[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everyone and welcome to the power being relentless at the expired cast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Michael Hanks and today we're going to be talking about ethics and relationships, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me start with a simple truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust is the currency of every relationship you will ever have.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the soil.
[SPEAKER_00]: to which love grows, the foundation or which businesses are built, and the bridge that connects one human heart to another.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what so many people miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: Trust has not built in in a single grand gesture, if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it's built relatively quietly and the small choices we make over and over again when no one's watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be relentless in ethics means you choose honesty even when a lie would be easier.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means you keep your word when breaking it would cost you nothing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means you treat people with dignity even when they can do nothing for you in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the kind of relentless that changes lives, and it's the kind of relentless we are exploring today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're going to root this conversation in scripture.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, let us begin, we're life begins in our personal relationships, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Our families, our friendships, our marriages, our close-sponstes.
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the relationships that shape us the most.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are also the relationships where trust matters most deeply.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about people.
[SPEAKER_00]: You trust the most in this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what is it about them that earns that trust?
[SPEAKER_00]: I would guess it comes down to a handful of things, really, they show up, they keep their promises, they tell the truth, even when it's hard to hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: They guard your secrets, they stand beside you in your lowest moments, none of those things happened by accident.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all the fruit of relentless, consistent character.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a passage in Ecclesiastes, chapter 6, verses 14 through 17.
[SPEAKER_00]: Faithful friends are sturdy sheltered, whoever finds one has found treasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can balance their worth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Faithful friends are life-saving medicine and those who fear the Lord will find them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship arrive.
[SPEAKER_00]: For as they are, so are their neighbors also.
[SPEAKER_00]: Set with that for just a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: A faithful friend is described as a sturdy shelter, a treasure, life-saving medicine.
[SPEAKER_00]: The way I personally look at trust is this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Take up, I want you to imagine a glass, like a cup that's glass, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, we're gonna pick to two of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of them has been broken.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of throwing it away, we've taped it up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, which one are you gonna grab first to drink out of?
[SPEAKER_00]: the one that's not damaged, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: The one that's not taped, that is trust, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: The one when somebody is dishonest with you, that's always gonna be part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now listen, it's happened before.
[SPEAKER_00]: People, you know, violate the trust and then, you know, hey, they repent, they pray about it and they become better and they become trustworthy friends again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, God bless them, that happens, but,
[SPEAKER_00]: when you destroy the root of something, which is trusting this case, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to overcome.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why the foundation of trust is so good.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll tell you right now, when you have, I'll tell you how to know you've got somebody really good in your life, a good friend, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's somebody that will tell you something, you don't wanna hear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you can find somebody that will do that, you've got a friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, let's talk about how trust gets broken, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to look at Ecclesiastes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Chapter 22 versus 19 through 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, one who pricks the eyebrows, tears, and one who pricks the heart makes clear its feelings.
[SPEAKER_00]: One who throws a stone at bird scares them away.
[SPEAKER_00]: and one who revives a free and reveals a free and destroys a free ship.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it gets even more pointed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if you draw your sword against a free and do not despair, for there is a way back.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you open your mouth against a free and do not worry for reconciliation as possible, but as for revealing arrogance, disclosure of secrets and treacherous blow,
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an honest piece of wisdom.
[SPEAKER_00]: It tells us that some wounds in relationship could be healed, an argument, a sharp word, a moment of anger.
[SPEAKER_00]: These things can be reconciled, reconciled.
[SPEAKER_00]: But listen, it names four things that sense for his running, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Your arrogance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Disclosure of secrets, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: When somebody puts trust in you and they feel comfortable up and up with you and you tell everybody, and then the treacherous blow of hidden betrayal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are trust killers and being relentless in ethics means we guard against all four with everything in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me get practical now, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because principles only change us when we apply them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's a few ways to be relentless in building trust in your first relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, keep your small promises.
[SPEAKER_00]: We tend to make trust as built in a big moment, but it's not, it's actually built over small ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say you will call, call.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say you'll be there, be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you say you'll keep something private, keep it private.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those small acts of faith on us compound over time into something unbreakable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, tell the truth with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a verse in Ephesians chapter four, verse 25, and then Bible here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So stop telling lies.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us tell our neighbors the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: For we are all parts of the same body, truth is not just for our benefit is for the health and the home relationship.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we lie, even with good intentions, we crack the foundation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Truth spoken with kindness, builds its bad stronger.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to tell the truth the love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now some people don't wanna hear the truth, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: I see some people tiptoe around the truth because, to me, it's just an act of cowardice.
[SPEAKER_00]: But some people will not tell the truth because they're worried about how somebody's going to feel about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tell people, and all my friends, and that one, I'm straight with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't want to know, don't ask me, because I'm just going to deliver the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to be rude about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm going to deliver it with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to deliver it with kindness.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to deliver it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm not going to do you be rude or disrespectful or anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I am going to because if we don't tell the truth, okay, let's just say we're working on a project or it at work, if we can't be honest and tell the truth, we're not going to discover the root causes and be able to fix the problem, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing in friendships.
[SPEAKER_00]: then you're, you've built a friendship of lies and it's, that's going to crown, that's going to crumble because it's not built on that foundation of trust.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the third one, but come a vault for the secrets people share with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: When someone trust you with their story, their struggle, their confession treated a sacred, nothing builds trust faster than no one that what you say to someone stays with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: This is so important, especially in
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's been churches before we're gossip just runs rampant, and, you know, I can, I can honestly say the church where I go to is really, it's really good, because there's people there that you can trust that you can open up with and they can pray for you, and that's the way it's intended for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fourth, show up in the hard seasons, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody sell bread cheap when things are good?
[SPEAKER_00]: A relentless friend stays when things fall apart.
[SPEAKER_00]: It clearly says he said it will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Gain the trust of your neighbor and his poverty so that you may rejoice with him and his prosperity.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I keep my circle so small.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was building,
[SPEAKER_00]: The power being relentless, and Brad, that we're building, rebuilt and rise, we, nobody was with us in the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody thought it would amount to any day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had very, very, very few people that supported it that believed in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are the people we call friends, because they were with us when nobody believed in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: When we didn't know how things were gonna work out,
[SPEAKER_00]: That, that right there when that's why you need to go through hard things in life, you need hard things in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you're going to find your true friends and you're going to find your true support systems.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because most people are just are not going to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most people are just not going to do hard things in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, preferably,
[SPEAKER_00]: me in.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to do hard things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need to wake up every morning, man, before the sun before the sun comes up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, number one, it's fate on the floor.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's what I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: When it soon is my eyes open in the day that I pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: God, thank you for another day on planet Earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: May everything I do today, bring honor, credit, and glory to your holy name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stand up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I put my hands in there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just surrender everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, dear Lord, I just surrender.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fear is highly depression.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anything that's not a view today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I declare that I'm free from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I declare I'm free from addiction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And anything that's not a view.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I start my day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feed my animals.
[SPEAKER_00]: I come in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do my devotional.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I go to the gym and work out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I go, then I get to work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to do hard things and pick the hard tasks.
[SPEAKER_00]: So me, I work out first thing in the morning, you know, I'm a triathlon athlete, I'm getting in.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I focus on that, but then I also focus on my work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I do is I take the hardest project first.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hardest thing I got going on and I do it first thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do the hard stuff, very first thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I see people, they,
[SPEAKER_00]: They wait to lock the end of the day to do their hardest projects.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, I've seen this a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or people want to delegate the hardest thing off to somebody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want the hardest thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, it gives you confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can build skills and learn different things about yourself, you know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as you do that hard thing, it builds your confidence for the rest of the day.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those other projects just seem to go by faster and faster, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I'd get it, like, for instance, okay, man, when I was at the least old store, we had a manager, he wasn't really involved in safe to say lazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it really got to one of the colleagues there, always complained about him not to and see, I ain't complain about it, I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did his job, I didn't care.
[SPEAKER_00]: That gave me skills.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would have never got to exercise those skills.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he was a, if he was a go-getter on top of things, I would have never got to learn that job.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't, and I took it, I did it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I mess up a course I messed up?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I learned from it and I grew from it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you're in those tough seasons like that, you know, I kind of got to track there, but I want you to know you need to do hard things.
[SPEAKER_00]: You need a group of men that you can talk about, do and hard things with, and hold each other accountable and push each other beyond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do something hard, and I promise you, the people that stand by you in those hard things, that you're friends.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's shift this from personal to more in a professional, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because here's something I won't see to understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same character that builds trust at home is the same character that builds trust at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't get to be one person with your family in a completely different person in the board room.
[SPEAKER_00]: Integrity is not a costume you put on and take off.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is who you are, we let us see in every room you walk into.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you wear it as a costume, people are going to pick you out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of them might take longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: Me, I'm a pretty quick judge character.
[SPEAKER_00]: So off I'll pay you in about 30 seconds.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in our careers, our businesses, leadership, ethics is not just a nice idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know a lot of times you have these different companies.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not knocking.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's really good companies that exercise it, but there's some that's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know some of you guys are gonna know right now where I'm going with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, they got ethics, bloke, like it's just a nice idea.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we've got, we've got ethics here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they'll have their little posters on the wall, their picture frames in.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, we win with integrity, you know, all these different things, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: But they don't exercise it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's the thing about ethics.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a competitive advantage.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do people want to do business with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do they want to follow?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do they want to partner with?
[SPEAKER_00]: Who do they want to recommend?
[SPEAKER_00]: People they can trust, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: your reputation for integrity will open doors that talent alone never could.
[SPEAKER_00]: The same passage in Proverbs 10, verse 9.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, applause, just as much to the offices it does to home.
[SPEAKER_00]: People with integrity walk safely, but those who follow crooked paths will be exposed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the professional world that sometimes reward shut-cut shortcuts and cut-and-cours, this is a powerful reminder.
[SPEAKER_00]: The crooked path may look faster, but it is built on sand.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path of integrity may look slower, but you can walk it safely for the rest of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's wisdom here in Colossians chapter 3 verse 9 that speaks directly to the working of the worships.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says, do not let each other for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds in business the temptation to shade the truth is constant.
[SPEAKER_00]: To overstate results, to how to mistake, to make a promise you're not sure you can keep, but every time you choose on a standys moment, you are building something far more valuable than any single deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: You were building a reputation that money can not buy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you what people do here that have to shade the truth and overstate results, had mistakes and making promises they can't keep.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's act of cowardice, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I go back and I know I've mentioned this before, about, you know, I had a balsin, I've got to look and end some of the people they were sending when I was at the,
[SPEAKER_00]: temporary agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, same thing, people just walking off the job, no show, no call, you know, bad attitudes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, let's go zone and own and I'm getting to notice a trend here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, what's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've noticed that the percentage of job orders we had that we weren't capable of filling all of those with reliable
[SPEAKER_00]: So with the liable employee, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So I talked about Balsepath this.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I said, you know, they're catching all of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, what's going on here?
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I've noticed.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, just lie to them if you have to.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought, okay, this isn't a place for me anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I go back and I didn't lie to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just wasn't just sending people out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I talked to the HR manager and he sent the other competitor out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, when things picked up, I talked with him and we got 100% of the business, but listen, if I would have lied and kept on, you know what would have happened, they would have been gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that eventually happened at that same place.
[SPEAKER_00]: After I left somebody else coming in and I know that's what they were doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The CEO stepped in, he talked with everybody, he found out what was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: He put one of his guys from the corporate office in to run one of the departments, because one of the managers turned in their notice and laughed to supervisors.
[SPEAKER_00]: And found out what was going on reported.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, no more.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, no more with that agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you'll weigh in there for a while.
[SPEAKER_00]: You'll make some money.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: You should work live.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, you build it all sand, it crumbles down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me offer you some practical ways, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: To be relentless in your professional ethics.
[SPEAKER_00]: First, do what you're gonna say you're gonna do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, do what you say you're gonna do, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you make a delivery that you promised, then you see that, you know, an issue's come up and you're not gonna be able to make that delivery, call that person before the deadline as I say, hey, I've run into this issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know that I'm gonna make it.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, and if you can't make it, you may have to call, and you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise you, they'll respect you for doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, and if you get it worked out in the liver no time, no harm, no, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Second, give credit where credit is due.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing erodes trust on a team fashion in someone who takes credit for the work of others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Third, the honest about your mistakes,
[SPEAKER_00]: I had one, this one company, it was the biggest company I was in at the gym agency.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't honestly know that anybody in that facility was capable of saying I made a mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to me, I blame the president of the company because he was the ringleader.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had never heard somebody
[SPEAKER_00]: blame somebody for every single problem they had like he did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never, but it starts at the top.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the culture he created.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were some people in there that did take mistakes, but I have never seen one accompanying like that that built off of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number fourth one, treat everybody with respect, regardless of their position.
[SPEAKER_00]: top down to a janitor or something like a manager or whoever you take it, whatever, and they want to top down to a janitor.
[SPEAKER_00]: That to me is just so disrespectful, it doesn't matter what anybody's doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as they're working to try to make their way in life, you know what, that's all that matters.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because we don't know what person, we don't know that person's use.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I do out of all the way and there was a janitor at one of the places I went to.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was an elderly man and my position was higher than him, but you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: I called him Mr. So-and-so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, sir.
[SPEAKER_00]: I used respect love that because I'm not better than anybody because of a rank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Same thing, I mean, there were people that, you know, I was over social associates and team members and, you know, employees that supervisors that I was older than, or I talked to them with respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then if they were older than me, I still spoke to them with respect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people have cultivated this idea that if you show somebody respect, they're not going to respect you as,
[SPEAKER_00]: respect your authority.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is just not true.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to be a jerk to get somebody to respect you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just because you're an authority, it doesn't mean you're right all the time either.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a principle that runs through scripture and in many forms.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's look at the book of Tobit, chapter four, verse 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says simply, and what you hate, do not do to anyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the foundation of professional ethics and a single sentence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you make a decision that affects another person, ask yourself what I want this done to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer is no, don't do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is that relentless, and it is that clear.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you build your career on this type of foundation, something remarkable happens, your network becomes a community of people who trust you and won't see win.
[SPEAKER_00]: Opportunities come to you because people know your name, means something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you get to sleep well at night, knowing that everything you have built you built the right way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of success last.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've talked about building trust and personal relationships and talked about building trust in our professional lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to step back and ask the deeper question, why?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does ethical behavior strengthen our connections so powerful?
[SPEAKER_00]: What's actually happened beneath the surface?
[SPEAKER_00]: Here's what I've come to believe, ethical behavior strengthens connections because it creates safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: And human beings cannot truly connect without safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know that someone will always tell the truth, you can relax around them.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know someone will keep their word, you can build plans with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you know someone will guard your heart, you can open it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ethics removes the fear that keeps relationships shallow, and it makes room for the death we all love for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back to the words of ecclesiasties, faithful friends or a sturdy shelter.
[SPEAKER_00]: A shelter is a place of safety.
[SPEAKER_00]: When your character is relentlessly trustworthy, you become a shelter for the people in your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can rest in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: They can be themselves running.
[SPEAKER_00]: They do not have to keep their guard up, and that safety is the very thing that allows love and loyalty in genuine connection to growth.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's another reason, ethical behavior strengthens connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's this, integrity, integrity is magnetic.
[SPEAKER_00]: People are drawn to those who are real.
[SPEAKER_00]: Those who are consistent, those whose words and actions lot up in a world full of people wearing mask, a person, a genuine integrity stands out like a light in a dark room.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are naturally drawn to that kind of authenticity because deep down it's what we all want to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's something worth pausing on.
[SPEAKER_00]: does not just strengthen your connections with others, it strengthens your connection with yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: When you live in integrity, you develop quiet confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: A self-respect that nothing external can shake.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are no longer divided between that person.
[SPEAKER_00]: You pretend to be, and the person you really are.
[SPEAKER_00]: The wholeness that integration is actually what the world word integrity means.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be whole, to be undefotted, and there is a deep peace that comes with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me be honest with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Being relentless in ethics is not always easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's moments that's gonna cost you something.
[SPEAKER_00]: There'll be times when keeping your word means missing out on an opportunity.
[SPEAKER_00]: There'll be seasons when doing the right thing fills lonely.
[SPEAKER_00]: The path to greatness is difficult for everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's difficult and it's different for everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's often lit of with obstacles.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want to encourage you the truth, every single time you choose integrity over convenience, you are making a deposit into a life of meaning that no amount of short cut success could ever match.
[SPEAKER_00]: The people who changed the world, the ones who leave a legacy worth remembering.
[SPEAKER_00]: are the ones who were the most talented or the most lucky, they were the ones who were relentless in their character, who refused to compromise their values, who built their lives and relationships on a solid rock of integrity, rather than the shifting sand of convenience.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as we move toward our close,
[SPEAKER_00]: how I want to leave you with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your integrity is your superpower.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is the one thing that no one can take for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the one thing that you get to decide, every single day in a thousand-spall choices, you get to answer the question, will I be relentless in my ethics?
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time you answer yes, you become a little more like the person you were created to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: In your connections grow a little deeper, a little stronger, a little more real.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have the power to become the best version of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it starts with relentless daily choice to do the right thing, even when no one's watching, especially when no one's watching.
[SPEAKER_00]: And before we go, guys, I want to, I want to say a prayer, so let us go to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're Lord, we come to you grateful for this time together, and grateful for the gift of relationships in our life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you for the people who have been faithful friends to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: The sturdy shelters who have sheltered us in storms, and we ask that you would keep us to become that kind of free and that kind of partner, that kind of leader to others.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make us relentless in our integrity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us to keep our small promises and large ones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Help us tell the truth with love.
[SPEAKER_00]: heal the connections in our lives that have been wounded by broken trust, where we have failed others, give us humility to make it right, where others have failed us, give us the grace to forgive and the wisdom to rebuild.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all things may we treat others the way we long to be treated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Shape us into people of Holiness, people who are in the same and private as we are in public, people whose life become a shelter for others, and may we treat the trust we build, break fabric day by day, become a legacy that outlast us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We ask all this in your name, amen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guys, thank you so much for tuning in today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget to add me, it's Michael Hanks on Facebook.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope this conversation has stirred something in you.
[SPEAKER_00]: A renewed commitment to your relentless and your ethics to build trust in every relationship you have and to become the best version of yourself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, you have the power to make that choice today and again tomorrow and again the day after that.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what being relentless is all about.