I’ve said it over and over again… when it comes to people, integrity comes first. It is the biggest thing I look for when sizing up another person. Just like financial investments I like to high quality investments in the people I deal with and get close to.

It’s sometimes sad that a lot of well intentioned people aren’t able to work with me because of this. Wait…No it’s not! If a person doesn’t have adequate integrity then that kills them in my book. Integrity is my main people firewall. A person must have a lot of it to get anywhere meaningful with me.

The truly sad thing is that many people do not have much integrity. I’ve noticed a substantial downtrend with integrity in people since when I was young and it will only get worse on the whole in my opinion. That’s all the more reason to have smarter approaches with people.

I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t have much integrity. Well maybe I could since it is most likely the integrity that makes me care now, but I’ll save that one for a future philosophy blog post.