We still have pretty young kids by most standards. However, as they’ve matured, my wife and I have introduced what we call “family pillars”. These are the foundational markers for what our family name, their name, stands for.

Similarly, each of Calm Capital’s companies have “pillars” or values woven through the fabric of everything they do.

One of those is integrity.

Here are my notes from last week…

Notes on integrity

• Integrity is when the outside matches the inside — and when your behavior matches your beliefs.
• At least in part, the word integrity, comes from the Latin word integritatem (nominative integritas) meaning soundness and wholeness.
• Additionally, these roots are also where the word integration comes from, meaning bringing together the parts of whole.
• So, having integrity means you’re the same in all areas of your life — who you are at work, at home, with others, and when you’re by yourself.
• In design and engineering, the term integrity is used to describe the quality of work as its executed per the specs and standards of the work. When something breaks, they’ll say it “lacked integrity” — which is to say there was a price or circumstance where the bits or atoms became compromised.
• For us, the point at which we compromise our values is when our integrity fails. And integrity is easier to keep than it is to regain.

One of the reasons my parents introduced me to golf when I was young was because integrity is built into the game. In other sports, referees are used to make sure players’ behaviors align with the “beliefs” of the game. Unlike any other sport I’m aware of, in golf, players call penalties on themselves.

There are numerous examples. One of the most famous is when Bobby Jones, an all-time great, lost a tournament because he called a penalty on himself when he was in the woods all alone.

Much like golf, our lives are rarely lived with a referee looking over our shoulders governing our attitudes and actions.

And at the end of the day, who you are, is who you are when no one is looking.

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