I have confidence in my personal decisions

I have confidence in my personal decisions. However if I had to define a success rate, I would probably see that my business decisions had a higher level of success then my personal decisions. The reason for that, and may not be reason for that but one of the items that drives personal decisions and does not have that big of an impact on business decisions is a belief in the moral or ethical position that I am taking irrespective of what the results are on other people. So while the decision ultimately may not have been as a successful as it should have been, there is a comfort in knowing that the right thing was done.

— from Decisions & Choices (Decision/Choice/Focus/Forethought/Consequences)

In the book

And use the test I have given more of you than any other: when you are torn, take the road you will not regret — because a regret, once earned, is almost impossible to remove. I can tell you, near the end, that I carry very few of them, and that the comfort of having done the right thing has outlasted every outcome, good or bad. [Write here, in your own hand, a decision you are facing right now — and run it, on this page, through the three questions and the regret test.] — Decisions & Choices (Decision/Choice/Focus/Forethought/Consequences)

Aim at a success you chose, give it your full effort on the part you control, and let that be enough. I can tell you, having lived it, that even when an outcome disappointed me, there was a deep and lasting comfort in knowing I had done the right thing — a comfort no result can give and none can take away. [Write here, in your own hand, your own one-sentence definition of success — the building you want your ladder leaning against — and one goal, written as a process, that moves you toward it.] — Goals, Action & Defining Success (Goal/Action/Success/Motivation)

Integrity is simply how you behave when no one is watching and no one will ever know — and almost nothing of lasting value gets built except out of relationships, which is exactly why your word has to be unbreakable. Notice that my business decisions tended to turn out better than my personal ones — and the reason is instructive: in business I optimized for the result, but in the moral and personal arena I optimized for doing right regardless of the result, and there is a comfort in that which no outcome can give you. Live deliberately, the way I've tried to: don't accept what the crowd calls valuable, but find the intrinsic value in a thing yourself — in art, in an investment, in a person, in how you spend your time. — Leadership & Business (Leadership/Business)

Also belongs to

Related