On Integrity

This morning, I ventured into the office to put together some packages for some private sellers I was visiting later in the day. I was printing off some letters, and talking to another one of the agents in our office about how new agents could go about getting FSBOs.

Now, I knew shortly after he started that this was a complete waste of my time, because he started it with “now I’m not sure if this is ethical in the strictest sense, but” and it continued in that vain.

Now, he had good intentions at heart – to give me a method to create income for myself – but his suggestion gave me a light into his character.

I’m reminded of an event that happened a few weeks ago, where I made a suggestion to my friend Eitan (check out his blog, the link is on the right) that we do something fun, but would have had a negative (yet harmless) impact on someone else. Eitan reminded me that to have 80% integrity was the same as having none at all, and that if I did this one questionable act, I wouldn’t be as strong in other areas of my life.

Remember: it only takes one small unethical action to call your entire character into question.

(The quote “having 80% integrity is like having no integrity at all.” comes courtesy of Jay Seabrook at RRi)