My Dad always said that the most important attribute that anyone could have was to be honest. He felt that if someone was honest that is all you needed to know about that person. In his mind, if you were honest, you were beyond reproach. You were the kind of person that he would want to be around, could respect and would want to have as a friend. Honesty really does include many other things. Things like trust, integrity, honor, truthfulness. To be “honest”, who wouldn’t want to have someone with all of these attributes be a friend or confidant.
It sounds easy and very simple to call someone honest but what does that really mean. It goes to character. Honesty is the by product of so many other things. To be thought of as honest certainly means that you must be trustworthy. How do you earn someone’s trust. I think you do it by actions. By demonstrating that you actually follow through and do what you say you are going to do. It is not one promise kept. It is a series of promises kept. It is following through on a commitment. Even and maybe especially small and seemingly insignificant promises or commitments help lead to someone becoming trustworthy. I don’t believe that we need to test each other. Or make a concerted effort to find out if someone is, in fact, trustworthy. You will know soon enough. You will have the person not follow through and try to make excuses for failing or discount the importance of not doing what they said they would do. We have all disappointed people by our actions. We have not kept promises or followed through on commitments. But I think it is important to keep trying to do the right thing. Keep trying to do what you say. Take your promises, even small insignificant ones, seriously. Whenever possible keep those promises. You don’t even have to pat yourself on the back. Your friends, family, acquaintances, customers, clients and co-workers will do that for you. They will let you know how much they appreciate your honesty and the fact that you always do what you say you are going to do. The proof is in the pudding…so to speak. You cannot hide from breaking a promise. You cannot hide from failing to pick your son or daughter up from soccer practice or school. At the end of the day, your family and friends will cut you some slack and forgive you for not doing what you said. It will happen and sometimes for good reason. Your intentions were righteous. Maybe you just didn’t realize that there would be other factors that prevented you from completing the promised task. An accident on the freeway, your clock was wrong, your phone went dead, you had a flat tire, you thought you were going to run out of gas, my last appointment ran over…come on even I’m not buying some of these lame excuses. This has to be a one time event. You cannot continue to repeat this behavior or run this risk of not being trusted or seen as honest. This should bother you and cause you to take whatever steps are necessary to mend the fences and correct behavior so it doesn’t happen again. None of us are perfect and it is likely that it will happen again, but you must be vigilant and make every attempt to eliminate unreliability, flakiness, not following thru, breaking promises, etc. The good news in all of this is that your family and friends are nice people and also generally forgiving people. They will accept your missteps, your general disorganization, your lame excuses a few times, but even these wonderful forgiving people will begin to believe that you cannot be counted on and that is a very bad thing. Don’t let that happen. Be trustworthy, be honest, have integrity it is so much better than the alternatives.
Let us talk about the truth. For several years Kathy and I were Foster Parents. One thing that became clear to us and something that we hadn’t run into raising our 4 children was the ever present lying. These foster kids would lie about everything. They would lie when it made no sense. They would lie even when they didn’t have to, when there was no real benefit for them. We went to a seminar entitled the “Truth about Lying”. This was at a foster parents conference that I am very glad we attended. One of the best things that we took from that seminar was the fact that when you tell the truth about anything there is only one story, only one narrative. The truth is easy because you don’t have to remember what you said to who. Simple, straight forward, you always tell the truth you only have to remember one story. I am not sure that they really got it, I certainly liked the point. It made perfect sense to me and I hoped it would resonate with them. I do believe it helped. These kids had many issues and lying was really just the tip of the iceberg, but cutting down on the volume of lying was a step in the right direction. It also helped us with our own children when they would come up with creative stories about things that were happening. Obviously you don’t ever want to get caught in a lie. With the ”tell the truth and there is only one story” scenario I think our children got the message and I am sure it helped.
Integrity is another one of those attributes that is an important part of who you are. When I was in Real Estate and in the Paper Business you had many opportunities to make comments about the competition. For me there was only one way to go. You never put down your competition. You never suggested that they were somehow less of a salesperson, or had less integrity, or that their company was bad or whatever. It is a bad look. Your customers and clients will think less of you if you go down that road. Believe me, the less said the better. The competition is the competition, they have good products, they comport themselves well. They are worthy adversaries. Whatever you can be comfortable with, but they are not bottom feeders, with questionable character who are there only to take advantage of their customers. These competitors are just like you, well maybe not just like, but they are fighting the good fight everyday just like you and they are trying to survive just like you. They have bills to pay just like you and they don’t need you raining on their parade.
Let us review. Be honest, be trustworthy, be truthful and have integrity. It is just as simple as that. Be the best person that you can be everyday. Everything else will take care of itself. It is important for you to feel good about yourself, you will be more successful and happier for it.
