How do you define Integrity?

How do you know if a person has integrity?  These are people who are honest, kind, fair minded, and generous.  A characteristic of a great leader is their integrity.  Maria Razumich-Zec once said, “Your reputation and integrity are everything.  Follow through on what you say you’re going to do.  Your credibility can only be built over time, and it is built from the history of your words and actions”.  Webster says that the definition of integrity is the ability to adhere to moral and ethical principles.

Integrity encompasses many qualities, and one of them is accountability or taking responsibility for one's actions.   The lack or personal accountability is a major pitfall of leadership.  A leader who does not take responsibility for their actions and decisions is bound to fail.  Without personal accountability, a person has the tendency to play the blame game.  Whatever the consequences of their decisions are, particularly their mistakes, they blame on others.  This is a manifestation of cowardice and dishonesty and very unbecoming of a leader.  A leader without courage and integrity does not gain the respect of their followers.  In such a case, leadership has lost its essence.  There is no true leadership without responsibility.

Another quality of integrity is true virtue and true virtue comes from within.  It is instilled by time, experience and understanding.  If you know virtue and you have it in you, you will know it in other people.  You can always search in Google to find the meaning and criteria of "integrity" and you will read its definition.  If you yourself are a person of integrity, or are searching for integrity in yourself, your inner knowing and your intuition will give you the understanding to know the virtue from the pretense.  Virtue as a part of our true humanity will speak to the true humanity in others.  Otherwise, if virtue has been subdued and clouded by negativity, you cannot see its light or feel its voice.  Lastly, decisions may fail, but true leadership admits that mistake and makes means to recover.  True leadership knows the humility to admit mistakes, the integrity to take responsibility and the courage to move on.  The journey in being a great leader starts with acquiring integrity first.

What is Excellence?

Have you ever thought about what your life would be like if you pursued excellence every day? If you woke up every morning knowing that you were 100-percent, all-out committed to being the best in all aspects of your life? I'm not talking about giving something your best effort or even your personal best. I'm talking about being the best, selling out to that completely and not settling for  anything less. For this you need to have a fire inside you to be the best and get up every day willing to do what it takes to reach your goal. This is an invitation to find your voice and leave a mark in the world; an invitation to surpass the average and aim for higher levels of excellence; an invitation to tap into your talents more deeply than before and turn yourself into a radiating powerhouse. It is time to live your purpose in life and share your unique, beautiful gifts with all other beings. To have the resolve to have excellence, you have to want it and need to have the zeal to make this change in your life. Achieving Excellence is not an easy journey, in fact it is a journey filled with many barriers and obstacles.

In essence, excellence is becoming the center of your own universe, and from that grounded, centered position, shining your light into the world by using your unique talents. You will need to identify your values and learn how to make the right choices in your life. You will need to know what truly matters to you and focus your energy on what you value most in life. Living a life of excellence takes effort, but at the same time is rewarding and gives you energy so that you can keep up your work. Some people are content to make a nice living, spend time with their families, do good work for others and live quietly. But if you want to live life out loud and commit yourself to have excellence in every way that takes the ultimate in personal dedication, sacrifice and self-examination. I would like to invite you to excel in those fields where you really can make a difference, so that when you move on, you shall have left behind a better world for those who follow.

Happy Independence Day

The Declaration of Independence

By Washington Irving

While danger was gathering round New York, and its inhabitants were in mute suspense and fearful anticipations, the General Congress at Philadelphia was discussing, with closed doors, what John Adams pronounced, "The greatest question ever debated in America, and as great as ever was or will be debated among men."  The result was, a resolution passed unanimously on the 2nd of July - "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States."

"The 2nd of July," adds the same patriot statesman, "will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America.  I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.  It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God.  It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forth forevermore."

The glorious event has, indeed, given rise to an annual jubilee - but not on the day designated by Adams.  The FOURTH of July is the day of national rejoicing, for on that day the "Declaration of Independence," that solemn and sublime document, was adopted.

Tradition gives a dramatic effect to its announcement.  It was known to be under discussion, but the closed doors of Congress excluded the populace.  They awaited, in throngs, an appointed signal. In the steeple of the State House was a bell, imported twenty-three years previously from London by the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania.  It bore the portentous text from Scripture: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof."  A joyous peal from that bell gave notice that the bill had been passed. It was the knell of British domination.