What is your integrity and your reputation worth to you?
People often overvalue the short-term consequences of a decision, and undervalue the long-term consequences. Careers these days can last 40 or 50 years (or more!) and what people will remember of you is their trust in you, and whether you acted in #integrity with your values. It can take years to build #trust with somebody, and one moment to lose that trust.
And yet people regularly decide to risk that trust for some short-term benefit e.g. a businessman trying to scam a customer for an extra sale, or a husband cheating on his spouse for a moment of pleasure. They may think they can get away with it, and maybe they do in that one instance, but it’s risking their integrity and reputation as that’s all they will be remembered for if and when they do get caught. There’s a saying in investing that it’s like picking up pennies in front of a steamroller – you might manage it for a bit, but you’ll eventually get squashed.
When you’re in a situation where it feels tempting to get a short-term benefit by doing something that’s not aligned with your values, ask yourself how do you want to be remembered? Is the short-term benefit worth your #reputation?
Another way to check if you are acting out of alignment is if you feel you have to keep it secret from your friends or others you respect. One of the benefits of integrity is that you don’t have to hide what you’re doing, because your behavior is consistent with your values. In Charlie Munger’s last podcast interview with John Collison, he emphasized that he only wanted to invest in win-win businesses that delivered products or services that people were happy to pay for; he said that’s the only way to create lasting value. I agree – integrity and trust are what last.