How to Live with Honor
– Monday Mindset –

Today’s Monday Mindset: How to Live with Honor

Take 3 minutes out of your day to learn what it means to live with honor from President of PGC Basketball Camps, Mano Watsa.

All right. Today, I want to share with you the fastest way to lose the respect and credibility of others.

And conversely, the quickest way to earn the trust of others.

And it’s simply this. Either follow through on the commitments that you make or break the commitments that you make.

Now, we’ve all had times where we’ve made a commitment to someone or something. And then we think, gosh, why did I make that decision? And how do I get out of it? Or a new or a better opportunity has come up that makes us want to bail from a commitment that we’ve made.

And my first coaching to you is when you uphold a commitment, you uphold the integrity of the relationship. But if you break a commitment, you do significant damage to the relationship and to your own reputation in the process.

So what do you do?

It’s probably helpful to mention. There are times when you can break a commitment and others understand. So one is if you’ve had a significant life change, if you suddenly get sick or somebody in your family gets sick or desperately needs your help, people understand if you’ve double booked yourself. People understand that as well.

But if you break a commitment because you’ve had a better opportunity come along or something that’s going to be more fun or more enjoyable, or you just want to get out of something difficult, no one respects that.

And so, how do you get out of a commitment when you do have something you’d rather be doing?

And it’s very simply this, this is the one and only way. If you ask the person if they’ll release you from the commitment, you don’t need to use the word release. But if you say to them, “Hey, I knew I was due to help you on Saturday afternoon. I’m wondering, is there any possibility of me helping you on Sunday afternoon instead?”

What you’re doing is you’re giving the other person, you’re empowering the other person to release you. And when you do that, you uphold the integrity of the relationship. You also convey to them that you’re trustworthy because if they say, actually I can’t do any other day. Saturday is my only day and I really need your help. Well, then you fulfill on the commitment and you live with honor. But if it turns out you can get out of it and they do agree to release you, you’ve likely not done any harm to the relationship or your reputation.

So my challenge and encouragement to you today is when a situation comes up in which you’ve made it commitment and you regret it, number one, follow through on it. It’ll be good for you in the long run.

And if you do need to break the commitment, don’t break it on your own. Allow them to release you of it. And if they don’t release you of it, follow through. If they do, then you’re good.

And I hope you’ll put that into practice so that you live with honor every single day.

And that’s your Monday mindset.