As a kid this was one of those words I’d roll my eyes at. Something guidance counselors love talking about. “Integrity” “Responsibility” “Commitment” and “Honesty” don’t register with most hormone addled 14 year-old brains…

This year it’s become one of the most important forces in my life. Integrity is the difference between me creating what I want and not. It’s the difference between having the confidence to make amazing new things happen and not. It’s the difference between my days feeling like another major step forward or like an unexpected wet fart.

Integrity, to me, means I’m one man. I don’t have two voices duking it out in my brain. I don’t say one thing, feel another, and do something completely different. It’s all aligned.

Integrity is also tough to take seriously. It’s one of those nice words people put on business cards. I remember a kid in my high school had an Enron shirt with “INTEGRITY” emblazoned above the logo. I think it’s a word many people roll their eyes at. An ideal from a more innocent and honest time (the romanticized 1950's). It seems so rare, that when someone talks about I don’t always believe it…

That’s because it is an ideal. It’s something to strive for. It’s a constant that is never perfectly attainable.

So I’ll adjust my language a bit: My power exists in the continual pursuit of integrity. I’ll never achieve it perfectly — but I know that the more I strive for it and align with it, the better things get. The better I get…

For years I lied to people. I’d make shit up so they’d think I was cool — idiotic, I know. In middle school I told my snowboard friends I could do a “rodeo 540" (upside-down one and a half spin). I couldn’t.

In high-school I made up a girlfriend. Found a nice photo and said she lived across town. A friend called me out and I stuck to the lie.

College wasn’t so bad. But fresh out of school and into the business world I’d lie about my past, what I was capable of, how much money I made. I hid the fact that I lived at home and was still figuring out who I was.

All this was based on the fact that I didn’t like myself. I believed I wasn’t good enough so I’d make things up so I “looked good.” I wanted to be better at the things I did (a better person) so instead of getting better and putting in the time, I just lied. Misery. Needing to remember what I said. Needing to justify the lie. Hiding even more. And that shit backfires. Badly. Not worth it.

Like Bernie Madoff… Why not just do it right? Why lie about everything, go to jail, have your son kill himself, and personify everything wrong with the financial system? He was a smart motherfucker… Why devote that to a giant tower of bullshit that killed people when it fell?

So this spring I saw, crystal fucking clear, how stupid and worthless lying is. Something I already knew intellectually, yet didn’t get emotionally. How it’s that giant tower of bullshit instead of a giant tower of awesome. Wasting perfect good and useful energy — human potential devoted to nothing.

Now, I just put in the time. Make it better instead of just saying it’s better. Do it right. Do it with excellence. And when I’m off course, do what I can to get on course…