanza from that poem is the final one:

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

I love that idea of honouring your promises, and understanding that there is more in life to do. I especially value the idea of keeping promises you’ve made to yourself.

In my 10Lessons on Atomic Habits, specifically Lesson 8 – Habit Tracking, I say, “The calendar doesn’t lie. You be honest to the calendar, and when you look at the calendar, it’s honest right back at you.”

In this Instagram Reel, Chris Williamson says, “Stop breaking promises to yourself. When you say, I’m going to… wake up tomorrow at 7am, and when the option comes to hit the snooze button… don’t do it. There’s one win you’ve got for the day.”

How many times have you done everything in your power to ensure that you keep your promises to other people… and compare that to how often you will break a promise to yourself, and sacrifice your own personal commitments in order to fulfill promises and commitments to others. You stay late for work and then miss a workout. You worry about your kids eating a healthy lunch at school but don’t share the same concern for your own lunch. You cancel social plans to attend a meeting… compare the frequency of that versus postponing a meeting to do something social with friends.

The most important promises to keep are the promises you make to yourself.

Holding Secrets

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We all have secrets, things we are told in complete confidence.

Secrets are a privilege to be heard. Hold on to them and you are a trusted, valued friend. Integrity is understanding how to keep a secrets to yourself.

The easiest way you can think of it is, ‘This story is not mine to tell.”

And the follow through is simply not telling the story, the secret to anyone. Trust is earned, integrity is built from consistency, and friendship is enriched from holding things in confidence.

If you can’t hold a secret, you are a gossip, not a friend. If you can’t hold a secret, you also can’t meaningfully call yourself a friend.

What inspired me to share this idea? I can’t say… it’s not my story to tell.

A Quote on Judgement

“We judge others by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intentions.”

I saw this quote and wondered who said it? I was lead by my search to Stephen Covey, “We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior.”

This made me think about all the things I have the good intention to say and to do, but I don’t follow through. Looking at this from the outside, there is no action, just unrealized intention. For example, I wanted to show my appreciation or write a thank you card, but never got around to it; good intentions, but to anyone else, no action. In fact, lack of action could actually be judged as lack of appreciation. My intentions were good but…

We very often don’t know another person’s intentions. We judge their behaviours and actions (or lack there of) and assume their intentions. And we know our intentions and don’t always see that our actions don’t represent what those intentions are.

This quote is a reminder not just to think about what another person’s intentions are, but also for us to think about how our actions truly represent our behaviours and actions to others. Are we living a congruent life where are actions demonstrate our intentions? Because good intentions are not enough if we aren’t expressing them.

7-Sins-Collage

Here are the 7 Sins, and here come the 7 Virtues?

In January, I wrote a series of posts called the 7 Sins:

  1. Gluttony
  2. Envy
  3. Pride
  4. Lust
  5. Wrath
  6. Greed
  7. Sloth

I plan to write a series of 7 Virtues over this coming week, in addition to my regular daily posts, then auto post them the following week while I take a social media break. I will be deleting my Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram Apps off of my phone and only using my phone or a laptop with notifications turned off for my sabbatical. On that note, if you regularly read this blog from my Facebook Story or Facebook Timeline, please ‘Like’ this FB page, because during my social media break I won’t be manually adding the posts to my Story or Timeline. You can also get Daily-Ink by email.

Here are 7 Virtues that I am thinking of writing about: (The order might differ.)

  1. Love (including Chastity and Loyalty)
  2. Discipline (including Patience, not just Diligence or Temperance)
  3. Empathy (including Compassion)
  4. Integrity (including Honour and Courage)
  5. Kindness (including Charity),
  6. Humility
  7. Forgiveness

Am I missing anything? Any suggestions?

3 sides to every story

It was my sister many years ago who said this to me the first time, but I’ve heard it many times since. There are 3 sides to every story: The first person’s perspective, the second person’s perspective, and somewhere in between there is the Truth.

We all want to feel that our experience is the Truth, but in reality we can’t always see where the other person is coming from. Relationships often have perceived truths that limit us from seeing the full Truth that lies in the middle. Our bias doesn’t have to come from malice, it can come from innocent ignorance. But when we see the bigger Truth, when we are reflecting back on a conversation, we can sometimes see our own flaws in perspective if we are honest with ourselves.

When this happens, we need to decide if it is more important to come back with the new Truth (or at least our perspective of it), or is it more important to concede that our truth was wrong, and think about how holding on to that truth affected the other person? Because even at this new juncture there might still be 3 sides to the story. Pause and reflect again. Maybe the relationship is more important than the Truth?