given that we're living in a world that's severely lacking in integrity i wanted to
create a video today that would help you define it and understand it and i wanted to give you the
practical guidance you need to become a person of integrity someone that you're proud to be
the truth about who you are in this current stage of your life is defined by what you
do when there's no chance of getting caught where nobody's watching when nobody's judging
integrity is when there's no difference between that and having an audience watching you closely
when you are one person at all times now the technical definition of integrity combines three
factors honesty core values and undividedness so in a sense it's somebody who's truthful
it's somebody has a strong moral code or set of principles that they live by and it's somebody
who's undivided they are one person rather than splitting off into different people depending on
the situation let's start with honesty obviously my favorite topic if you're familiar with my work
it's essentially when what's going on inside you is accurately represented by your words
and your actions when what you believe to be true or know to be true or feel to be true
is not represented by your words or actions then you're being dishonest this means no lying
obviously it means not omitting important truths which is what a lot of people do is they think of
themselves as honest but they hide a lot of the truth it means no virtue signaling you either
live by it or you don't you don't just talk about it there's no hypocrisy or very little hypocrisy
it means not pretending to be someone you're not and it means not allowing deceit to occur in front
of you not allowing people to believe something untrue when you know the truth if you want to
figure out how to be more honest and live by your core values this is your last chance the week i'm
releasing this video to pre-order my next book the naked truth you can check out the link above
and next week that gets published i'm very [ __ ] excited about it now undividedness another word
for that is congruence one way to think of it is it doesn't matter who's watching you they're
going to see the same person and it doesn't mean that you're in the same mood all the time
always doing the same things but a consistency to your character the way i like to think about it is
if somebody was reading your journal they wouldn't be surprised by what they found if who you are
on the outside matches who you are in secret then that would be congruence you're one person
but the third factor is where i really like to focus and that is core values your moral code your
set of principles your code of honor whatever you want to call it the set of guiding values that you
wish to live by and that you think other people should live by that you're proud of when you live
by and ashamed when you don't you like people who live by them you despise people who don't
these are the things that you have to get in touch with and transform into practical action to be a
person of integrity it's no good just having values thinking about them talking about them
you must live by them now a lot of people confuse core values with things that are outside of their
control they might say for example that they value money or family you can't control those things
you can have an influence on them but they're not really yours to control the only thing you can
really control is your behavior and the intentions behind it and that's what core values are about
for example the core value of honesty i can't control how people feel about me but i can control
how honest i am or the core value of respect i can't control if people respect me but i can
control if i respect them these are core values they're things that you can always control no
matter what the situation is what are your core values comment below let us know what you're
working on if i have time i'll actually give you some feedback on yours to make sure they fit value
criteria and can actually be lived by no matter what situation you're in now i don't think it's
possible for a person to have pure integrity by which they never deviate from their core values
you know they never tell a lie they're never disrespectful they're never irresponsible they're
never cowardly we're humans we slip in fact the best way to learn about your core values is to
analyze the situations where you fail to live by them so kind of mark a point that i find helpful
is 80 percent if you're living by your core values 80 of the time i think you can call
yourself a person of integrity given that nearly everybody in the world is well below 50 percent
most people are living a lie they're pretending to be someone they're not or they're desperately
seeking to get outcomes and approval and they'll compromise themselves to do that
you know so many people are like that to a lesser or greater degree so if you're
someone who's trying your best to live by your core values and you only slip occasionally
that's about as much integrity as a human being can handle what this means in practical
terms is consistently choosing to live by your values despite the temptation to do otherwise
temptations like results getting what you want there'll be times where you can either do the best
thing to get what you want or be honest and you can't do both or at least you won't believe that
you can do both a person of integrity will choose that honesty even if it means losing that result
maybe the result is approval from others maybe you being you would get a negative reaction
well a person of integrity would dive straight into that negative reaction regardless
however a person of integrity isn't going to try and get a negative reaction they're just trying
to be themselves the reaction is out of their control they're not trying to get a positive or
a negative reaction they're just trying to be true to themselves and your biggest enemy to integrity
is what's known as instant gratification that's the thing that feels good right now so often
living with integrity means doing the hard thing now the thing that's uncomfortable now
confronting someone even though it's going to be awkward standing up for yourself
eating the healthy food that doesn't actually taste all that delicious these are the things that
you need to do live with integrity and they often kind of hurt in the moment it feels like you're
choosing the least comfortable option instant gratification is the most comfortable option
it's the thing that feels good right now like smoking weed or masturbating to porn or lying
to someone so that they don't feel bad or lying to someone so they'll sleep with you or just
taking that easy money rather than working hard for it these are all examples of instant
gratification they feel good right now and this is what most people are driven
by and that's why the world is the way it is greed corruption neediness those are all the
outputs of instant gratification see a person of integrity once they've been living consistently
by it for a while they become so impressed with themselves with their own philosophy that the
neediness the greed the sense of lack the fear of missing out all of that starts to fade away
whereas somebody who's constantly trying to get that instant gratification becomes a drug addict
they can't get enough of it they're constantly hungry for more so they actually feed that
addiction rather than satisfying it the simplest guidance i can give you to living with integrity
is do what you know is right rather than what is easy now doing what is right is usually actually
quite simple you just speak your mind or you eat the healthy meal or you say no to the offer
that would compromise you but it's not easy it's emotionally difficult to do it can be awkward and
uncomfortable maybe even embarrassing or just physically strenuous like working out properly
the easy thing to do there's no resistance to it you'll get approval for doing it probably
most of the time it's sitting right there you can just reach out and take it and so often you have
to compromise your values to do this a person of integrity chooses that hard path so that they have
an easy life a person without integrity chooses that easy option which creates a horrible life
the roman emperor and famous stoic marcus aurelia said something about let's not
argue about what it means to be a good man just be one so your philosophy your sense of
self your core values you have to live by it not just preach it
in fact i challenge you as i had to challenge myself once don't tell anyone how you should be
living or how they should be living show them be a role model rather than a preacher we no
longer trust our institutions our politicians our leaders we don't trust the media anymore
we don't trust corporations we barely trust each other why because no one's living with integrity
or very few people are everyone's so greedy and needy and desperate most people will do anything
to feel good right now or to get approval or to make more money people are constantly compromising
themselves and we now live in a world made of institutions based on this neediness and greed
the only way we're going to change that is that each individual you and me start role modeling
how people should live we can't expect the big corporations to change and the politicians to
suddenly become honest because they function in a world that serves them well the more dishonest
they are the better they do and that's because of us that's because we let it happen it's because we
don't demand better we can't demand anything of them until we get our own house in order
so before you start wishing that other people were more honest or more respectful or more responsible
you've got to look in the mirror and go am i i'll finish off just giving you a rundown of my values
now this doesn't mean this is how you should live and in fact if you copy me it kind of defeats the
purpose you're supposed to figure out your own values and live by them even if you disagree with
mine and live in a different way if i believe that you've come to that conclusion that code
of honor on your own i will respect it but i'm going to give you mine because this will help
maybe prompt some of you to figure out how to find your own my first core value is responsibility
this essentially means i must take ownership of my entire life everything i do everything
i think everything i feel is caused by me nobody else is to blame i can't find fault anywhere else
even if somebody punches me in the face how i react to that is my responsibility
so i don't waste time blaming them for punching me i try to focus in on what am i going to do
about it that's good for my life i came to the conclusion that responsibility is one of my
values because i can't actually live by any of my other values without it i have no sense of power
until i take ownership of my life i spent so much of my life being a victim and that didn't
work for me as soon as i switched to being responsible my whole life changed and that's
why i chose it next is curiosity this was inspired by socrates when i started getting into philosophy
that classic statement the only thing we know for sure is that we know nothing for sure
and i came to realize how true this was everything i think i know can be changed
there's so many things that i thought was true and i was later proven wrong and it tells me that
i'm probably wrong about everything and i need to be careful and i need to be learning all the time
because if i get stuck in a lie or believing a lie i end up making terrible decisions so
curiosity means always accepting that i could be wrong and always open to better information
my next one is courage courage simply means facing your fear it doesn't mean being fearless
because that's not courageous courageous means you feel the sensations the bodily emotional
physiological sensations of fear and you go and do the thing that makes them even worse
now it doesn't mean doing anything you're afraid of because fear is actually there to stop you
doing stupid things like walking in front of a car or picking a fight with a gang member
but most of the time i'm afraid of things that aren't dangerous and i'm actually afraid of
things that mean living with integrity like confrontations like starting my own business
like trying to do handstands courage is often what's needed to live by all my other values
and i spend most of my life being a coward i spend most of my life running away from things that are
uncomfortable towards things that were comfortable and all that got me was a very uncomfortable life
when i switched to trying to seek discomfort from having a cold shower in the morning to confronting
anyone i disagree with and everything in between i feel deep sense of comfort nearly all the time
the next one is my key linchpin keystone whatever you want to call it value
honesty i think each of us have one particular value that guides us better than any others and
it's usually the one you haven't lived by the most and that was the case for me with honesty
up until about the age of 25 i tried every other way to make things work for me socially
i tried all the best dishonest tactics pretended to be someone i wasn't pretending
to be a nice guy learning seduction anything i could do to trick people into liking me
and even though it got results it didn't make me feel good about myself in the long run
finally after i exhausted all of those options i thought [ __ ] it i'll try being honest for
a while see what happens what i instantly noticed was this weight lift off my shoulders
it wasn't long before i didn't have to think of what i was going to say next
i didn't have to worry about getting caught out with anything i didn't have any doubts whether
people liked me or disliked me because i was being me so that's what they were reacting to i knew how
they really felt about me but most importantly i felt my shame lift off my shoulders all the things
i thought were wrong with me bad all the things i thought i had to hide when i started showing them
i realized they weren't that bad i didn't need to hide them and once i cleared that list out
there was none of them left there's no sense now in my body that there's something wrong with me
none at all i [ __ ] wouldn't change a thing about me doesn't mean i'm not working on myself
but working on myself is something i enjoy doing that's why i do it but this guy is [ __ ] awesome
in my opinion my humble opinion and that comes from being honest that doesn't come from
pretending to be something that's awesome next one is acceptance and of all my values this is
the one i struggle with the most acceptance means letting go of what you can't control
as a nice guy people pleaser i spent a large portion of my life trying to control
everything i got great results to control my lifestyle i control people's emotions i tried
to control my own emotions i tried to control all the stuff that wasn't mine to control and because
i was kind of good at it i felt like i could be in control of other things but the thing is you never
really are it's an illusion you have an influence but anything can change its mind and turn on you
and i came to realize that i'm so stressed out because i'm trying to control stuff that's none of
my business acceptance is really the counterpart or you know the partner of responsibility
responsibility is focusing on what you can control acceptance is letting go of what you can't
i'm still working on this one but when i get it right i feel a deep sense of peace and power when
i get it wrong i'm stressed i'm frustrated disappointed and sometimes even depressed
and finally respect respect is simply defined as live and let live that means i set boundaries
around who i am you're not allowed to [ __ ] with that but i also in exchange won't [ __ ] with you
you can be whoever you want to be as long as it doesn't harm me or the people i love
and you've got to give me that same respect so i'll confront and set boundaries so that nobody
[ __ ] with me but i'll respect when somebody else does it to protect themselves as well it's a
give and take 50 50 balanced investment i used to cross people's boundaries and try to control them
and at the same time i would let other people dominate me once i got those boundaries in
place i started to feel a great sense of power and also a kind of sense of understanding and
compassion for other people i just let them live if they want my help they can ask for it if not
i'm gonna leave them the [ __ ] alone and i hope they do the same for me thank you for watching
don't forget to grab the book the links below subscribe to the channel comment below share it
around take various actions that help me promote my [ __ ] i don't care do whatever you feel like
doing live with integrity how about that try that for a week and i'll see you guys next time you