By Harvey Mackay
Was everyone as happy I was to see the election campaign season come to a close?
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Lots of fundamentally good people were running – it probably won’t matter all that much if any one individual gets elected or not – but suddenly, all these seemingly good folks were the targets of character assassination, 25 hours a day, eight days a week.
The more vigorously they defended themselves, the more adamantly their opponents attacked. Could they really be that bad?
No. Or anyway, not all of them. But realistically, how could they have gotten so far if they were such creeps?
The business world can be equally cutthroat. When you turn off the lights at the end of the day, you may have made or lost money, you may have won or lost customers, you may have made good or bad decisions. But if you have come through the day with your character intact, you haven’t lost anything that can’t be regained.
Once you compromise your character, however, that’s the beginning of the end. And you will always come home a loser.
One of my closest friends and someone I greatly admire, coach Lou Holtz, describes character this way: “The answers to three questions will determine your success or failure:
“1. Can people trust me to do my best?
“2. Am I committed to the task at hand?
“3. Do I care about other people and show it?
“If the answers to these questions are yes, there is no way you can fail.”
Over the years, I’ve learned some very important lessons about character. Let me share a few and give you a jump start:
Never compromise character because of your competition. Occasionally, you will discover that your biggest competitor has a better product or a better price or a better salesperson. That should spur you to positive action! Improve your product. Find a way to shave the cost. Hire well. Make your company better.
Character follows you wherever you go. You cannot escape and start over – unless you are in the witness-protection program, which wouldn’t be my first choice. It’s getting harder and harder to hide from your past. Don’t believe me? Google yourself. Set your mind to not having to apologize for anything or explain your bad behavior.
Building character is difficult, but rebuilding it is even harder. The inner self usually knows what’s right, so you would be wise to listen carefully to the little voices that are telling you to watch yourself. And if you refuse to trust your own instincts, ask a trusted friend. Make sure it’s someone who will be brutally honest with you.
Don’t blame your upbringing for your mistakes. Look around. Do you really believe for one minute that all these people who seem to make good decisions were raised with the Brady Bunch? Of course not. They accepted that they were adults, took responsibility for their behavior, and learned to take a few hard knocks.
Get used to doing the right thing. Once it becomes a habit, it’s a no-brainer. You’ll know you have figured it out when people come to you for advice about the right course to follow.
Be honest with yourself. It is just as easy to be honest as it is to be dishonest. Actually, I think it is easier, since you don’t have to have a good memory … and you won’t have to cover your tracks later. You may not always have the same friends, but you will always have to live with yourself. As Teddy Roosevelt said, “I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character!”
Thomas Jefferson, one of our most respected presidents, put it this way: “Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give up the earth itself and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose, that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing. Whenever you do a thing, though it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.”
That’s still good advice, even a couple hundred years later.
Mackay’s Moral: When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.
Harvey Mackay is author of the New York Times best-seller “Pushing the Envelope” (Ballantine Books). He can be reached through his Web site, www.mackay.com, or at Mackay Envelope Corp., 2100 Elm St., Minneapolis, MN 55414.
