Tag Archives: integrity

You’ve Fallen – What Now?

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“You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” Mary Pickford

Every now and then, even the best have a poor day. An actor fluffs a line, a singer misses a note, Tiger Woods misses a road. These days of woke, a slip of the tongue causes offence and you are the one in the wrong, undermining hundreds of years of basic law about intent being the important element of a crime, not the ‘feelings’ of the other party. People are losing jobs because of momentary lapses of judgment that have nothing to do with their actual job performance – and often because the ‘offendee’ has an agenda (newspaper sales, TV ratings, they want your job, etc.), and not because they were genuinely offended.

And you’re cast down. Do you stay there?

It’s entirely up to you.

Here’s some advice for those who fall. Get up and start again from the First Resolution. Re-establish the disciplines that made you the success you were until only moments ago. Address the mistake by deciding either to never repeat it or to stand by it. Depending on your perspective and the nature of the event – you decide. If you were guilty, in part or in full, accept your tort and never do it again. If you weren’t, be steadfast and step away from the situation before it worsens.

Then look at the Second Resolution: revisit your sense of character, a massive element of which is Integrity. What does your conscience say about your ‘offence’? Was it wrong – if so, decide never to do it again. If not, conclude others were in the wrong and move forward. Examine your professional competencies: which ones weren’t what they could have been – if personalities were involved, what did you miss? Who did you fail to judge accurately? What nagging doubts (‘yellow alerts’) did you ignore? What action did you fear to take? It is rarely your professional competency that fails – it is almost always relationship-related – people, in other words.

Finally, consider the Third Resolution: can you still follow through on your sense of purpose, even if it is in a different way? Who can you serve, instead? What skills do you have that haven’t been compromised or lessened by your fall, that can be put to good, or even better use?

This* happens. But only death can really stop you doing something meaningful with your life. Anything else is a temporary distraction if you decide that to be so. The world is full of recovery stories – write your own if you need to. Use the philosophies available through the many books on purpose, discipline, and so on. Discover an alternative route to the end that what you lost was intended to provide.  

Apply The Three Resolutions.

Get Better. BE Better.

Starting the moment you get over what happened.

*An anagram

Buy this book – Be Like Russ.

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Why did you pick up a personal development book?

You are on Amazon or you are in a bookshop, searching in the business or self-help section for one of a few reasons.

  • You’ve tripped over it by mistake. Could be serendipitous, and you’ve accidentally discovered something that piques your interest.
  • You have recently been introduced to the concept of personal development and are exploring available options. You are looking to be better than you perceive you are. This is your first foray in the well of wisdom. Good luck. There’s plenty to see, here.
  • This isn’t your first self-help book. You are an avid reader of this kind of material. You’re addicted to researching the solutions that all your previous reading hasn’t provided. I feel your pain, because I have been there. Like me, you’re into ‘shelf-development’ by accident.
  • You are already successful by all ‘normal’ societal measures but there’s something that you either can put your finger on and you think an answer might be found within these pages, or you can’t put your finder on ‘it’ and you hope to realise what it is as you progress through the chapters. You’d be surprised how many potential readers come under this description.

But do you want to buy and read it, yet? No?

Let’s explore further.

Do you know someone who you think represents your ideal? And why do you think that person is your ‘ideal’?

I had someone in mind when I wrote that question. He was a consummate professional, arguably a leader in his field even though when I really knew him he held low rank in the organisation for which we both worked. He was at the same time one of the most caring supervisors and individuals I had ever known. His name is Russ. I hope you know someone like that.

If you really study people like Russ, you will notice certain things. You’d probably notice that they possess six character traits, and in my book The Three Resolutions I argue that those six traits come under three pairings. Mastery of those pairings will enable you to emulate your ideal and thus become someone else’s representation of ‘great’. Oddly enough, if you look at disgraced celebrities and politicians you will notice the lack of some or more of the same six character traits that make for true greatness.

Do you want to know what they are? Better still, do you want to possess them yourself? Good. But wait a little longer before making the commitment.

What if I said this was a book on ‘the simple, quick way to success?’ Would you buy it then? I certainly hope not.

We should all strive to be the best at what we can do. That is the objective of much of the personal development literature out there, but I think there is one problem with a lot of it.

A lot of the books have a tendency to over-promises and under-deliver. They offer ‘massive’ success, ‘greatness’, an ideal that is all too often defined as rich, famous and accompanied by the lifestyle of millionaires. Which is not to say that isn’t a worthy ambition and that you should never, ever pursue such a goal.

Unfortunately, the sad, sobering truth is that we can’t all be at the top of our respective field, even if we can strive towards that goal. We can’t all be celebrities because don’t all have voices like Katherine Jenkins or Andrea Bocelli, we can’t all act like George Clooney or Tom Hanks, and we can’t all write like J.K. Rowling and Lee Child. We can’t all be immensely rich because there’d be no-one left to do the work that we do. Economics would make all millionaires ‘poor’ if that was even possible. We can’t all run the organisation we work for, because there’d be nobody in the shop floor making the widgets we need to sell in order to pay our salaries.

Which is not to say we can’t try. And I will argue that we all have an inkling of what is required, but many of us tend to avoid actually doing it.

The six character traits under the three ‘headings’ are easy to understand, I assure you. The challenge is that they can be surprisingly hard to do. True greatness doesn’t come about through just pottering at something – it takes some effort, at least. I can’t make it easier to do, sorry and all that. Any author/ trainer/coach who says s/he can, is a liar. A charlatan. A snake-oil salesman.

But what I can do is make it easier to understand the traits, systematically help you see how they inter-relate, and motivate you to do something about what you discover.

Are you willing to consider doing that? To putting in the effort to understand and then actively apply what you read?

Still not convinced? Okay, let me try another tack. What if you don’t buy this book, don’t study its content and leave your success to accident, to other people’s design, or to fortune? What do you think will happen? Could you win a lottery if you haven’t bought a ticket? Can you get a job you haven’t applied for? Can you have a beautiful garden you don’t plant, nurture and maintain? In fact, can you get anything meaningful without taking action towards that end? Without at least doing something? Everything in life requires input if we are going to get output. Everything.

The fact is that while there’s not enough room for everyone to be at the top because the bar is always rising (and what represents talent changes with the mood of the client!), there is no need to be despondent because there is one thing at which we can be best, and once we achieve that we can all have the potential to go for the bigger things.

The one thing at which you can be great is – being the real, best, most competent, nice, disciplined, healthy, slim, helpful, dutiful and ultimately Russ-like ‘you’.

And that’s where The Three Resolutions come in. I invite you to read about them while you’re stuck indoors – and before you’re set free and accidentally default to how things were before.

Vietnam and The Three Resolutions

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For the past 8 days I have been dutifully watching a PBS documentary series on the Vietnam War, covering the 1961-1973 American involvement in what had hitherto been a French problem. And the overarching message that I have received has been – if they’d just applied the Second and Third Resolutions, maybe the lives of 282,000 US/South Vietnamese and other allies’ service personnel, 444,000 North Vietnamese/Viet Cong soldiers, and  627,000 civilians, would have been saved. Not all, I suspect – if North Vietnam had simply been handed control there would no doubt have been the kind of casualties usually associated with a communist takeover.*

Why would the Second Resolution have saved them? Character.

You see, the recurring message of the testimony and evidence produced showed (a) how often the US authorities admitted, in secret, that they were fighting a losing battle from when Kennedy was still alive and (b) that the self-interest of Presidential re-election was the focus of some of their decision-making. They even produced evidence that Nixon sabotaged peace talks as a way of supporting his efforts to replace Lyndon Johnson in the 1968 elections. How many of his citizens dies because of self-interest – because of a lack of character?

Which also brings up the Third Resolution. The other factors that killed countless people was unbridled ambition on the part of the leaders of both sides. The North could argue that they wanted to unite their country under one flag, albeit a communist one. The American evidence was clearly that, rather than acknowledge a huge error and step back from it with careful consideration as to how, they just threw people at it to avoid having to admit to a mistake – even someone else’s! Just to maintain power 6,000 miles away.

When I saw how many soldiers died taking ‘strategically important’ hills, only for the victors – survivors – to leave them once they got to the top, I was grateful that my children never volunteered to join the Forces, and simultaneously even more respectful of those who do.

I have always been willing to acknowledge and apologise for my mistakes. Even when my efforts have been rebuffed, and lies told about my errors, my disappointment has been more about another’s unwillingness to accept my apology out of self-interest, than it has been about the negative personal consequences.

Saying sorry often takes courage. It means acknowledging imperfection, it means risking a reputation – it means being vulnerable. Acknowledgement of a genuine effort to apologise is the least one can ask for.

But as Vietnam shows, stubborn insistence on ‘being right’ when patently ‘doing wrong’ in an effort to hide being even more wrongis dangerous to everyone involved.

Particularly for those who didn’t realise they were being misused by the players in the game.

Tell the truth. Live the truth, Acknowledge the truth.

Whatever happens.

*Turns out there weren’t any massacres. Just big re-education camps. Honest.

The Great Advantage

16 Wednesday Sep 2020

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“To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom,” said Socrates. Wise fella.

But you should take into account that while knowing yourself is desirable, it is neither the sole objective of self-analysis, nor the sole result. You can know yourself but you have to want to do that for a reason (purpose, for example). And once you know yourself there is a kind of added benefit.

To identify that benefit, consider this question: “Unless I understand myself, how can I expect others to understand me – and to understand others, myself?” In my latest book, The Way, I describe a process for discovering your personal values and rules, those states of being and definitions of what is and isn’t ‘right’. Not ‘right’ in the legal or even moral sense – they are matters for you – but ‘right’ in your own mind and soul. These values and rules are the reasons why other people annoy you, and why you feel guilty when you act in a way that you know isn’t ‘right’.

Having discovered your own values, you also discover that other people have values and rules – and they can be (often and routinely ARE) different to yours. They may use the same words, but they define their values and set their own rules for interpreting when they are or aren’t, or someone else is or isn’t, ‘compliant’.

That’s why, for example, as a time management and personal organising nutcase I get absolutely tampin’ mad (serious tampin’ – no g) when my beloved wife doesn’t display quote the same levels of effort in their regard.

Look at your own personality conflicts at work or in the family – are they merely the result of seeing things differently – of placing different levels of importance on stuff, or playing by different rules?

Once you know you have values and rules and others do as well, you are most of the way to understanding others better, and to being able to communicate at a higher level. Instead of (as we all do) listening while rehearsing our pithy comeback or superior argument, we try to fully understand the meaning of what is being said – the hidden, unstated concerns and motives.

That’s the problem with Twitter. You have 240 characters on a digital page to express an opinion. People read what you write, think they understand you despite having never met you, and make a conclusion – but a conclusion based on their values, paradigms and conditioning. They don’t read what you mean – they read what they have decided you mean.

Good reason for not getting involved.

Take some time to consider what is important to you, and then define that exactly. Recognise as you do so that what is important to you is not necessarily as important to others, even if they say they value the same thing. They may define it differently, or they may place that value on a lower rung in preference for something that is more important – to them, if not to you.

Shameless plug – my book The Way deals with this in 150 pages of observation, explanation and encouragement for a reader interested in discovering exactly what it is they’re ‘about’. Which gives you an advantage over anyone who hasn’t the foggiest idea.

Incongruence cost me – don’t let it cost you.

09 Thursday Apr 2020

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Ever done something you wish you hadn’t? Ever spoken down to someone when you didn’t mean to? Ever knowingly broken a rule, then regretted it? Ever judged a situation at a time of emotional disquiet, acted accordingly and then realised you had it wrong and always did – but let your emotion rule your thinking?

I’ve done most, if not all of those. And in each case, the fault lay within my acquiescing to the deed because I wasn’t wholly acting congruently – that is, either with my own values or (and this is important) the stated values of the organisation for which I was working. I may not have agreed wholeheartedly with those values but I should have accepted and complied with them. Silly me.

In lesser circumstances, the lack of integrity had short term results – poorer relationships that meant reluctance to engage with someone when I really needed to do so. Phone calls being put off, visits being postponed, and so on.

In the worst case, I felt I had to leave my job. Not entirely because of the offending act but because of the untenable situation it left me in. Nevertheless, the time management/productivity consequence of my failure to act with congruence was no job to manage or to be congruent about.

In TimePower, Charles R. Hobbs discussed how a lack of personal integrity – which I never thought was different to professional integrity but my job loss suggests otherwise! – causes problems not just in the productivity sense but also in terms of our own sense of self-esteem.

(I’ve known people use the term ‘personal self-esteem‘. What other kind of self-esteem could there be?)

When we fail to meet our own standards we tend to dwell on that failure. I’m not talking about failure in the sporting sense. If we didn’t fail to win at sports, no-one else would, either. To paraphrase Ziglar, if someone didn’t come second the winner wouldn’t have been first, they’d have been ‘only’. I’m talking about the kind of failure that our conscience tells us is our own damn fault.

In other words, failing to act with integrity – congruence with our personal beliefs or those we have adopted – wastes time in self-examination, further self-doubt, lack of self-confidence and, potentially, a whole host of other things that stop us doing, effectively, what we are supposed to be doing.

Now ‘retired’, I find that my biggest regret isn’t the lost money I would have earned, but the inability to do the work I had the opportunity to do. And the realisation that even when I wasn’t happy at work, I could have been. Which is an odd thing to write about stressful work but it’s true. I now have less to manage my time about, and less of a need to have high professional standards.

Which isn’t to say I won’t have high amateur standards!

Of course, some lucky people have no personal or professional values, so their integrity can float around complying with anything it likes, so they never fracture their self-esteem.

And do you realise just how much you can’t trust those people?

In conclusion, therefore, I encourage you to spend time identifying your values fully, then decide whether you’ve complied with them so far and then how you’re going to be congruent with them from now on. That’s NOW ON, not ‘in the future’, which is a bit nebulous. If you need help in doing that, it is available HERE. At no cost.

It IS worth the effort, and NOW is the time.

Eight lies for every one. Well done, you.

20 Thursday Feb 2020

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Disingenuous. A word used by politicians when they are lying. Of course, they aren’t ‘really’ lying. They are twisting definitions and facts to fit their rhetoric. They will knowingly argue that black is white by arguing that certain words and facts underpin their case, while deliberately – sorry, unintentionally – ignoring or hiding the truth.

I wonder how many people on LinkedIn find that political method annoying? Lots of you? Most of you?

How about the ones who have been ‘nominated’ for an Award – having applied to win it? How about organisations that are ‘recommended’ or ‘endorsed’ by authoritative sounding bodies, when in fact they are truly neither and have paid for an advert. ‘Well, if the august body accepts our money for an ad, surely that is an endorsement? After all, they won’t accept money from just anybody.’ (Oh, and yes, it has an exclusivity clause so no-one else can be ‘endorsed’.)

How about the ‘I am delighted to be given this (poison chalice) as it is an opportunity to (delete as applicable)?’

A few years ago, some Police Federation reps were hauled over the coals for being ‘disingenuous’ about what a politician had just said to them in a meeting. In front of the Home Affairs Select Committee they apologised for the misunderstanding.

Personally, I think I’d have pointed out to the MPs on said committee that we’d learned about lily-guilding by watching them. But of course, politicians can be disingenuous. The rest of us are liars.

We all lie. Mainly to ourselves about food, drink, fags and exercise. Personally, I try my best not to. I pride myself on telling the truth even if it doesn’t serve me to do so. I recently underwent exactly that experience. I’m probably far from perfect but I do my best. I consider it a matter of personal integrity. (Which, unfortunately, wasn’t matched by the lauded principle of ‘forgiveness’. But that wasn’t the motive, anyway.)

Which is why, when I read some of the exaggerations and hyperbole on LinkedIn, I grieve for the days when people just told the truth. I mourn the day when our betters started receiving advice on how to avoid questions, how to twist truths to suit them, how to pee on our boots while bemoaning the weather.

But I mourn, most of all, the day when ‘we’ – or some of ‘us’ – decided that if it’s okay for them to do it, it’s okay for us to do it, too.

Research has suggested that for every lie we tell, we need to tell seven more to cover for it. Imagine that – when a politician tells one lie, there are seven more close behind that we may never even hear.

And that great ‘independent and free press’ that prides itself on holding politicians to account? They do exactly the same, every day, with their half-truth headlines designed to attract your attention, and their half-arsed apologies when they’re caught out.

Okay, I surrender. Instead of pretending your telling the truth, just lie. Just talk bull, lie to me, exaggerate and just stay dishonest. As Captain Jack Sparrow put it, “I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.”

Or you can try Gary King’s Truth Challenge.

I dare you.

Even he failed – but made no excuse.

15 Friday Nov 2019

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A wise man once wrote, “I personally struggle with much of what I have shared (in this book). But the struggle is worthwhile and fulfilling. It gives meaning to my life and enables me to love, to serve – and to try again. The challenge to live with integrity is always in front of me.” (My italics.)

We all make mistakes. I recently made a monumental one. But the beauty of mistakes made by people with integrity is that (a) the pain is lessened because you know you can and will do better and (b) those who know you, know (a).

And we all make excuses. I have a philosophy on excuses. It goes like this – when you say why something happened and you acknowledge your part in it, that’s a ‘reason’. When you fail to acknowledge your own part in an error, you’re making an ‘excuse’.

The difference is subtle and relates to your integrity. You know when you are making one or the other. If you (normally) have a high level of personal integrity and you make an excuse – you know you’re doing so.

As alluded to by the writer of the opening quote, every moment is an opportunity to start again. Time, being linear, will not allow us to relive and repair the error before or as it is being made. But it does mean we can make a better decision, next time. Another of my favoured authors describes how trying to change the past is like firing an arrow into concrete – it bounces off and nothing changes. But firing an arrow into the future is like launching it into fresh earth – it can stick and be a guide. (I’m torturing the metaphor a bit, but you know what I’m getting at.)

I write on personal development and time management. Occasionally I will use current affairs to illustrate my points but the main focus is on counselling readers on a philosophy that might just improve their lives. Like them, I struggle with living 100% in keeping with the words I put on paper (except in time management, I’ve pretty much got that down pat). I occasionally make excuses for those times I fail to walk my talk as well as I should.

But I’m in good company. The author of the opening quote is Stephen R. Covey who, as you surely know by now, wrote the greatest book on principle-centred living ever written, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, which is NOT a business book, even though it’s usually found in that section of a bookstore. (Still, after 30 years in print.)

If HE found it hard, I’ll live with my inability to do the same. But that’s not an excuse. It’s an acceptance of my imperfections. I’m still going to try hard. And then try again. And again. For as long as it takes and for as long as I live.

And if, on the day before I leave this mortal existence, it suddenly all gels – it would have been worth the effort.

(Blimey. I even impressed me with that line.)

Try hard. Keep trying. Do your best, accept reasons and challenge your own excuses.

The people around you – family and friends – will recognise this when you occasionally err. And that, my friends, is amazingly consoling when you fail.

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100-Day Challenge, Day 66. Truth Hurts. A lot.

04 Monday Sep 2017

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I have long been an advocate of integrity excellence, a fundamental (but not exclusive) element of which is honesty. The principle of truth, spoken loud. The valued exercise of telling it like it is, even when doing so discloses, as Al Gore would put it, an inconvenient truth.

And the inconvenient truth on Day 66 is this: while I maintain that the Principles of Excellence in the physical and mental spheres always work, I have failed to work the Principles. I have known what to do, but I have failed to do it.

In my defence, the ‘excellence’ I have sought to perform in the competencies I look to possess has resulted in my being appointed a ‘Masters Mentor’ with the Institute of Advanced Motorists, and I look to produce high-quality work on a professional level. I still do my funky thing for all those I seek to serve.

But physically I am a wreck. I am no further forward in terms of weight loss from Day 1. Exercise-wise I have the genuine reason of a knee injury which, as much as I tried to compensate through different approaches to exercise, just got too painful to move. Even walking was challenging. Where I failed most of all was to not adapt my eating habits (a) to lose weight ‘at all’ and (b) to compensate for the inability to work out.

The ultimate weight-loss principle is and always will be ‘eat less, move more’. I started this Challenge by using the ‘move more’ approach and that worked. But when the injury kicked in I did not then apply the ‘eat less’ approach and that has meant, well, failure. There are 34 days left so I can still do something, but I am not going to hit my original target unless Montezuma seeks terrible revenge, and as far as I know I have not offended any Mexican gods.

Of course, as a personal development writer this has to reflect on my reputation – a bit. I occasionally feel like the clown who is sad inside: the clown, promoting laughter and entertainment while forever crying inside. But part of my challenge might be that I eventually face the possibility that I am comparing my situation, and potential, to that of the truly great writers, performers and coaches in this field, and looking to play like Ronaldo while only having the talent of a (insert name of good, non-International football player here).

I am reluctant to settle for less than ‘perfection’. Nobody should do that. But even perfection is subjective, because as soon as it is achieved someone will always come up with an even better version of it. And even if I did approach an ideal version of me, that very approach would inevitably identify an even better ‘better’. That ‘even higher standard’ could be identified because one of the giants in my field found it, even if I didn’t. And then I would think ‘here I go again’.

Anyway, I will carry on moving ever forward, seeking to finally achieve those elusive, higher levels of personal congruence that will enable me to truly walk my talk and be the individual I would dearly love to be.

Perhaps, as I write that last sentence, I realise that I have to ask myself some sobering questions:

“Am I willing to work hard enough to be the man I want to be? Exactly how dearly do I want to be the best ‘me’ I can be? Do I want it enough? And – finally – do I actually have a clear idea of what that best ‘me’ will look like when I finally get to ‘be’ that person?”

I guess we’ll find out. But one thing must apply. I won’t blindly adopt other peoples’ standards and measure the final ’me’ against those. They have their values, beliefs and behaviours and they are not necessarily mine.

The ultimate identifier and judge of my congruence with my values and unifying principles will be – me. Eventually.

Value your Values, Value Your SELF.

15 Sunday Nov 2015

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“The time is always right to do what is right.” Martin Luther King

“Values have been carved on monuments and spelled out in illuminated manuscripts. We do not need more of that. They must be made to live in the acts of me.” John W. Gardner

Actually, that last quote should have read ‘acts of men’. I was about to correct it when I recognised the existence of a Freudian typo – the values with which I profess to be congruent need to be lived within ME.

I was on a train this week and it is my routine when I do so to listen to music and read. I like being left to my reverie and to reinforce my understanding of the material I teach. It is a shame that I am societally prevented from belting out ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me’ (Meatloaf, best version), but maybe the other passengers would find that a blessing.

This week I was looking at a netbook I’m pretty sure I haven’t used in YEARS, and I discovered an old mission statement from, I believe, the mid-noughties. It spoke to me. It contained a list of values and behaviours and they all shouted, “Well?”

The list included things like discipline, effort, focus, temperance and so on. I reflected on what I read and like most of you reading this I concluded – “Making a good start, could be a LOT better, about time I tried harder.”

But it’s oh so haaaaaaard. As King alludes to, this means every drive-by of the fridge means exercising restraint. It means every time I see a car with fog lamps on in broad daylight I must not aim at them. It means – it means exercising integrity, and conscience, in every single moment of choice. In a way, it implies a need to live like a saint.

Except so few of us will ever be saints. Especially me. But we can do two things.

First, in recognising that we are fallible we can excuse the odd straying from the path provided we acknowledge that error, learn from it, and try not to repeat it. Even though we know we probably will transgress we can at least try not to.

Secondly, in recognising that we are fallible we can recognise that others are fallible, too. Which means not going ‘AHA!’ when they fail, realising that what we think is going on in their heads isn’t in fact the case, or that what is going on in their heads means that when they have made their error it is because they were distracted, or (and here’s one I thought of this week) that what we think is going on is, in fact, better for us than what we thought we wanted to happen. That it is not a transgression of integrity, it is in fact exercise of integrity and we just didn’t realise straight away.

Back to ‘us’. If we have values, we have them because we believe in them. Happiness comes from total compliance, misery comes from total non-compliance. Most of us live somewhere in between, most of the time. Try and have a holiday somewhere towards the former, now and then.

It’ll be worth it.

My thoughts this week are with those affected by the terrorist atrocity committed in Paris on the night of the 13th of November 2015.

VIVE LA FRANCE.

How to be like Malala Yousafzai.

08 Sunday Nov 2015

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“Integrity is never painless.” M. Scott Peck

At the moment we are being bombarded with adverts made by luvvies encouraging us to go and see the inevitable-soon-to-be-on-DVD film about Malala Yousafzai.

(Wow – no MSWord spellcheck: that’s how famous she must be).

(I’ll admit I am jaded by the ads: not because of the subject matter but by the luvvies, where I’m not sure of the balance between their genuine admiration for her, and their need to feel associated with her for publicity purposes. Cynical, yes, I know.)

But her story does illustrate Peck’s quote as topically as I can think of at the moment. Those of us in the personal development field are well versed in telling the stories of Ghandi and Mandela, Lincoln and Joan of Arc. But Malala is a modern – and arguably more ‘real’ example of integrity being shown while under real danger of intense pain. I say more real because the other stories are historic and based on what we know after these people became acknowledged greats. They achieved magnificence and then we found out how great they were. They had causes which affected millions, but that affect came later, as did their celebrity.

But Malala was ‘just’ a schoolgirl. She wasn’t planning to overthrow an unjust government. She didn’t plan to free a country. She wasn’t going to do any of those things.

She only thing she was going to – was school.

I might propose the hypothesis that integrity is easy when you have money and power to support and fund it. That would be trite but there would also be an element of reality infused in such a statement. I would find it easier to be ‘fit and healthy’ if I could afford gym membership, a personal trainer and large helpings of salmon as the mainstay of my diet. I’d find it easier to serve charities if I didn’t feel the need to keep the money I have, and to earn some more just to have a decent holiday now and then.

But – and this sounds a bit conceited – I could be more like Malala in one way, because what Malala did we can all do. It didn’t take money, it didn’t need intellect, and while it took courage it didn’t necessarily require ‘bravery’.

She believed in her right to be educated. So she went to school. She knew it was trouble but I am willing to bet that she never once thought she’d be killed for doing it. That kind of thing happens to other people, right? Like smokers who won’t get cancer, drinkers who won’t be alcoholics, and 17-year-old binge eaters who presumably won’t ever be 40 with a slower metabolism, it wasn’t her who’d be ‘the one’.

But that doesn’t alter the fact that she wanted to be educated, and so she went out and got educated even though it would have been easier not to run that risk at all.

Integrity sometimes sucks. But what a hole of a world it would be if some of us, indeed most of us, didn’t demonstrate some sense of personal integrity now and then. When we are called upon to tell the truth because not doing so would be a surrender to convention or corrupt influence, or cowardice, for example. When going for a long run when it’s raining. When challenging a divisive culture in the face of that culture, and the cowards that allow it to thrive.

It might feel like we’re risking everything, but unlike Malala we’re often only really risking inconvenience. We can at least have that much courage, can’t we?