The POWER of Integrity

Every day I harp on my clients about the most important quality one needs to flourish in the world:  INTEGRITY.  I don’t mean just the kind of integrity like telling the truth, keeping your promises and avoiding committing crimes.  I mean integrity like you are living a life that is CONSISTENT with who you say you are in the world.  Integrity that changes your circumstances.  Integrity that, literally, creates the world around you so that it is consistent with your vision and goals.  This is true integrity.

This kind of integrity requires you to be clear about who you are, have an action plan to get there and be committed to (and in action on) having conversations in your community about your vision. I don’t know who said it, but I love the quote: “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is looking.”

There is a tool that I like to teach that I call INTEGRITY EXCELLENCE. The foundation for this kind of integrity is transparency: telling the truth, keeping your promises, having tough conversations, doing what is collectively viewed as “right” in our world. Once you have that kind of integrity, you take it to the next level. You commit to ACT and leave everything you touch better when you leave it. This means EVERYTHING. Every person, every place, every THING that you come in contact with, you improve in some way. You go to the bathroom and there’s water around the sink, you wipe it up. You see someone with a flat on the interstate, you stop and help. You literally become the change agent for improvement of quality of life around you.

But what does wiping a bathroom sink have to do with integrity? Well, human beings are at their best when we serve. And, if you are committed to being at your best, you are not in integrity if you do not serve.

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

CALL TO ACTION: For the next 24 hours, take the INTEGRITY EXCELLENCE challenge–make everything you touch, better. What did you notice about doing it? What opened up in your life because you were so intentional about integrity in your life? I’d love for you to come back and share your results!