Your Integrity Or Your Appetite

What is integrity? Do you have it? In this special episode, Dr. Kim Grimes defines the concept of integrity and how it affects how we live our lives. She delves into how it bleeds through our relationships, lifestyles, and businesses. She also talks about our struggles of living life with integrity, pointing to our appetite as the root cause. Dr. Kim defines appetite and shows the ways it threatens us. Listen to this insightful and eye-opening episode and find out what’s guiding your life.

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Your Integrity Or Your Appetite

We want to empower you to be true to how you were created. It is about you not allowing people’s opinions to affect how you show up in life and not wasting time being intimidated by the presence of others while thinking so little of yourself. We are about not allowing the world to dim our glamour. We are here to encourage you, uncover your greatness, find your true identity and own who God created you to be because you owe no one an apology for being true to yourself or for being you. You are you. When you show up being you, you will empower others to shine their light. You will share your love and help others to tap into their greatness.

I have a quick program note for you. This will be our last weekly episode but we are not going away. We are shifting from weekly releases to every other week. Instead of 4 episodes a month, we are moving to 2 episodes. My schedule is picking up a bit. Between coaching clients, training, speaking and vacationing, I am swamped but it is a good swamped. I love it every day, shout-out to all of those who are living their best life ever. With that being said, I promise we are not going away. Instead, we are doing a little shifting.

Let’s move to the next series topic that we want to talk about. You all know that instead of having my guests speak on several topics across different topics on and on, I like to have several of our guests speak on one topic so we can get different perspectives and they can share the different tools and techniques that they use in their lives to help propel them forward. We want to propel forward in life.

Why Integrity

Our next series topic is integrity. In the post COVID era, I am witnessing so much dishonesty, untruthfulness, an increase in violence and so much more. I am quite sure you are witnessing it as well. You are not exempt from seeing what I see and because of this, I want to have a conversation about integrity. I believe that is the issue. Integrity plays a huge role.

What is integrity? Do you have it? You may be familiar with a phrase called structural integrity. When you look it up, you will see that it is a building science phrase. The technical definition of structural integrity is the ability of a structure to withstand its intended load without failing due to fracture or fatigue. Unfortunately, we have seen structural integrity and the lack thereof in Miami when that building collapsed. That is what happens when a structure is cracked, fatigued and maintenance is not performed and not able to bear the load.

This series is not about structural integrity. Instead, we will be discussing personal integrity. Have you heard of it? Do you have personal integrity? Before I define what integrity is, let me ask you a few questions. Are you willing to be bad to look good? Do you rather look good than be good or behave good? Do you do good, behave good or be good when it benefits you? Do you know that it is possible to be good without doing any good and doing anybody any good? That is known for being good for nothing and nobody. You do not want that. You want to be better than that.

What Is Integrity

Have you ever lied to someone, so they would not think you are a liar? Are you willing to serve or give to others even when it costs you? Do you experience failure of personal integrity? Here is what I have as integrity. Integrity is the resolve and courage to do the right thing and noble thing because it is the right and noble thing. Integrity is the courage and the will to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do. It is a noble thing to do, regardless of the consequences. Integrity is a universal inescapable expectation that assumes and ought to do right.

Here’s Proverbs 11:3. This is for the Bible scholars and those who are like me that follow Jesus. I am pulling this out of the New American Standard Bible version. This is what the Proverb says, “The integrity of the upright will guide them, but the crookedness of the treacherous will destroy them.” We know we ought to do right. When we do not, what we do will eventually destroy us, bottom line. Think about it.

Like structural integrity, the failure of your personal integrity impacts other people, especially those around you. Remember that structural integrity in Miami impacted all of those people that were living in that building. We lost numerous lives because of the structural integrity lacking in that building. I am saying the same thing. The failure of your personal integrity impacts other people’s lives around you, even more so those who are closest to you, who you love and love you back.

We want people to do what they say they ought to do, especially those who we depend on and those who depend on us, we want them to do what they ought to do and do what they said they would do. We want them to do that. Here is the thing. We are quick to excuse our personal lack of integrity but we are not as quick to excuse the breach of integrity in others, especially our loved ones, our friends and our leaders. We are quick to excuse that but not quick to excuse our own. Are we willing to be bad to look good? Integrity is the will and the courage to do the right thing because it is the right and noble thing to do regardless of the consequences.

Are you willing to do what you ought to do even if it will cost you? Am I willing to do what I ought to do even if it costs me? If not, what does that make you? What does it make me? Have you ever lied in an attempt to assure someone that you can be trusted? Have you ever compromised your integrity to protect your reputation as someone who has integrity? Would you agree?

Sometimes, we are willing to be bad to look good. When it comes to integrity, the external pressure to compromise our integrity is relentless. There is no one truly out there to help us with integrity. How do you move forward when you lack integrity? Let me ask you this. What is guiding you? Does your integrity guide you? If your trigger response is to lie, blame others or make excuses, then there is the clue.

There lies the clue to what is guiding you. If you are quick to abandon your integrity, then you need to ask yourself, “What is driving me?” Go ahead and ask yourself. You may discover that you are more concerned with looking good than being good. It is hard to have relationships with people who do not have integrity. Here is the challenge that we face. We do not know if integrity guides. Until maintaining it, we realize that it costs us something. It is okay to make mistakes and fail but it is not okay to cover it up and act as if nothing happened or whatever occurred that did not happen.

Your integrity is more important than your infallibility. The respect from others is contingent on your integrity and not on your failures and mistakes. The crookedness of the lack of your integrity will destroy you and the people around you. What is guiding you? The lack of integrity is personal but not private because it impacts the people that are around you.

Appetite: The Threat To Integrity

Think about this for a moment. Why is maintaining integrity so hard for me, for you and for people that are around us? Here is the answer. It is because of our appetite. Our appetites pose a constant threat to our integrity. Did you not know that? I stumbled upon that myself. Here is my point. We have to say no to our appetite to satisfy our personal integrity or we will say no to integrity to satisfy our appetite.

Our appetites compete with our integrity. We will be forced to satisfy one. We will say yes to one and say no to the other. We cannot have both. Here is a constant daily tension we live with every day and on every level of our lives. When we talk about appetite, what are we talking about? Let me share. We are talking about food, sex, acceptance, inclusion, respect, recognition, fame, progress and to be in need.

I am talking about obtaining stuff. Be empty because you got a lot of stuff and more stuff, our appetites of responsibility, achievement, accomplishment and winning. Every appetite that we have poses a threat to our integrity, believe it or not. We know our appetites are never fully and finally satisfied. Our appetites have word. What is that one word?

That one word is “more.” We want more. We want more food, sex, acceptance, inclusion, respect, recognition, fame, more stuff and accomplishments. Our appetites bait our comparison trap. We all know there is no winning when it comes to comparison. Our appetites always whisper, “I want it now.” Think about it. All the drive-throughs that we have of fast food, we’re like, “We want it now. Never later.” My appetite, your appetite and our appetites pose a threat to our integrity. The lack of our integrity poses a threat to our true identity.

We have to make decisions every day. Will our integrity or appetite guide us in these decisions? Will your integrity guide you? Will my integrity guide me or will it be my appetite? I have always said this. The easiest person to deceive is the person in the mirror. We lie to ourselves every day to satisfy our appetites. We create a narrative to defend our actions and then we believe the narrative, the excuses and justification. We will not face up to it at all. When we do this, we are never true to ourselves and we will live a dishonest life. The people around us know something is wrong but we will not admit it nor will we discuss it.

You can never be you, truly yourself or true to yourself, if you are lying to yourself. No one can know who you are as long as you are lying to yourself. You cannot give yourself authenticity when you are lying to yourself. Our appetite competes with our integrity. We will be forced to satisfy one or the other. We will say yes to our appetite and that means we can say no to our integrity. Our appetites compete for our future. We will either rule our appetites or our appetites will rule us.

Let me ask you some more questions to make you think about your personal integrity. What or who is difficult to say no to when you are to say no to? Who are those people? What are those things that you are having a hard time saying no to when you know you should say no to? What are you talking yourself into when the people that love you the most are trying to talk you out of it? What are you saying to yourself? “It is not a big deal if I do this. It does not matter if I choose this.” What are you doing that is not exactly illegal or immoral that you do not want anyone to know about you, you do not want to explain or talk about it?

We have no idea of what or who hangs in the balance of our decisions, whether or not we choose to trade our future for our appetite for now. Trading in your future for something that is here that gives you access to now, instead of waiting. You have it now, so recognize that it is going to be gone tomorrow because you are dealing with it now. Now means now and now is gone.

Our Integrity In Relation To Others

Are you willing to trade your future, your life, your relationships, your identity and your legacy to satisfy your appetite now? Integrity is the will and the courage to do the right thing because it is the right and noble thing to do, regardless of the consequence. Integrity determines the health and the depth of all our relationships.

My personal integrity is not just about me because my personal integrity always impacts the people around me. Integrity is not a religious topic, although there are divine components to it. When you dig and dive in deep, you will see that there are divine components to integrity. Integrity is essential for any relationship to last.

Are you willing to walk in integrity and vow not to trade what you value most for something you have an appetite for now, even if it costs you? Do what is right and what you ought to do, even if it costs you. What you ought to do is to walk and live in integrity. When integrity becomes our guide, there is a posture we will maintain.

You will stand up straight, respond and not react and take the long view instead of taking the “right now” view. Later is longer, when you respond and do not react, it serves you so much better. When integrity guides, you are not easily swayed by what people think of you. We are free to do whatever we want and for others as well, regardless of what they think and what others think of us. If I am overly concerned about what you think of me, I may not do what I need to do because I am overly concerned. I may not step up and tell you what you need to hear because I am overly concerned about what you think about me. My integrity can get compromised because I am consumed with myself.

Remember, it is not about you. It is about the people that are around you and us. What we have to do is tell ourselves often, “It is not about me. It is about the people that are around me. It is my integrity for my world.” Is it possible to be good without doing good? Integrity is about serving others. If my best is only for me, I am a sounding clanging gong. I am just noise and good for nothing. I am making a lot of noise because, my goodness is only for me. We all are brought to the point of tension where our selfishness is being confronted. We mask without goodness. It is all about me. I am confronted with that tension when I have to look to see, “Am I doing good for me? Is it all about me or is it to serve someone else?”

Let it be known and said that we walk in integrity, we are not easily swayed by others and your integrity guides you beyond you and who you were created to be. That is what your integrity will do. If we get this right, it will not be about how well we behave. That is not what is going to get people’s attention and what they are going to look at. What they are going to look at is going to be about how well we love. Our integrity will guide us beyond us into the lives of the people around us. It will most certainly shape our world.

Join my future guests and me as we take a deep dive into integrity. What is integrity? How do you get integrity? How to guard your integrity? How do you restore it when it is lacking? Join me in the next couple of episodes of our series, Integrity or Your Appetite. That is the name of it. It is easy to lose yourself in clashing ideas, conflicting beliefs, COVID-19 and the flood of information that we are receiving daily with society’s rigid expectations and endless opinions. Self-expression and self-appreciation can feel challenging and daunting.

Most of the time, this pushes you to dumb down, hide who you are and go with the flow but I am here to put us into this disparaging mindset and begin to own our authentic selves. That is why I am here and why this show exists. Please continue to join me here in a safe space for the episodes where I will initiate influential conversations about being you because you are you, unapologetically. No one is better at being you than you. Thank you for being here and for reading. I truly appreciate and honor your time. That is it for this episode. God bless.