This week's Pep Talk Blog: "Truth and Responsibility Rule"

It was late December and the morning after my son’s 20th birthday party. I’m in the kitchen concluding cleanup of a wonderful evening where family and dear friends laughed often, ate too much and toasted Kyle: a fantastic young man with a bright future.

Anyway, I’m wrapping up the cleanup but then pause to read “Heene’s Grounded” the front-page headline story from the Denver Post. The “Balloon Boy” couple was sentenced to brief jail time because of an ill-advised hoax that didn’t pass the transgression-trumping test of honoring them, nurturing those dependent upon them or adding value to the communities they served.

The presiding judge, in punishing the Heene’s, said their actions were of “deception and exploitation.” Not exactly two words you want associated with your name, right?

Oxford American Dictionary defines “deception” as “acts that cause a person(s) to believe something that’s not true.” The definition of exploitation, “to use others for one’s advantage”, is equally damning.

Whenever I get the opportunity to encourage others with a Pep Talk, we talk a lot about the value of effectively working with others. It might be at home, work or community. Regardless of venue, the strategy’s the same: we realize we need each other, that teamwork is the key to success. We believe in the law of circulation which, in the Comeback Coach’s world, means one good deed leads to another.”

It’s tough to be on that team, at least for long, if we’re participating in activities that cause people to believe things that aren’t true and use others for personal advantage. That type of behavior, while perhaps successful for a short while, will ultimately come back to bite us in the butt. Hard. Just ask the Heene’s, Tiger Woods or Bernie Madoff as recent examples.

Deception and exploitation are two behaviors we must avoid. It’s not always easy. We’re tempted on a daily basis to tell people things that aren’t true. We are also tempted to take shortcuts that appear, at the time, advantageous personally despite the effects on others. We are human and vulnerable.

When is it okay to be deceptive and exploitive? Ever? Take inventory of where you’re at right now: at home, on the job or within community, is there room for improvement when it comes to truth and responsibility ruling over deception and exploitation?

I finished reading the Henne story, tossed the newspaper on the counter and resumed cleaning the kitchen, with renewed purpose. Truth and responsibility must rule over deception and exploitation: today, tomorrow and forever. It’s a rare time where there is any exception to that rule.