Integrity

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Integrity

Updated: September 29, 2019

15,806 days into my life I’ve decided that this word – integrity – matters above all else.

I probably should have figured that out before…or at least made this declaration before. I’m not sure why it took this long to do so, but as I write this, I’m feeling great about putting it out there. (That said, the only way you should be reading this is if I sent you the link and the password).

Here’s the definition of integrity:

Every one of those definitions is something I can aspire to be. Incorruptible. Sound. Complete.

I haven’t been any of those consistently.

Now being a little inconsistent is acceptable to a point because I’m human. But the part that isn’t acceptable is that I haven’t put in nearly enough effort to live up to those definitions regularly.

So I am doing something about it starting today. This piece is the first thing.

Honesty is a massive part of integrity and I believe that transparency here is what’s called for. That’s why I’m writing this to you (and for you and me). I’m going to add to this piece over time; it’s a living document. I’ll let you know when I update it and it’ll be something that we can share together. I ask that you don’t share the password with anyone. A quote that I like about integrity (among others, which you’ll read about below) is as follows:

”Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” – C.S. Lewis

The only people I want watching are the people that I want to share this with from the onset. You’re among those people. My goal is that this piece acts as a journal entry that I can look back on and see where I was in October 2017 to where I am when I read it. And maybe it can help you along the way too.

Let’s move forward…

The second thing I did was replace my wallpapers on my devices with other quotes about integrity.

Quote One: iPhone

”Integrity is an ecosystem.” – Michael Leunig

This was one of the first quotes I found and it really resonated with me. Considering that I’m using the word “integrity” to guide my life more than ever before and I use the aspects of TimeCrafting to help me create better boundaries for my days, weeks, months, and more, it felt as if integrity is a lot like the sun is in our universe. For me, everything revolves around it. The words for each year. The themes for each month – personal, professional, hybrid. The Weekly Sprints. The Daily Themes. Everything. They all revolve around integrity.

I’ve only scratched the surface as to what this quote means for me. But now that it will be staring back at me every time I unlock my phone, I’m sure I’ll get even more out of it as time progresses.

Quote Two: iPad Pro

”Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” – Brené Brown

I use my iPad Pro a lot. Most of this piece was written on it. So putting this quote on its lock screen was wise.

Despite having Daily Themes locked in to my calendar, there have been more times than I’d like to admit that I took the fun, fast, and easy over what was right to do in some moments. There have been stretches of days where I’ve had missed journal entries and I’ve had to go back and enter them, all the while professing that you should write in one every day. I’ve also done my share of comfortable things over things that would take more courage to do – in all areas of my life.

I’ve got work to do. By placing this quote in front of me regularly, I will be able to make that work happen more consistently.

After all, another quote about integrity I found while writing this piece is:

“Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations and outcomes. It can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy.” – Unknown

Quote Three: MacBook Pro

No quote here, just the word “integrity” as written out by Danielle Laporte. It’s one of her core words from The Desire Map and I loved the black backdrop with the large script. It just suited my desktop on my MacBook Pro perfectly.

Now while integrity is about operating in alignment both in private and in public, I did want to share with you some of the things I’m going to do from now on when it comes to Productivityist. These were decisions I made on my own and in concert with others I work with about content and other aspects of Productivityist.

Productivityist Content

There’s a lot to unpack here and I’ll add more as needed, but for now I’d just like to say that my content schedule as of November 2019 going forward is as follows:

(I actually started much of this is September 2019 but the YouTube videos aren’t firing up until November.)

Joint Ventures

I’m scaling back on joint ventures that offer affiliate income. Why? Because while I wind up doing them for two reasons (to help people and to earn money), I sense that the latter has become the more powerful of those two reasons. That flies in the face of integrity.

So when I email you from now on it will be for one of three purposes:

  1. To share things I’ve read/watched/heard that captured my attention that I think you might like as well in my ATTN: email every Saturday.
  2. To share something of value with you every Tuesday. Sometimes it’ll be a question I have for you. Sometimes it’ll be something free for you to use to help you craft your time. But it will be something valuable.
  3. I will occasionally share a third email with you per week on Thursdays. As the work on my book progresses, most Thursday emails will be sent to those who asked for updates on the book. Every once in a while I’ll send an email that promotes something on Thursdays, but those will happen infrequently.

That’s right. No more daily emails. It’s burning me out and my guess is it will burn you out too (or already has).

I will talk about and promote things others have built that I think are valuable on social media. I may even do Facebook Live events, webinars, and things like that. But not through emails sent daily.

If there is anything else you’d like to hear from me about this, please don’t hesitate to email me at askmike (at) Productivityist (dot) com. I will email you back within three business days of receiving it.

Thanks for reading. I appreciate it.

P.S. Again, I’ll be adding to this piece regularly, so feel free to bookmark it for later reading. I’ll let you know when I update it.

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