Honesty & Integrity

In this lesson, we are going to talk about honesty and integrity. What are your values? What meaning does honesty and integrity have for you? What comes to your mind when you hear the words, “morality” and “ethics”? Do you use these words without knowing the exact meaning of them? Do you exchange these words without knowing the difference? If I wanted you to do something wrong, dishonest or illegal, or for you to look the other way while I did the same, how much would it take to buy your silence? Have you ever thought about this? Have you ever thought about the consequence that it’s going to bring in your life and the life of others? What is your prize to ignore the difference between right and wrong and compromise your integrity and your honesty?

These are some tough questions, and I know these good questions are going to shake you up somewhere inside. Probably right now a movie of your life is running in your mind and you’re only thinking of other situations where you ended up making wrong decisions and you wish you wouldn’t have done that. These questions definitely have some negative connotation attached to them, but people today are all too often faced with just this type of dilemma.

Some of these decisions might be quite large with a bigger impact on your life, and some might be very small. It doesn’t matter. You have to stop and think about it, what it really means and what consequence it is going to bring. If you have to stop and think about the consequences that these acts will bring on you and the people who are around you, I’m sure your mind will do a re-evaluation process.

All I can tell you is that as a human being, we are exposed to too many temptations. Whether it is about money or unethical behavior or taking some office supplies home from work or taking a longer lunch than you are getting paid for or cheating a half hour on your time card. The idea of these lessons is to show how these “small” acts cannot only impact you and the people around you, but they have the capability to bring a whole company, a whole organization, a whole city, even the whole nation down. It has happened too often right around you.

Corporate greed, which has gone on in the past few years, has affected the lives of millions. The amazing thing is that every single CEO in these corrupt entities had millions of dollars to start with to enjoy life and most of them are now in jail or have died prematurely. So, you can see the consequence of a single dishonest act and how it can result into a big turmoil for so many people.

Now, integrity and honesty have to be dealt with separately. We cannot intertwine and mix them.

Integrity always comes first before honesty. Integrity is like the foundation of a building. You are never going to put wallpaper on and put the furniture in before the foundation is poured. It’s just like building a building. Your foundation has to be in place first and integrity is like the foundation of your building. The honesty, the morality and ethics are the drywall and the wallpaper.

So, if we can remember this sequence – that integrity is the foundation – then your honesty is a result of the integrity you have in place. So, how do you check your integrity? Where do you stand on a scale of one to 10 when it comes to your integrity? Let me remind you; it doesn’t matter where you are. It’s not about a mathematical formula. It’s about increasing your awareness and the effect of honesty and integrity on your life.

You have to ask yourself some hard questions in this session:

Who am I?

Do I have a solid base to stand on?

What are my values?

What do I stand for?

How committed am I to these principles?

Then your conscious mind will start working with your subconscious mind and begin giving you the answers. I want you to be honest with your answers to yourself because this is about your life.

Once you fully understand where your integrity lies on these important points, then honesty will come into the play. Honesty is the action that results from the thinking or programming your integrity base. How you sustain and develop your honesty on a daily basis relies on the foundation of integrity on which you are now standing. Integrity has to be in place before honesty can take its effect.

Once integrity is in place and you have a solid foundation, every small act of dishonesty has a cumulative effect. Do not think that a small dishonest act has no value. It really does have value because that will lead you to a path of disintegration and it can also stop you from going on your journey of having an amazing life ahead of you.

The integrity – or lack of it – honesty – or lack of it – will affect your self-image again. So when you’re working on your self-image, integrity and honesty will end up playing a bigger part in the whole puzzle.

Now I know as a human, we all have done dishonest acts. I have done lots of dishonest acts and doing those dishonest acts seemed to be very small, as I didn’t even see them as being dishonest acts. So I had to take one brick at a time to make a solid foundation.

Start evaluating every single act that you think might have a hint of dishonesty in it, and then once you start doing that, replace one brick (or act) at a time. Once you replace one brick at a time, before you know, a beautiful building will show up. It always happens. It always will. There is no discussion about it.

Make integrity and honesty non-negotiable. There is just no price to it because every single act that we do in our lives has a short-term benefit, especially if it’s a dishonest one. Somewhere, somehow the road to your growth will have an obstacle. So, if you want to remove obstacles and you want to have smooth sailing; if you want to go forward in life and you want to have amazing results and a life of success; if you want to have your dream come true; then the integrity-based honesty action will play a major role.

Now, I had mentioned two other words before and that is “morality” and “ethics.” The morality can change. Morality simply means that at a certain time in a certain society, certain things are acceptable. But ethics is the difference between right vs. wrong. Ethical standards that you set up for yourself are not negotiable. So remember, the integrity is the foundation; honesty is a result of your foundation; ethics is the power to make a decision between right vs. wrong. And if you start applying these principles in life, you start making progress, one step at a time, and before you know it, you will be standing on a very strong foundation. God loves honesty. God loves integrity. This universe wants to welcome people who are honest and sincere.

Let me ask you one more tough question: Would you like to deal with someone who is dishonest? I have a very strong feeling that even a dishonest person doesn’t want to deal with somebody else who might be dishonest. So when you want other people to be honest with you, don’t you think other people deserve the same treatment?

It doesn’t happen too often, but on occasion a patient will come to me in my practice and ask me to do billing on the insurance that is not appropriate. They might ask me to bill in the old date, which has already past, or bill in the future, which has not occurred. This is my answer to them: “I would love to do this for you. But before I do, I want you to think about one thing. If I can cheat the insurance company by doing this billing, what will stop me from cheating you? And would you like to go to a doctor who can so easily cheat insurance companies?"

Do not even ask this of people around you. Do not make them part of a dishonest act, even if you think it is going to enhance your life for a few hours or a few dollars. These are the components of a solid foundation. In our society, we all want to make money fast. In our society, we want to go ahead of somebody else and by doing this it is quite possible that you might be tempted to make certain decisions that might get you there dishonestly. But it’s not going to work. Let us use the path that is completely paved with integrity; walk on it with your ethics and honesty in place. You will be so happy that you did it this way.

Now, let us walk through the exercises on this lesson of honesty and integrity. Ask yourself, “Who am I when no one is looking? Am I a different person when people are watching me?” This applies to all aspects of your life, even your work habits. Do you work only when somebody is looking at you, or are you performing the same way when you’re alone? How about your eating habits? Do you eat healthy only when you are in the company of people or your spouse, or are you eating healthy even when you are alone and no one is watching you? How are your personal habits in the privacy of your own home? What are the values you have in general? Doesn’t that wake you up?

Here is an example of a dishonest act: I was hooked to sugar for a while, so I used to eat cookies when my wife wasn’t home. Ask your friends and family what they think and have them give an honest assessment of where they think you are – the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. You might be surprised at what they have to say.

Now, do the same exercise with your coworkers, with your partners, and with your associates and see if your team is on the same page with the honest traits you believe you’re demonstrating. If you’re in a business or you’re working with lots of people, make sure you take a half hour, sit down with everyone and establish some guidelines. Establish a guideline of what integrity means to them and what honesty means to them so you can have this high-energy atmosphere in your workplace

I was told since I was born, that God is everywhere. Somebody is always watching you. At the end of the day, though, you must take that magnifying lens and look at yourself. Look a few days ahead and make a promise in the morning that today you are going to do everything you can to NOT be part of any dishonest act. You will not participate no matter what price you have to pay. Before you know it this will become your habit. At some point, you will reach a stage of your life when somebody proposes to you to do a dishonest act and it won’t even occur to you to be part of it.

This is Dr. A, and thank you.