Joining Scott Mason in this episode of the Purpose Highway Podcast is Richard Shell, professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton School, author of 5 books including the Business Book of the Year Springboard: Launching Your Personal Search for Success and his best-seller Bargaining for Advantage.

Richard shares that being a person of conscience is what integrates your values into your work. He explains that people, especially leaders, can lose track of these values and not even realize that they have transitioned from being upstanding individuals to corrupt ones.

The influence of complicity can be so rampant but it is by no means unbeatable. For Richard, it is critical to fight alongside others who believe in goodness because corruption happens when you feel cornered and alone against a tide of influence and power.

He teaches that fighting a corrupt system begins with courageous, righteous thoughts and that violating your own conscience is a habit of rationalization. Richard also shares his own Buddhist meditations and the realizations he had of the impermanence of life. When you reconcile life and death, you are released to be of service to others.