THE WIN-WIN OF INTEGRITY

© 2009 Howard McQueen

I had dinner with an acquaintance in Savannah in November. .
I had been listening to their stories now and then, over a week or two.
The stories of their youth included passion and independence,
running small businesses and, on the side,
always suckering others in on bets – that they always won.

It seems like these past ten years that life has been in a sort of reversal,
that employees began taking my acquaintance for a ride,
stealthily sneaking up and walking in my acquaintance’s old stride
– playing things on the sly, betting and winning, stealing, so to speak.

What my acquaintance said to me surprised me

“I’ve not met any human beings in a long time that have shown me any integrity”.

I remember a line from a Nancy Sinatra song

“One of these days these boots are going to walk all over you”.

We inevitably will reap what we have sown!

At dinner one night I spoke about all the people who had brought integrity into my life and felt into the sense of trust that integrity invites in. Without any handle on integrity, it would seem that we have a choice to live an extremely isolated life, or the life we live would be filled with something closer to an ongoing Jerry Springer show, full of strife, drama and the non-nutritional fruits of inauthenticity.

Their life, the more I heard of their recent stories, seemed to be a deep sleepwalking into the freezer vault of inauthenticity.

Bless the space within us that integrity holds. Integrity backs up our word, and behind our words, backs up and bring shape and meaning to our intents.

For many years now, I’ve practiced this mantra of win/win.
What stands behind this mantra is:
no one is compromised or allowed to loose,
no one comes up short,
no one feels used or leveraged,
everyone has all the available information to make informed decisions.
So, in the end, everyone feels whole.
It is assumed that they contribute and give their best!

I’ve recently wound down and retired from a thirty-year consulting career and a more recent landscaping career. I learned to carefully scrutinize the projects and the people I became involved in, and allowed them to scrutinize me. There was so much trust and integrity and this was important, because unexpected events and situations always arise.

If all parties are communicating authentically, in integrity, course-corrections can be navigated to ensure everyone comes out feeling whole, that each have a whole-sum experience, and would be enthusiastic to sign up for another project, to continue the relationship.

I focused on the outcome and final feeling that I wanted to create from an experience, then worked from moment-to-moment, nourishing and sustaining this feeling, throughout the project. With my awareness and my resources, I held the space of integrity throughout the project.

I also remember that before 1995, there were many experiences when I was skating on the ice of inauthenticity, not holding the space for integrity to flourish. I had way too many things on my plate and affiliations with other business partners I had chosen that validated my inauthenticity at that stage of my life. My life crashed and burned.

That time in my life was filled with stress and fear and a great anxiety of what the future would bring.

In my experience, living in the current moment, constantly holding and tending to my own internal integrity, allows a relaxing, creates a knowing that you can bring a compassionate response forward no matter what kind of situation is presented to you.

WHAT STORIES CENTERED AROUND INTEGRITY ARE YOU WILLING TO SHARE?