Chuck Gallagher is a professional speaker, telling his personal story of how lapses in judgement regarding business ethics can, and very often will, have disastrous effects on a person’s livelihood and worldview. The 50-minute long video is full of interesting food for thought, but I will summarize the three points which stood out most to me.
The full gravity of one’s own actions, no matter how minute or how benign or how heinous they are, only really weigh upon the mind and the heart upon the realization that those actions have come back to haunt you and that the consequences will change your life irrevocably forever. To have your world come crashing down upon you is one thing, but the reality is that the immediate crash is just the beginning, but the ripples will follow you to the grave.
At times it seems like the only means by which one can be successful in business is to throw scruples out of the window and accrue value and prosperity through illegal means. This is the type of perception which The further away the direct impact of the wrongful action, the easier it is to go through with that action and when you get away with it the first few times, you feel unstoppable. That feeling of invulnerability completely warps a person’s moral ideology and whether or not something is unscrupulous becomes irrelevant in the light of the potential gains of making that ethical leap.
But even at the lowest point; in that moment when you think the only way out is to hide under a rock, whither away, and die, the fact of the matter is that there is no point of no return. There is always a way to climb back up and find the light. Self-reflection and finding a deeper understanding of who you are, what you stand for, and how your choices have, and will continue to, define you are what it means to create and build up a positive ethical framework around which you live your life and cement your place in the world. Ethical behavior is not just knowing the difference between right and wrong; it is knowing that the only way to live is without regret, without wondering when the police will kick your door down and rip you out of the home you never really felt you earned in the first place.
Antoine Bolden
Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkXAnd_dZtY
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