standards, continually refining your definition of integrity and honesty.
You can tell how high your level of integrity is by simply looking at the things you
do in your day-to-day life. You can look at your reactions and responses to the
inevitable ups and downs of life. You can observe the behaviors you typically engage
in and you will then know the person you are.
The external manifestation of high integrity is high-quality work. A person who is
totally honest with himself or herself will be someone who does, or strives to do,
excellent work on every occasion. The totally honest person recognizes, sometimes
unconsciously, that everything he or she does is a statement about who he or she
really is as a person.
When you start a little earlier, work a little harder, stay a little later and
concentrate on every detail, you are practicing integrity in your work. And whether
you know it or not, your true level of integrity is apparent and obvious to everyone
around you.
Perhaps the most important rule you will ever learn is that your life only becomes
better when you become better.
All of life is lived from the inside out. At the very core of your personality lie your
values about yourself and life in general. Your values determine the kind of person
you really are. What you believe has defined your character and your personality. It
is what you stand for, and what you won’t stand for, that tells you and the world the
kind of person you have become.
Ask yourself this question: What are your five most important values in life? Your
answer will reveal an enormous amount about you. What would you pay for,
sacrifice for, suffer for and even die for? What would you stand up for, or refuse to
lie down for? What are the values that you hold most dear? Think these questions
through carefully and, when you get a chance, write down your answers.
Here’s another way of asking that question. What men and women, living or
dead, do you most admire? Once you pick three or four men or women, the next
question is: Why do you admire them? What values, qualities, or virtues do they
have that you respect and look up to? Can you articulate those qualities? What is a
quality possessed by human beings in general that you most respect? This is the
starting point for determining your values. The answers to these questions form the
foundation of your character and your personality.
Once you have determined your five major values, you should now organize
them in order of importance. What is your first, most important value? What is your
second value? What is your third value? And so on. Ranking your values is one of
the very best and fastest ways to define your character.
Remember, a higher order value will always take precedence over a lower order
value. Whenever you are forced to choose between acting on one value or another,
you always choose the value that is the highest on your own personal hierarchy.
Who you are, in your heart, is evidenced by what you do on a day-to-day basis,
especially when you are pushed into a position where you have to make a choice
between two values or alternatives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Guard your integrity as a sacred thing.” In study after
study, the quality of integrity, or a person’s adherence to values, ranks as the number
one quality sought in every field. When it comes to determining whom they will do
business with, customers rank the honesty of a salesperson as the most important single
quality. Even if a they feel that a salesperson’s product, quality and price is superior,
customers will not buy from that salesperson if they feel that he or she is lacking in
honesty and character.
Likewise, integrity is the number one quality of leadership. Integrity in
leadership is expressed in terms of constancy and consistency. It is manifested in an
absolute devotion to keeping one’s word. The glue that holds all relationships
together—including the relationship between the leader and the led—is trust, and
trust is based on integrity.
Integrity is so important that functioning in our society would be impossible
without it. We could not make even a simple purchase without a high level of
confidence that the price was honest and that the change was correct. The most
successful individuals and companies in America are those with reputations of high
integrity among everyone they deal with. This level of integrity builds the confidence
that others have in them and enables them to do more business than their
competitors whose ethics may be a little shaky.
Earl Nightingale once wrote, “If honesty did not exist, it would have to be
invented, as it is the surest way of getting rich.” A study at Harvard University
concluded that the most valuable asset that a company has is how it is known to its
customers.its reputation.
By the same token, your greatest personal asset is the way that you are known
to your customers. It is your personal reputation for keeping your word and fulfilling
your commitments. Your integrity precedes you and affects all of your interactions
with other people.
There are several things you can do to move you more rapidly toward becoming
the kind of person that you know you are capable of becoming. The first, as I
mentioned, is to decide upon your five most important values in life. Organize them
in order of priority. Then write a brief paragraph defining what each of those values
means to you. A value combined with a definition becomes an organizing
principle.a statement that you can use to help you make better decisions. It is a
measure and standard which enables you to know how closely you are adhering to
your innermost beliefs and convictions.
The second step to developing integrity and character in yourself is to study men and
women of great character. Study the lives and stories of people like George Washington,
Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Florence Nightingale, Susan B. Anthony and
Margaret Thatcher. Study the people whose strength of character enabled them to
change their world. As you read, think about how they would behave if they were facing
the difficulties that you face.
Napoleon Hill, in his book, The Master Key to Riches, tells about how he created an
imaginary board of personal advisors made up of great figures of history. He chose
people like Napoleon, Lincoln, Jesus, and Alexander the Great. Whenever he had to
make a decision, he would relax deeply and then imagine that the members of his
advisory council were sitting at a large table in front of him. He would then ask them
what he should do to deal effectively with a particular situation. In time, they would
begin to give him answers, observations, and insights that helped him to see more
clearly and act more effectively.
You can do the same thing. Select someone that you very much admire for their
qualities of courage, tenacity, honesty, or wisdom. Ask yourself, “What would Jesus do in
my situation?” or, “What would Lincoln do if he were here at this time?” You will find
yourself with guidance that enables you to be the very best person that you can possible
be.
The third and most important step in building your integrity has to do with
formulating your approach based on the psychology of human behavior. We know that if
you feel a particular way, you will act in a manner consistent with that feeling. For
example, if you feel happy, you will act happy. If you feel angry, you will act angry. If
you feel courageous, you will act courageously.
But we also know that you don’t always start off feeling the way you want to.
However, because of the Law of Reversibility, if you act as if you had a particular feeling,
the action will generate the feeling consistent with it. You can, in effect, act your way
into feeling. You can “fake it until you make it.”
You can become a superior human being by consciously acting exactly as the
kind of person that you would most like to become. If you behave like an individual
of integrity, courage, resolution, persistence and character, you will soon create
within yourself the mental structure and habits of such a person. Your actions will
become your reality. You will create a personality that is consistent with your
highest aspirations.
The more you walk, talk, and behave consistent with your highest values, the
more you will like yourself and the better you will feel about yourself. Your self-
image will improve and your level of self-acceptance will go up. You will feel
stronger, bolder, and more capable of facing any challenge.
There are three primary areas of your life where acting with integrity is crucial.
These are the three areas of greatest temptation for forsaking your integrity, as well
as the areas of greatest opportunity for building your integrity. When you listen to
your inner voice and do what you know to be the right thing in each of these areas,
you will have a sense of peace and satisfaction that will lead you on to success and
high achievement.
The first area of integrity has to do with your relationships with your family and
your friends, the people close to you. Being true to yourself means living in truth
with each person in your life. It means refusing to say or do something that you
don’t believe is right. Living in truth with other people means that you refuse to stay
in any situation where you are unhappy with the behavior of another person. You
refuse to tolerate it. You refuse to compromise.
Psychologists have determined that most stress and negativity comes from
attempting to live in a way that is not congruent with your highest values. It is when
your life is out of alignment.when you are doing and saying one thing on the
outside, but really feeling and believing something different on the inside.that you
feel most unhappy. When you decide to become an individual of character and
integrity, your first action will be to neutralize or remove all difficult relationships
from your life.
This doesn’t mean that you have to go and hit somebody over the head with a
stick. It simply means that you honestly confront another person and tell them that
you are not happy. Tell them that you would like to reorganize this relationship so
that you feel more content and satisfied. If the other person is not willing to make
adjustments so that you can be happy, it should be clear to you that you don’t want
to be in this relationship much longer anyway.
The second area of integrity has to do with your attitude and behavior toward
money. Casualness toward money brings casualties in your financial life. You must
be fastidious about your treatment of money, especially other people’s money. You
must guard your credit rating the same way you would guard your honor. You must
pay your bills punctually, or even early. You must keep your promises with regard to
your financial commitments.
The third area of integrity has to do with your commitments to others, especially
in your business, your work and your sales activities. Always keep your word. Be a
man or a woman of honor. If you say that you will do something, do it. If you make
a promise, keep it. If you make a commitment, fulfill it. Be known as the kind of
person that can be trusted absolutely, no matter what the circumstances.
Your integrity is manifested in your willingness to adhere to the values you hold
most dear. It’s easy to make promises and hard to keep them, but if you do, every
single act of integrity will make your character a little stronger. And as you improve
the quality and strength of your character, every other part of your life will improve
as well.
Cultivating Your Self-Esteem
By: Brian Tracy
Your self-esteem is probably the most important part of your personality. It
precedes and predicts your performance in almost everything you do. It is the
energy source or the reactor core of your personality, and how much self-esteem
you have determines your levels of vitality, enthusiasm and personal magnetism.
People with high self-esteem are more positive, more likable and more effective in
every part of their lives.
Everything that you do or say or think will affect your self-esteem. Your job,
therefore, is to keep your self-esteem high and positive on a continuing basis.
Probably the best definition of self-esteem is this: the level to which you respect
and value yourself as an important, worthwhile person. People with high self-esteem
feel terrific about themselves and their lives. When you feel really good about
yourself, you tend to be the very best person you can possibly be.
Your level of self-esteem is really your level of “mental fitness.” It’s a measure of
how healthy, hardy, and resilient you are in dealing with the inevitable ups and
downs of daily life. Your self-esteem determines how much peace of mind and inner
contentment you experience. It is also closely linked to your health and levels of
energy. People with high self-esteem are seldom sick and seem to have an
inexhaustible flow of energy and enthusiasm that progressively moves them toward
their goals.
How much you like and respect yourself also determines the quality of your
relationships with people. The more you like and enjoy yourself, the more you will
like and enjoy others, and the more they will like you. In fact, when your self-esteem
is hurt in any way, the very first thing that is affected is the way you get along with
people.
To perform at your best and to feel terrific about yourself, you should be in a
perpetual state of self-esteem building and maintenance. Just as you take
responsibility for your level of physical fitness, you need to take complete
responsibility for the content and quality of your mind.
I have developed a simple formula that contains all the critical elements of self-
esteem building, and you can use it on a regular basis to assure maximum
performance.
This formula is comprised of six basic elements. They are: goals, standards,
success experiences, comparison with others, recognition, and rewards. Let’s take
them one at a time.
