If you’ve ever served on a Grand Jury, you’re familiar with the witness oath, “Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?” About three weeks into my recent Grand Jury duty, one of the jury members asked the Assistant District Attorney what the difference was between the “truth” and the “whole truth?” His reply was simple and short, “omissions.”

Our personal integrity is similar to a bank account. We make deposits into our integrity account when we tell the truth. Telling the truth isn’t always easy, and so we’ve earned that deposit. We make withdrawals when we don’t tell the truth, tell an embellished truth, or we omit part of the truth. 

On average, Americans tell two lies each day (Bella DePaulo, 1996). It’s staggering how easy it is to bend the truth to fit our personal narrative, and how willing we are to do so. It has, unfortunately, become part of our modus operandi and we are unaware of how it is draining our integrity bank account. 

Unlike telling an outright lie, the word “paltering” refers to a strategy of telling a part of the truth in order to intentionally deceive. For example: A parent asks a teenager if they have done their homework. The student replies, “yes I have.” The student had done their homework, but they only read their history chapter and had opted to not complete their math assignment that is due the next morning.

Profound integrity takes work. It takes diligence and self-monitoring, every single day. We always know when we don’t tell the truth, or we leave out relevant information. Each time we don’t tell the truth, the whole truth, our self-esteem diminishes.

During our Level 1 Seminar we’ll explore what it means to live in profound integrity, and how it affects our self-perception, our relationships, and the way we chose to be in the world. 

“Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving.”    ― James E. Faust