An excerpt by Jim Lichtman

it began like this…

I was speaking to a group of about four hundred managers, administrators and trustees in Philadelphia – a group that was genuinely interested in ethics. Not an easy sell, ethics. But since this group handled large amounts of teacher pension funds, they felt more than a little sense of duty.

At the end of the talk, I left them with a story told to me by my ethics professor, Michael Josephson. “Imagine,” I told them, “you have a difficult decision to make at work. If you do the right thing, serious consequences, you might lose your job. If you do the wrong thing, you may get a promotion or a bonus out of it! Now, imagine that you've made your decision and you take it home to your family. There are two ways this story could end.

“First way: You sit your family down and say, ‘I did something at work today that I'm not very proud of, but I want you to know that I did it because I love you and I want to take care of you.’

“Second way: ‘I did something at work today that concerns me and may have serious consequences that would affect us all. We might have to move out of this nice home. I might have to pull you out of school. I may lose my job. I just want you to know that I did what I thought was the right thing. And I love you and I hope you'll support my decision.’

“Which of the two versions would you rather tell your family?”

The room was silent.

The intent was to leave them with the question that if we all had to make decisions with our family looking over our shoulder, would we be comfortable, proud even, of the decisions we make?

In line to check out of the hotel, luggage in hand, an ever-so-polite, gray-haired man touches my arm, “…excuse me, I want to thank you for your talk this morning. I just wanted you to know,” he continued, “that story you told about ‘taking it to your family,’ that actually happened to me."

I stepped out of line and put my bag down. It was one of those moments where, in spite of the commotion and noise of a large hotel lobby, I heard nothing else but this man’s story.

"It was the ‘30s,” he began, ”the depths of the Depression, and my father did not have regular work, but he had a reputation for being a man of great integrity. One day, the owner of a local bar asked him to come to work as his bartender. It seems the man was having trouble finding someone who was honest and could keep his hands out of the till. Knowing my father to be rigorously honest, the man offered him thirty-five dollars a week if he took the job. However, there was one problem: my father did not drink; both he and my mother came from families who were opposed to drinking on religious principle. Interested in any offer that could help his family financially, my father was troubled because his principles did not hold with working in a bar. So, he came home and brought the decision to his family.

"He sat us all down, my mother, older brother, and myself and told us about the offer. He explained that, although this was a good opportunity to make a lot of money, it would mean doing something that he was morally opposed to. “‘So, I'm asking you,’ my father said, ‘what should I do?’

"My brother, who was eight at the time and two years older than me, asked, ‘Will Grandpa know about this job?'

"’No,’ my father said. ‘Grandpa lives several hundred miles away, in the next state.’

"Then my brother asked, ‘Will God know about this?’

"My father smiled, realizing what he’d believed all along, and said that he wouldn't be taking that job."

Whether you agree or disagree that drinking is immoral is not the point. This man saw, by his father’s own actions, that it was more important to stand by his principles than achieve personal gain, even with a family to support.

Looking into the man’s 70-something eyes, I could see that this still had a powerful effect on him. "I was six-years-old at the time,” he said, “but I never forgot that moment. Whenever I had a tough decision to make, I always remembered what my father said and what it meant – that his integrity was more important than anything else."

I thanked him for his story. We smiled, shook hands and I left. The whole moment lasted maybe four minutes, but it was all I thought about for the next ninety minutes on the train.

It didn’t take long to realize that there were more stories like this, stories that could inspire us to a higher standard of conduct. If we are ever to bring about meaningful change in our world, surely we must start with ourselves.

So, I came up with a question, sent it out to athletes, CEOs, clerics, journalists, political leaders, students, teachers, and others, then collected their responses.

The result is this book, whose purpose is to encourage each of us to live up to our highest aspirations.