Integrity

Hopefully there are a great deal of things you will build in your life, literally and figuratively. You can build wealth, friendships, a career. A family. A house. These are all special achievements that make up the story of your life. But never forget that in all of this you are building yourself. One of the most important aspects of that is your integrity. It means something different to many people but generally it is defined as how other people see your character and principles. You build or ruin it almost every day. Sometimes with the smallest things. Part of it is easy. The other part is hard.

The easy part first. All of those examples I mentioned have been done before by millions of people. There is a road map in a way. A financial advisor can help you build wealth. A mentor can help you with a career. Find the right person to spend your life with and building a family sort of follows. Houses usually come with plans. While none of these are a cakewalk there are a lot of people dumber than you with fewer resources who have gotten it done. Follow the plan and put in the work, you’ll find the rewards. Effort and time with get you far. Not exactly easy but not that hard either.

Building your integrity, the guts of who you are, is a lot harder. Ironically, the work isn’t hard. But I’ll get back to that in a minute. The hard part is that there is no plan. Unlike everything I mentioned before there is no roadmap. Even if there was it would be vague at best. A house has a builder, a plan and materials. Integrity just tells you to start collecting bricks because you’re going to need to build walls. You don’t know exactly what the house will look like. What you do know is the kind of bricks you’re going to need.

How do you know? You’ll know because what is right feels right and what is wrong feels wrong. See, what you’re building is your character, how other people will view you. It’s not as tangible as a house or a career. But in many ways it’s just as visible. Do you say what you will do and then do what you say? Do you lie when you should tell the truth? Do you steal when no one is looking? Will you sacrifice others to get what you want? Those opportunities are frequent and easy. But like Yoda says, the Dark Side is the quick and easy path.

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of successful jackasses out there. You don’t have to look far to find people who appear to have more than you and have done it by being unscrupulous bastards. More than likely they have left a path of destruction in their wake. Maybe they are okay with it. But you can’t be that guy. That house has a foundation that will rot out from under it. One day that house will collapse. And the neighbors will cheer.

It is easier to break something than it is to build it. Months or years of building can be ruined in one fell swoop. Building a reputation for honesty can take years and be wrecked with one lie. What you have created can be tossed away. Worse yet, you will know you’re doing it because you’re not a jackass.

Integrity is a gift that you give yourself. You make your reputation on your own and if you do it well enough, no one can take it from you. They can try, but if you have a strong foundation, it will shelter you from the storm. Your reputation will speak for itself.

And that is a feeling that is hard to beat.