Our capacity to influence grows with our capacity to live with increased integrity. Robert Fritz speaks of making fundamental decisions about who we are. He says many people have “chosen the religious path, without making the fundamental choice to live in accordance with their highest spiritual truths.” Likewise, “many people have chosen to be married, without making the fundamental choice to live from within a committed relationship.”
Fundamental choices are choices to live by higher principles regardless of circumstance. In any situation, regardless of the emotions we feel, we will live by a fundamental choice.
Steven Covey speaks of this as inside-out approach. As we commit to live by fundamental principles, the principles elevate us to places where other people do not go. Covey says we get on “an upward spiral of growth that leads to progressively higher forms of responsible independence and effective interdependence.”
What he means by responsible independence is the capacity to live with personal discipline, to make and live with fundamental decisions. The point I want to make is that we have the capacity to increase our personal discipline.
When we increase personal discipline, we experience positive emotions and we act with greater confidence. This alters our interdependence. When we feel more positive, virtuous and confident, we see people more positively than we saw them before. We act towards them in more positive ways. They then respond in new ways. The relationship becomes more positive. When we elevate our character, we elevate the external world.
Reflection
What fundamental decisions have I made in my life?
What were the impacts?
How could we use this passage to create a more positive organization?
