6

INTEGRITY

Practice Uncompromising Integrity for Authentic Success

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

FAITH BALDWIN

Integrity is fragile. If you compromise, even in a small way, you become broken.

VICKIE L. MILAZZO

The most trusted profession is dominated by women. According to Gallup, that profession—for 11 years in a row—is nursing, which is 94 percent women. One of the least trusted professions, car sales, is less than 7 percent women.

Women make up 9 percent of the prison population, which tells us that, on the whole, women can be trusted to abide by laws and do the right thing. I cannot believe these powerful facts are accidental.

A Chinese proverb says, “If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow.” Perhaps women stand straighter than men because we're more emotionally analytical. The emotional “why” tugs at us, and, based on our interpretation of cause and effect, we form opinions about how to act. Our interpretations feed our integrity.

As you pursue your passionate vision and reach higher, more complex levels of accomplishment—especially in your career, but also in your personal life—your integrity will be continuously tested in new ways. Think about what you would do in these situations:

• Coworkers at your new job get together at lunch and complain about the boss. The conversation makes you uncomfortable, but you want to fit in and be part of the group.
• You discover that your best friend is cheating on her husband, a man who trusts and honors her in every way.
• You decide to host a party for the people who live on your street. You don't like one couple. Do you invite them into your home because it's expected?

Integrity-based decisions are not always easy. On a trip to Poland, I stood in the gas chamber at Auschwitz and walked through the women's barracks at Birkenau. Visiting these horrific places, I was struck by how easily our hold on humanity can be stripped away—possessions, success, health, dignity, privacy and even individuality—until the only thing remaining is our personal integrity.

I'd read the memoirs of Viktor Frankl prior to the visit and thought I had a grip on what to expect. But actually standing where so many had lived and died changed that perception straight-off. Each day in the midst of unspeakable cruelty, Holocaust victims had to decide how to treat others and handle themselves with integrity. Without integrity, even living through those conditions would not guarantee surviving the memories afterward. I couldn't help wondering how my own integrity would have held out in that situation.

Our choices determine whether we live a free life or a life imprisoned—and I'm not talking about a physical jail cell. No one would voluntarily imprison herself and be her own warden, yet every time we breach integrity, we sentence ourselves to a mental jail.

Integrity has the final say in whether we will rise or decline, be whole or broken. When uncompromising integrity is our guide, success is authentic. And the joy of success is authentic.

BREACHING INTEGRITY BETRAYS OPPORTUNITY

One of our seminar instructors, an independent contractor, was selling her own products to our students while being paid to interact on our behalf. This not only violated our contract, it also violated all personal trust.

She didn't see it that way. In her mind, she was making the most of a business opportunity. When faced with a choice, to pursue quick personal sales to this ready market, which we had made highly accessible to her, or to honor her commitment and represent herself fully as our instructor, she elected personal gain. She was baffled when I put a halt to what she'd been getting by with. She didn't see her actions as a break with integrity.

I had to sever our business relationship entirely. Her weak character betrayed any future opportunities she might have had with us. To this day, she remains bitter about the outcome, without gaining insight or accepting accountability for her actions.

If you've ever doubted the economic value of integrity, there is compelling evidence that ethical companies last the longest. The collapse of corporations such as Enron, and financial institutions such as Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch is an example of the correspondingly high cost of the lack of integrity.

Temptations abound in business and in life. At the most basic level, taking a few extra minutes for lunch each day, steering a contract to an inferior and more costly vendor who sent you the best wine at Christmas and Facebooking, surfing the Internet or doing online Christmas shopping while at work are breaches of integrity. No matter how complex a decision appears on the surface, when stripped down to basics, it's usually pig-simple: Do what's right, not what's most appealing.

I've had the opportunity to work with thousands of women. While success is influenced by myriad variables, one fact stands clear: Women who persistently breach integrity don't just betray opportunities, they are broken and destined for eventual decline.

EVERY ACT COUNTS

To quote a favorite Buddhist proverb: “Even the smallest act should not be underestimated, for even tiny flakes of snow falling one atop another can blanket the tallest mountain in pure whiteness.” Integrity is fragile. If compromised, even in a small way, integrity is swiftly broken. Once broken, integrity slides like an avalanche—it won't stop. Cutting a corner here leads to cutting another corner there … and there, and there. We may not decline to extremes such as burgling houses or robbing banks, but don't we roll through stop signs, flirt with a stranger on Facebook, cheat on our taxes or pocket office supplies from work?

Little things, such as not giving your all on a work project, may seem insignificant initially, but over time these small impure “flakes” gradually smother your passion and obscure your vision. Once lost, the opportunity to demonstrate integrity can never be recaptured. A relationship that took decades to nurture can be destroyed with one frivolous breach. A career opportunity can dissolve in an instant.

Integrity compels 100 percent congruence. You can't say “I'll have integrity tomorrow, but not today,” or “I'll have integrity in other situations, but not in this one.” When any part of your life is out of congruence with other parts, you feel incomplete and out of sorts. Integrity is the strength that makes you whole.

Let's say you passionately accept a promotion that requires you to work excessive overtime and give up your vacation. You're also passionately committed to your family who needs you and to friends you enjoy socially. Your 70-hour workweek eats into your social time, causing you to break commitments; then it chomps away at family time, causing you to break the unspoken promise of being involved in important family activities. If you somehow manage to hold it all together, chances are you're cutting back on personal health commitments. By accepting the commitment to your career, you've broken integrity with other important parts of your life.

Maintaining unwavering integrity can be tricky. Enticements and fears do sneak up on us. But at the end of the day, no matter what we've lost or gained, we need to know that our integrity is intact. We may lose our health or our money, we may outlive all our friends and family, but if we live true, we'll have the comfort that we left behind a snowy-white legacy of integrity.

STAND UP FOR YOUR INTEGRITY

Congruence in integrity also applies to everyone who touches our lives and careers, and to holding them accountable. When we accept other people's breaches of integrity, we're compromising our own.

I'm sure every business owner has a favorite example, but in my business, hotels are the worst. They always expect us to come through 100 percent on our contractual obligations, yet many of those same hotels think nothing of taking part of our contracted space or not letting us into the ballroom at the contracted time—all in the game of snagging more business. When this happens, my response is to nip the bad behavior fast and hold the hotel accountable.

A client who represented a substantial amount of Lynne's business gave her an ultimatum: stop working with certain clients he perceived to be competitive, or risk losing his business. If she gave in to his demand, she would keep his business—but at the cost of losing her integrity. She believed her other clients had nothing to do with him. Plus, if she gave into his demand, what would his next one be? I encouraged her to stand up for her integrity. When I hung up the phone, she was still troubled and undecided.

A month later she called to share she had made the choice to be true to herself and to what she wanted for her business. She was happier, more relaxed and successful on her own terms.

A CEO came to our company to promote his services on a significant project. He charmed our staff and promised the moon, but when it came time to deliver, he sent work product that was unsatisfactory and full of errors. When he was challenged on the failure to deliver, his response was to crawl back under his bridge or wherever it is trolls live.

I'm sure you've run into this kind of troll. The person who called you every day to make the sale, but after the sale suddenly was unavailable, out of the office or on a mission trip to Lower Handstandastan; or lost his cell phone, had the swine flu or was at the funeral of yet another “close” relative. (How many grandparents can you really lose?) Eventually, you get a call back, accompanied by more promises followed by more disappointment.

The vendor and I somehow managed to end our relationship professionally. I wished him future success, knowing full well he was destined for failure. How do I know? Because now I'm being serviced by someone whose integrity is unimpeachable.

You cannot afford pretenders in your life. Join me in ridding ourselves of the trolls.

CONSENSUS ON INTEGRITY IS ELUSIVE

In the Female Fusion event I describe in Chapter 10, strong opinions emerged about the meaning of integrity. That discussion reinforced my belief that integrity is not easily defined. I found some of the comments provocative.

Jan: It bothers me to tell even a “white lie.” I was trying to explain to my nephew that you don't tell someone who has cooked dessert for you that your aunt makes a better dessert. You also don't tell her this is the best dessert you've ever had.

Vickie: Sometimes integrity means not blurting out the truth, but finding a truth that's respectful and more positive. Being overly solicitous isn't the answer either; it can backfire. The mother of one of my friends is a terrible cook. This is not my New Orleans palate talking; she's just bad. Unfortunately, we often eat at her house because she likes to host family events. Everyone tells her how good her meals are—through gritted teeth. Not wanting to hurt her feelings guarantees more bad spaghetti dinners, and I never believed there could be such a thing as bad spaghetti.

Jan: Integrity is learned by example. If you're around people who lie and scheme, you pick up on that. Kids are picking up so much negative behavior via television.

Susan: A friend in advertising sent me an inspirational piece which reads, “Integrity is saying what needs to be said, not simply what people want to hear.” I really had to think about that. I'm naturally a huge people pleaser, but as an interior designer, sometimes I too have to say in a gentle way, “That looks like crap.”

Chris: Following through with integrity doesn't always feel good, because you often make people unhappy.

Susan: It's going out on a limb.

Vickie: It needs to be tempered with compassion. Rose Franzblau said, “Honesty without compassion and understanding is not honesty, but subtle hostility.” I find it helpful to assess my intention. We've all been the victim of the honest but mean verbal jab—it never feels good.

Chris: Expecting integrity from others, especially the people we love, is equally important. I loaned money to my grandson to repair his car. He didn't finish the car repair and he also didn't repay the loan. I brushed it off, but I never lent him money again.

Then his twin brother called and asked for money to retain a lawyer for a DUI. When he started to say, “I'll pay you back,” I stopped him. “Here's what we can do: If you ever get behind the wheel of a car again after having a drink, pay me the money immediately. If you never have another drink and then drive, you owe me nothing.” My intention was to avoid what happened with his brother and to also engage his integrity.

Vickie: This sounds minor, but parents set a bad example when they slip their old popcorn bag into the movie theater to get a free refill for the bag they paid for at the last movie. Integrity is not part time. You can be semigood at playing tennis, but integrity is all or nothing.

Leigh: You don't realize how much integrity means to you until you lose it. I worked for a company built by a man who had incredible integrity. His integrity pervaded the whole company. Then a different director without integrity came on board. The company is pitiful now, down to a few people. It was sad to see that company fade. When I interviewed for a new job, I knew I was not going to work for another company without integrity.

Martha: Integrity requires discipline. My grandson Cody is 12 and lives in Colorado. The last time I visited I mentioned paying the airline $75 for an oversize bag. Cody said, “Omah, you have another $75? I want to fit into your suitcase when you go back.”

Cody is home-schooled, and I decided to work with him that day. He has terrible handwriting, which I'm picky about, and I made him write things over. When he read to me, he would say “a” instead of “the” or make other mistakes, and I'd tell him to read it again. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my integrity and listen to the same story three times. When we were finished Cody said, “Omah, you can spend that $75 on something else.”

Leigh (laughs): He'd had enough of your integrity and discipline, and was not going home in your bag.

Susan: What about having integrity with ourselves? Sometimes I sell myself out, like when I promise myself Saturdays off and then make a Saturday appointment. If I break one of my personal goals, I'm breaking integrity with myself.

Evie: Integrity is different for everybody. What I do might not be perceived as the right thing by someone else. Certainly there's right and wrong, but every coin has two sides. One person might seem to have integrity, then when you hear the other side, that person also has integrity. That's where I struggle with it.

Maggie: For me, it's not just about right or wrong or truth or fault. It's about living according to your standards. What is right for you might not be right for me. What you believe is good might not seem so good to me. It can be very abstract.

Vickie: In medicine, the highest principle is “first, do no harm.” I think that's the basis of integrity. However, each person's idea of what is harmful may differ. That's why society creates laws that set behavioral standards no matter how right a person feels about her actions.

Chris: It's interesting the way we demand upholding the law, yet believe that if a certain law is not right, it's okay to break it. We tend to cheer the lovable rascal, the charming cat burglar who steals only from the rich. He's part of our fictional culture. But we expect even a criminal to have some measure of integrity. If he kicked a dog, we wouldn't like him anymore.

Vickie: Maybe we cheer the lovable rascal because we know deep down that no matter how good our intentions, we're not perfect. Show me one woman who has never transgressed and I'll nominate her for sainthood.

Maggie: Here in the U.S. an old lady was put in jail because she shot a burglar in the back. He was not facing her, so she had to do her time. In Honduras, an old lady shoots a burglar and she is a hero. The bad guy always has to go down. So what is integrity? You are saving your life in both examples, but in two different worlds.

Evie: Integrity is usually set by the social, cultural and religious environments. One example of my confusion with it all is something that happened to my stepfather from Mexico. When he was a young boy, his mother dishonored his father by cheating on him. It was published in the newspaper, and she was outcast by the whole community. If she had been a male, it would be just another occurrence. But they ran her out of town; and the grandmother, the husband's mother, forbid the children to ever see their mother again. I'm sure the grandmother thought she had high integrity, but to this day the children are so filled with hate for their mother that they won't get to know her. That's a conflict of integrity. It's not easy to know if you really did the right thing or if you just did the right thing for you.

Vickie: Integrity is public, not just private. I think of Hillary Clinton, who had so much power to speak to women and be a role model for strength and for her daughter. She copped out when she stayed married to Bill after the marriage was flagrantly violated. Women are often counseled to leave a husband who repeatedly betrays the marriage—but not, apparently, if the husband is rich, successful or president.

Martha: If it had been Hillary cheating, it wouldn't have turned out that way.

Leigh: I went to a breakfast meeting where I was appalled at the foul language these smart professionals were using. It was dreadful. Afterward, when everyone at the table commented on the meeting, I told them what I thought, and that I was glad they didn't have a guest speaker that morning to be subjected to such language. I never went back.

Martha: There might have been others who felt like you but didn't honor their integrity and speak up.

Susan: Say what needs to be said, not just what people want to hear.

Martha: I was born in Switzerland, the oldest of eight children, and was the caretaker. I had little opportunity to play, so my siblings were like my dolls. I was proud to help Mom, but I was also determined to get what I wanted, and sometimes a little rebellious. Having responsibility for these siblings, if they did something wrong, it was my fault. This responsibility stayed with me.

Now I am a very strict instructor. I want the students to get it right. The massage method I teach, lymphatic drainage, is difficult to learn, takes a lot of dedication and must be performed precisely for optimal results. My students do not always like me during class, since I correct their hands so often, but they survive my class and like me afterward. I tell them, “It's either right or wrong. I simply call it the way it is.”

Vickie: Some young women today are setting back the integrity gains made by the feminists and other women who strove for equal pay, equal rights and equal respect for women in the home and workplace. Stripper pole parties, sexting, music videos and movies are returning women to roles as sex objects, not equal partners. Wickedly successful women have created a world where young women can aspire to be presidents of major corporations. Instead of building on these gains, I see some women trading their integrity for entry into a VIP room in a club, vanity and selfishness, aspiring to become more like Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian. I hope this doesn't become a trend.

EVERY PROMISE COUNTS

With the best intentions, we extend ourselves in one area, perhaps our career, which causes us to unintentionally slight another: our family, our financial well-being or our physical well-being. If you promise yourself you will absolutely take that vacation this year, yet fail to follow through because you overcommitted in another area, you've betrayed your promise and yourself.

Some people might even see you as a hero for putting others' interests ahead of your own. But that failure is like the first domino in a line—one falls against the next, which falls against the next, and so on until none is left standing.

Parents learn quickly that every promise to a child counts and not to overpromise. When a child asks, “Can we go to the beach this weekend?” an astute mom avoids promising and says, “We'll see.” Otherwise, if the weekend comes and conditions aren't right, the child still expects delivery on the promise.

The need to avoid overpromising in all relationships is a lesson I learned at high cost. When my sister and her husband came into my business, I made a promise I later could not keep. I was working out of our home to keep the overhead low. I set up a reward incentive: as the company grew, we'd all get paid significantly more. I wanted these people, who were important to me, to benefit from our success. But that wonderful incentive was based on keeping the business in my home forever.

It worked great at first. But as the company grew beyond what any of us expected; we had to move into expensive office space and add more salaries, which translated into lots of additional overhead. My shortsighted promise became financially impossible to keep. That was a rough time for me. I didn't feel good about my inability to deliver and didn't want to break my integrity, but I had promised a future I couldn't deliver.

A promise is usually made based on certain conditions, and conditions change. I needed to act to protect both my integrity and my company's integrity no matter how painful that would be. We eventually arrived at a mutually satisfying solution, but that painful experience and the hurt we all suffered taught me to promise within boundaries. Are you overpromising to someone? How will you stop it?

BE ACCOUNTABLE TO YOUR INTEGRITY

Sometimes we promise ourselves to do something and we fail to deliver, not because we lack integrity, but because we lack a proper plan, one that makes us accountable. For example, if you own your own business and set a goal of marketing to five prospects each week, you could meet that goal without accomplishing any results. While this goal sounds like a good one, the objective of simply meeting the goal is in no way accountable to you and your business. Instead, develop an objective that provides accountability for a specific result.

Here's an example: “I will market to obtain one new client monthly.” This results-oriented objective not only propels you to act, but requires you to act until you achieve the desired result. Attach a target date to complete each objective and hold yourself accountable for hitting it.

Integrity is not just about accountability to others; it's also about accountability to your goals and passionate vision.

DO THE RIGHT THING WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING

The expression “action speaks louder than words” is never truer than with respect to integrity. Most of us can talk a good game, but what happens when we're alone, unobserved and our integrity is tested?

Every day people surf the Internet or interact on Facebook on company time, blanking their screen when the boss shows up. They work a lot slower than they're capable of, persistently take longer breaks, arrive late or sneak out early without permission. Everybody does it, so what's the big deal?

An Australian software entrepreneur told me he missed older employees with strong work ethics. He felt the younger employees believed it to be their right to post on Facebook, text or talk on their cell phones during work, and that if he didn't allow them to do so, he wouldn't be able to retain anyone. I explained that we have a zero-tolerance policy during work hours. If you want to text a friend or beat your high score on Angry Birds, you must do so during your lunch or break. People would rather waste your time than sacrifice their own, and that speaks volumes about their integrity.

Luckily, our corporate culture doesn't support this behavior, and the natural selection process moves those with less integrity out of there fast. I heard a guy say “They call it work because that's what you're supposed to do while you're there.” I completely agree.

One of my employees asked me, “How do I know if I've violated company policy?” I told him it was simple: “If you wouldn't do it with me standing beside you, then you know it's a violation.” You don't have integrity if you only have it when someone else is looking.

Kelly, a young mother who has physical limitations, was grocery shopping one day. Along with her basketful of goods, she purchased a heavy case of formula. After reaching her car, buckling her baby into the car seat and unloading the groceries, she realized the clerk had not charged her for the case of product. Someone else might have thought, “Their mistake, my advantage. I'm tired, my leg hurts, I'm going home.” Despite her discomfort, Kelly got out of her car, unloaded the heavy case, unloaded the baby, went back into the store and paid for the goods.

If she had not acted on her integrity, who would have known? She would. When we have a break with integrity, the biggest break is with ourselves.

Integrity is not only the bedrock of your relationships, integrity is your strength. And like cracks in a foundation, every small compromise in your integrity weakens the structure of your life. Invest integrity in every situation, even when there is no one to notice.

Women also need to know when to forgive their transgressions. Just because we breach integrity doesn't mean we're not allowed to move forward. A woman who had an affair confided, “Integrity is something you have to have all of the time and I don't have it all of the time, so I don't have it.”

When you do or say what you know is wrong, rectify it. If you can't rectify it, at least learn from it. Then forgive everything about yourself and move on.

DON'T BRING AN ELEPHANT INTO THE ROOM

One of our vendors, Matthew (the name has been changed to protect the guilty), recently dropped the ball. Because he has a great track record, all he really needed to do was acknowledge his lapse and we would have gotten quickly back on track. But instead of owning his mistake, he chose to ignore it, apparently just wishing it would all disappear.

So a week later when we met, he brought a companion—what I call the “elephant in the room.” The elephant in the room is the shame and discomfort that comes with knowing one is wrong, but not having the guts to own it. There we all sat around the table: Matthew, me, a couple of staffers and a very large elephant.

At first, Matthew's interactions were so strained it was laughable. The elephant just kept growing until it seemed to be taking up half the conference room. Finally, someone said, “Matt, just own it.” At that moment he looked almost relieved. “I'm sorry I let everyone down,” he said. “It won't happen again.”

We all looked at him, said thanks and went on with the meeting. The elephant left the building as fast as it arrived because Matthew summoned the courage to finally acknowledge it.

Sometimes integrity can feel like an extreme sport, like in Dale's situation:

Have you ever brought an elephant into a situation? You may have dropped the ball and, like Matthew, need to own up to it but can't seem to summon the courage to do so. Even if the other person doesn't mention it, the elephant won't go away on its own, and the pain it causes you will be much greater than the pain of acknowledging you screwed up. Plus, every second that the elephant is in the room is a strain on your integrity and relationship. I can pretty much guarantee that at some point in your life you'll walk into a room followed by a large, relentless elephant. You'll have a choice: 'fess up and leave the elephant in the zoo, as Dale did, or like Matthew, let the elephant take up all the space. You decide!

REFUSE TO BE AN INTEGRITY VICTIM

As the victim of another person's lapse of integrity, you feel violated and hurt. But you can still refuse to be a victim.

Two employees seriously breached our company's integrity standards, and I had no choice but to fire them. It hurt to discover that these two people I cared about were manipulating sales reports. After having my pity party, what did I do? What Donald Trump does once a week: “You're fired.” If someone acts less than ethically, it's best to disassociate. That's hard because it can mean losing a highly skilled professional or a valued resource, but if you don't, you make yourself an integrity victim.

Sometimes breaches of integrity feel like personal assaults, which for me often come from competitors, the occasional Internet scam or slam artist or terrorist, or someone trying to stand on my shoulders to profit from my market. The more successful I am, the more I become the target of vicious, personal attacks—amusingly, by people I've never met and who certainly don't know me.

There's a T-shirt I love that says “Love me or hate me, either way I'm on your mind.” Instead of fretting over why someone would act this way, I choose to laugh about how much energy they spend on me and my company. Our strategy is to shrug it off and refuse to engage in a counterattack. It's not that I pretend competitors and undeserved attacks don't exist, but I avoid being reactive; and instead of focusing on the attackers, I focus on my passionate vision. When anyone repeats a tactless remark a competitor has made about us, I just say, “You might consider that the comment came from a competitor,” and leave it at that.

Women often feel compelled to explain themselves too much. You want to look right, and in the process you make another person wrong and risk making yourself look even more wrong. I would rather let people judge me wrongfully than explain myself in a way that compromises my own integrity.

Any time we're falsely accused or others are making us the “bad guy,” we can't help feeling the weight of it, even if they're totally wrong. However we remedy the situation, we have to ask ourselves, “Did I breach integrity in some way?” If so, own up to it. If not, then own up to that, too.

Demonstrate your own integrity by being more concerned about who you are than who you're reputed to be. Be less dependent on praise, and criticism will sting a lot less.

AVOID THE LURE OF MANIPULATION

Now divorced, Barbara, told me she could never get her former husband to attend to any project around the house—until she learned to manipulate his responses. He was handy enough to fix a window or repair a wall, and would do it—at some future time of his choosing. When she wanted a cabinet built for her kitchen, months passed and she still had inadequate storage space. Finally, she waited until he was at work, bought the materials and tackled the cabinet herself. When he came home, she was busily nailing boards together. He said, “That will never stand up. You're not doing it right.” He took the tools from her and finished the cabinet. In the future, when she needed his attention on the house, she knew exactly how to get it.

Unfortunately, this positive outcome reinforced a negative concept: manipulation. It's only a small step from manipulating your spouse into doing those pesky tasks to using manipulation without integrity. When you start manipulating, you're on a slippery slope.

Perhaps you manipulate acquaintances to wangle favors. Eventually you find yourself manipulating friends, spouses, children and coworkers. What happens to these relationships? Where are the trust and mutual respect? Then you “gently” manipulate sales figures to show more attractive results. Avoid being lured into manipulation. It never leads to authentic success.

PUT YOUR INTEGRITY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS

Any time a person makes a negative comment about someone not present, that's gossip. Gossip is not just mean; it's a break with integrity, and that hurts us as much, if not more, than the object of the gossip. Gossip also wastes time and energy. Even though it often feels enjoyable, it serves no positive outcome. When you're gossiping, your focus is not on your passionate vision; it's on someone who probably isn't thinking about you.

Perhaps you have the integrity to never initiate gossip, but then when others start gossiping, you can't believe the words coming out of your mouth—the things you're agreeing with. It's easy to get sucked in. And it's hard to be the one who speaks up and brings gossip to a halt, but that's exactly the right thing to do.

Like most people, I'm challenged by the commitment to never gossip, so I created a way to not get sucked into it. When confronted with gossip, I will say, “Well, you know, Mary's not here to defend herself.” That remark will usually stop the gossip cold, without putting anyone on the spot. I say it in a fun, friendly manner and with a smile on my face, but it clearly lets the gossiper know I don't intend to go there, and if she does, she'll have to do so without me.

Be an honest observer of your thoughts and actions. Learn to quickly recognize a breach of integrity and stop it cold. Disrupt it. When I catch myself starting to gossip or say something negative, I quickly change the end of the sentence. Or I trail off with the comment, “I forgot what I was going to say.”

Women in any kind of career advancement or leadership position, including motherhood, must absolutely avoid falling into the gossip trap. It belittles you, sends negative messages, detracts from your influence, and kills opportunities for career advancement. Reclaiming your integrity, once it's compromised, is about as easy as unspreading butter.

I'm no angel, and like most women I need to vent my feelings, so I give myself permission to have one trusted person as my “gossip buddy,” my “second mom.” Blanche's integrity is unquestionable. I feel totally free and secure talking with her about anything. Sharing a troublesome situation with this wise woman helps me clarify what happened and prevent repetition.

I'll ask her, “How would you have handled this?” Then I try to turn the negative experience into a learning opportunity. Spiritual without being rigid or hypocritical, Blanche, who's in her 70s, has the life lessons and a perspective that enables her to mentor me, in my 50s, to make good decisions.

Do you put your integrity where your mouth is? Do you surround yourself with people who glow with integrity? Never tolerate people or groups who are intentionally gossipy, mean or hurtful to you or anyone else. Have you ever noticed what happens to a bag of apples when one apple goes bad? If you leave it in the bag, all the other apples will rot too. Remove yourself from “bad apples.”

If you find yourself in an environment that's putting you down, don't put up with it. Don't let rotten apples sour your fire and vision. Eleanor Roosevelt said: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I'm striving to be a great mind. How about you?

KISS OFF COMPLAINERS

As part of my preflight ritual, I went for a cross-airport walk to Starbucks. Early in the morning I'll gladly trek through two time zones to get my coffee. The young guy working at Starbucks looked and sounded like he hadn't had his coffee yet and was complaining to another barista about how he wasn't up for standing on his feet all day. After repeating my order at least twice, I received a semblance of my “black eye,” a doppio espresso dumped into a Venti, bold coffee of the day. From there I headed to grab my standard preflight spicy breakfast at Popeye's Fried Chicken. The woman working the counter at Popeye's was complaining in Spanish on her cell phone to a friend about having to be the one who had to be there early to open the store, three days a week.

When I got to my gate, three uniformed airline employees (including a supervisor) were complaining, somewhat loudly, as only a group can do, about a systems problem with the airline—all within hearing distance of the customers. I was at least glad I wasn't overhearing a safety issue.

I was trying to figure out if it was just my day to ride the complain train or if there was some other message, when it hit me: The people who'd been complaining all day were doing it without regard for who was listening. Maybe they just didn't care.

What about you? Do you ever complain about someone in public spaces, or worse, use your cell phone voice to have a 72-decibel private conversation?

Complaining is counterproductive, and it rarely has an outcome in mind—unless you complain appropriately to the person who can do something about it. The airline employees weren't brainstorming the problem; they were just making sure each of them was as aggrieved as the others in dealing with it. What a waste of energy, not to mention brainpower.

Why do some people complain, even when they know better? Because complaining is easier than taking action, and much easier than exhibiting integrity. Nothing will degrade your integrity in a more pernicious way than complaining and hanging out with complainers. Complaining can masquerade as a harmless, trifling behavior, but before you know it, complaining leads to gossip and wasting time—time that could be funneled to your passionate vision. In the workplace, complaining can also lead to poor performance. (“I'm going to get my boss back for making me work overtime.”)

Colleen demonstrates how the only real victims of complaining or hanging with complainers are the people participating:

Twenty-nine years ago I was hanging out with my fellow nurses whining and complaining about the bad state of hospital nursing. Then one day, the eureka moment hit. I stopped complaining, and life's opportunities suddenly started pouring my way.

But even today I have to be on the lookout for these integrity vampires. Just yesterday I found myself in the company of a complainer and, to my horror, found I was letting myself get sucked into it. What do you do when you find yourself getting sucked in by people who like to complain but don't really want to solve their problem?

Instead of joining the complaining party, detach and use your precious time to solve your own problems or to enjoy your life as intended. Even 10 minutes given to a complainer (family, friend or colleague) are 10 precious minutes you could have been doing something for you—minutes you'll never get back.

The next time you find yourself snared by a complainer, detach and interrupt the complaining. Before you give 10 precious minutes away to someone else's soap opera, ask yourself if you'll really be making a difference by listening or joining in. Or are those 10 minutes niggling at your integrity?

I recently severed a professional relationship with a complainer. Life is too short to be around one, and a lot more fun without them. As Barbra Streisand sang, please “don't rain on my parade.”

KEEP YOUR INTEGRITY PUBLIC AND YOUR DIRTY LAUNDRY PRIVATE

Whether you like it or not, online life has created a public figure out of you. Every time you send an email, Tweet or post on Facebook, you're leaving behind a digital trail that can be followed back to you. What sort of trail are you leaving behind? And how is your Integrity holding up along the way?

We all know Facebook can be a place where people let down their guard, speak freely and, unfortunately, sometimes behave badly. Did you just congratulate your child for getting an A? Or did you complain about your ex? Do you talk favorably about your job, or whine endlessly? Does your profile photo look like you're posing for Playboy?

Would your mom and dad, your future boss, your significant other and your children be proud of, or embarrassed by, the woman you portray online? If you found yourself in a lawsuit, would your online presence make you look like Snow White or the evil and slightly sleazy stepmother?

Not only are all of your email, Facebook postings, Tweets and electronic communications potentially discoverable in lawsuits, but employers are monitoring them and colleges are reviewing them when making admissions decisions. Think before you post. Those photos from the stripper pole party might seem like fun to share today, but could cause huge pain and regret later.

I often think of racy comments or posts I'd like to make, but a comment made to best friends over dinner is almost certainly guaranteed to be taken out of context when it gets in the hands of the wrong people. That's why I try to guard my online legacy carefully. I can't control what people post about me, but I can certainly control what I create about myself. We're all leaving a vast and permanent digital footprint. Let's live with integrity by keeping ours clean.

Is there an integrity issue (about you or someone else) that is preventing you from living your passionate vision? Practice uncompromising integrity to enjoy more authentic success.