A huge key in our pursuit of Financial Peace is absolute integrity. Without integrity it is impossible to achieve wealth and maintain it in our society. Many people believe that the wealthy have somehow cheated society, and this is how their wealth was built. I respectfully disagree. Without integrity, it would be impossible to forge the relationships needed to truly achieve interdependency, one of Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Currently I am attending an Army course for Postal Supervisors, at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. An alarming statistic is a constant reminder from our instructor. In a twelve month deployment, 3 out of every 11 soldiers assigned as Postal Clerks will be convicted of a Postal Crime. I am absolutely amazed by this statistic, yet in hearing people’s comments in class, I can point out the 5 or more in our class that will be convicted. With my law enforcement brain working overtime, I know that if 3 are convicted at least 3 more are doing the same thing without complete detection, or enough evidence for conviction.

This topic always leads me back to a decision I made back in January at Officer Basic. During this course, there was stiff competition from several very bright officers in the United States Army in order to make the Commandant’s List. I, with my competitive nature, was certainly one of those officers. There were five categories that are scored together to determine who makes the list: Academics, Army Physical Fitness Test, Rifle Marksmanship, Land Navigation, and Leadership. I finished with an overall 2nd best academic score, the APFT got me a little because I had to do an alternate event, so I received 249 out of 300 (the top score I can achieve is 260), I had the best rifle score, and I had a top score for leadership.

Then there was the land navigation. I, along with my other classmates, had heard that the course was not accurate with the maps, and needed updated. The only thing that was accurate was the coordinates. With only the coordinates to go by in a densely wooded area with at times multiple kilometers between points, it became difficult to determine if you were on the right point. Not helping the situation, there were points about every 50 meters, so if you were off even slightly, you would go to the wrong point, and then use the wrong starting point for your next point, and so on, making it impossible to find the correct points. Having a wonderful GPS device, I wanted to take it with me that morning, just to confirm my coordinates upon arriving at a point.  After much contemplation, I thought to myself, did I really want to win in that fashion?

I left the GPS at Dozier Hall (my home back then), and went out on the course that morning. We did a practice session in the morning. I hit all of my points perfect. That afternoon, we had the real thing. It would be scored and be a major part of our points for the Commandant’s List. My worst nightmare came true. I found my first point just fine. Then my second point was slightly off. Using the wrong reference for my remaining points, I finished the course with a score of 1 point out of 5, or 20% for my overall grade in this area. Had I not messed up this section, I certainly would have made the list, and the all important above the standard check on my academic evaluation report. I didn’t make the list, but I did keep my integrity.

The borrower is slave to the lender. I’m not sure if you have heard me say that yet or not, but it is a fact, straight from Proverbs. How do you think a master is going to treat his slave if the slave has no integrity? How are they going to listen to your plan? When you get out of slavery and are building wealth, who will want to do business with you if you have no integrity? This is the most important key in my book. I am certainly not perfect, but I will keep my word!