3. Applied Integrity

 10-01-2022

This has been an interesting week, and particularly meaningful for me. During this week's studies of Honesty and Business Ethics, I realized that the Lord has been guiding me a lot in the right direction. It has been a point of mine to always be honest in my interactions. It is a personal guideline for me. I had already been pondering the core of the doctrine of honesty even before reading or watching this week's lessons. But something that really stood out to me this week was the devotional speech given by Sheri Dew, "True Blue, Through and Through", in which the primary focus was being true to who I really am. It caused me to introspect even more purposefully and do some uncomfortable soul-searching about what it means to be a true disciple of Christ, to not live a double standard or betray myself, my family, my friends or my Lord, even for a moment or over something seemingly trivial. This has been a primary focus in my life, and a strong desire in my personal and professional life, to be able to live and work in a way that I know the Lord would be pleased with, in something that serves my fellow beings, strengthens faith, increases faithfulness and glorifies God. The reminder to be true comes at much needed time. Standing firm in my faith, and living more fully the moral standards I profess in spite of opposition has never been more needed than it is now. Having fortitude and integrity has never been more needed than it is now. There are some things I need to work on for myself, for sure, and this message comes as a strengthening chastisement to me. I have mismanaged some of my time, have been distracted, and face increased challenges to test my resolve. The opposition always increases, especially right before or after pivotal moments of revelation and enlightenment. 

I know that progress and success in every aspect of life is easier and more likely when the Spirit of God is present, and that progress becomes very difficult or impossible when the Spirit is not present. Having integrity is crucial to success. It will improve my ability to have the guidance of the Spirit. It will improve my relationships with my family, and enable me to establish and maintain trusting relationships with more people. Whether it makes me money or not is of no consequence; The important thing is to be trustworthy. The connections I have and will have when I have integrity and also expect integrity from potential partners, associates, and clients will be of great value. 

I've also been thinking about the "Top 10 Must Have for a Start-Up". I plan to share what I've learned with my brothers and help them apply this too in their businesses, seeing also as I intent to be very involved in their businesses. My brother called me this week and we talked about some of the struggles he's facing in not being able to get anyone to buy his product, and that the business could start rolling really well with even one sale. It just so happened that I had watched this video shortly before the phone call, so I believe I was able to help him improve his strategy and adjust his approach to the way he's advertising and what he's advertising. Thus far, he has been trying to convince potential buyers of the greatness of his idea, and to agree with why he's doing it. But one of the points in the video was that "customers are not people who agree with your idea. Customers are people who place purchase orders and send you checks." Giving a pitch with the focus of getting people to agree with your idea is for potential partners, not necessarily customers. 

There are many other things I've learned and more adjustments to make, both in my personal life, managing my time, getting used to being in school again, and trying not to get sour by the amount of work I have to do with adding another plate to spin. Difficulty exists for a reason, and I don't want to be one of those whiny entitled millennials who gets all upset at everyone else when something gets hard. There are lessons to be learned here, especially the lessons that exist beyond the assigned material. The answers we give to these life-lessons are submitted in the moments of weakness, boredom, fatigue, frustration, confusion, fear, hunger, pride, or peer-pressure. In the course of applied integrity, the difficulty is not knowing the right answer, but overcoming the spiritual paralysis and doing what the right answer dictates.