One of the
reasons
I sought him out and asked him if he'd
consider
being a
personal
coach for me, is his
integrity
is totally and
completely
1,000%
unmessable with.
If you violate his
integrity,
or if you violate your own
integrity
in his
presence,
there's not simply a raised eyebrow, a mild rebuke, a slap on the
wrist, or a token fine of
one dollar.
No, there are major repercussions instantly. He'll
explode (figuratively of course) in a way you've never seen a
human being
explode before in your life.
He doesn't merely
get
angry. He doesn't (what we sometimes call) "lose it". Both of those are
reactivations
over which there's no
mastery
or control. No, when he explodes he's totallymasterful
and in control - like those
masterfully
controlled demolition explosions that bring down buildings all in one
pile without so much as littering the nearby streets. His is a directed
explosion. It's as carefully crafted and as precisely managed as only a
directed explosion can be. And it's directed at you - or
at least at your
integrity
violation. He's not nice about it. He has zero tolerance
for
integrity
violations and wishy-washyintegrity.
That's his
power.
He's really
powerful.
No, it's more than that. He's scarypowerful
- and that's what makes him so great to be around (if you have
the heart
for it). That's what makes him such a great coach. Then, once you've
owned up to and cleaned up the
integrity
violation, the explosion vanishes - as if it never
happened.
One day I shared something with him I had
written
in an
essay.
It had a quality to it such that when I read it back to myself, I heard
myself say "Damn! That's good.". You know, there really
wasn't any
ego
in it. It really was good. And when I read it to him, he
said "You can't say that.".
Say whut? He's telling me what I can say and
what I can't say??? "You can't say that" he said again,
"Don't take this
personally.
You just can't say that.". He didn't explode - at least, not yet. But I
could tell the match was lit, ready, and close to the fuse.
That's when I took the leap - just because it was him. I erased what
I'd written just because he said I can't say it. I didn't do it
because it was a prohibition. I did it because I
got
there was an
integrity
issue. And the thing is, it wasn't myintegrity
issue: it was hisintegrity
issue. And his
integrity
is my
integrity.
Mi casa es su casa. I erased it, knowing (sight unseen) that
doing so would be valuable (I trust him that much).
For me, that was an
integrity
first. I didn't not say what I was going to say because it was an
integrity
issue for me. I didn't say what I was going to say because it was an
integrity
issue for him ie for someone else. For the first time I
experienced my own
integritytied to another's
integrity.
Alone on the
mountain
with a respected international
climber
(if you will) pitoned to the cliff
face,
there was nobody around who could see or comment on my bravery and
courage. No one. Only him and me. It was a pure
act
of
integrity for integrity's
sake.
There would be no rewards, no kudos, no
ego
strokes. He knew. And I knew. That was us. But
the world
would never know.
Interestingly
enough, everything I did and said with anyone else from
then on, was tighter. It had an extra dimension of
integrity
- even though nobody knew.
Here's what I
got
from that
incident:
being in
integrity
is a
stand
you take regardless of whether or not there are rewards, kudos,
ego
strokes, or people knowing how great you are for it. Arguably, being in
integrity
by yourself for yourself is the ultimate
stand.
Being in
integrity
for the rewards, the kudos, the
ego
strokes, for people knowing how great you are, or because it's the
right thing to do, is wishy-washy
integrity,
wishy-washy enough to merit being demolished by a controlled explosion.