Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment
Integrity – it speaks for itself.
Courtesy of life-of-integrity.com
Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment
“I believe in integrity. Dogs have it. Humans are sometimes lacking it.” ― Cesar Millan
Spirituality came to me later in life. Growing up in the bush, my exposure to topics other than beef cattle, crops and sheep was a little limited because of the isolation. Although an avid reader, it was a subject that I didn’t know existed as a topic.
It was in my thirties, after a series of life changing events, losing my family, my farm and business and some health challenges, and I was laid low for a year. I relocated to the city and because of my interest in business, became a member of the Institute of Management. This gave me access to an amazing library!
I gravitated to a section I had never heard of, with authors whose names were totally unfamiliar, but who I grew to love and respect. Og Mandino, Jim Rohn, Blair Singer, Robert Kiyosaki and many, many more. I later had the good fortune to see, hear and work with many of these great people.
Og Mandino
Image from conqueryourlife.net
Og Mandino spoke in Brisbane just a couple of years before his passing. He followed another speaker whose name ironically I do not recall, a high-powered, hard charging success coach type. He marched about the stage and put on quite a theatrical performance. When he finished, the audience was abuzz with energy and chatter.
Then Og Mandino entered. An elderly man, he sat on a chair just a little to one side of centre stage. He spoke softly, quietly. There was not another sound in the hall. It was as though eighteen thousand people held their breath for an hour to be sure they never missed a word. At the end of his talk, we stood as one and applauded. The elderly man rose, bowed a number of times, and finally walked off stage. We continued clapping. Then the hall suddenly went quiet, as we understood we had been in the presence of greatness.
This quietly spoken man held the audience, not with his performance, but with his heart, his #integrity.
“Integrity has no need of rules.” ― Albert Camus
Jim Rohn was another who I had the privilege to meet and listen to a number of times. I first found Jim in the audio cassette section of the business department of the AIM Library, and devoured everything I could find by him. Jim was also a quietly spoken man, a small framed man but a giant among people. I attended a weekend workshop with him and had the honour of meeting and speaking with him personally a number of times. I told him my own story one lunchtime and how he had influenced my life. Later he repeated my story on stage, to show how it is possible to influence someone to change their life and aim higher, with just your words and your integrity. Sadly, Jim has also passed on.
Jim Rohn
Image from thatgirlamala.wordpress.com
Through Jim Rohn’s influence, I was encouraged to continue my personal development. I met Blair Singer at a powerful spiritual seminar in Brisbane. Blair was different again, a tiny man with a huge heart. His words and presentations gave me the framework for the life I chose, after drifting without purpose for a number of years since losing the farm and my family. There was never a question from that time, after seeing Blair’s presentation and how it moved people, as to what direction my life would take from then on.
Blair Singer
Image from www.erhardruettimann.com
My public speaking journey brought me into contact with other people who had also chosen the stage and limelight to spread their message to the world. I was fortunate that I had learnt first about integrity in speaking from the masters of the stage, before I found the charlatans, and there are many of them.
“A mode of conduct, a standard of courage, discipline, fortitude and integrity can do a great deal to make a woman beautiful.” ― Jacqueline Bisset
The title of this blog is Integrity, Spirituality and Empowerment.
So many people preach spirituality and empowerment, yet their message is lost in the confusion of their energies.
I attended a seminar in Brisbane by a guy who has since been listed as having a wealth of over 200 million dollars, but at the time was facing bankruptcy. At that seminar, people were leaving front row seats to stand at the back of the hall, to get away from his ego and energy, without actually leaving the room. His presentation was about how we should pay him huge sums of money to attend his courses and buy a franchise from him, as they had made him so successful. Because his presentation was so slick, many people did invest. By investing the sale proceeds from his overpriced franchises, he was able to turn a bad situation into a personal fortune. Yet, he has a trail of disenchanted clients all around the world. He has been sued for sums of money the average person could only dream about, but has kept enough of his fortunes tied up in offshore havens away from the reach of the courts to live happily ever after.
Not so sure about this guy…!
Image from oilersnation.com
Another very popular presenter is famous for his NLP workshops. NLP is a great modality and has powerful applications and value for personal change. However, hypnotism is also a branch of NLP studies. Where are the ethics and integrity of getting 3,000 people in a conference room and applying Ericksonian hypnosis (hypnosis by voice modulation and conversational techniques) while promoting your range of “advanced workshops”, some costing thousands of dollars each!
“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity” ― Tom Peters
There are many charlatans masquerading as spiritual gurus. Their message is supposedly about spirituality and empowerment. They have a few nice talks they put together after reading people such as Jim Rohn and Og Mandino. Their true focus is on taking money from your wallet, through expensive, slickly marketed seminars on idyllic island or luxury resorts, or seminars dressed up as business opportunities to become a life coach or invest in property with them.
It’s interesting that many of the big names in public speaking and the spiritual and financial gurus seem to have a public life that is very short, punctuated by lawsuits and claims of fraud. Many have paid the price with time spent behind bars for their promotions, but many more still circulate and take easy pickings when they can.
Integrity is simple, but not easy.
Integrity is the province of people with a genuine focus on empowering others to be better at being themselves, and having better lives. As soon as someone starts spruiking island resorts for their workshops and personal coaching at thousands of dollars per HOUR, or admittance to their “inner circle” of clients, I know that integrity has left the room, in disgust.
Yes, a nice hotel is great to present a workshop to a lot of people at once. However, the workshop and message should be the focus. If it is, it won’t need the added attraction of duty-free shopping to get people there. Price it so that everyone can afford it, not just those with personal fortunes to draw on.
Empowering those who need it most, the people who did not get the great start in life, the people who still work on the minimum wage, the people whose lives have been visited by challenges and who could never aspire to spend thousands of dollars on a weekend listening to a guru, this is where spiritual integrity begins.
Those of us who have a message from Spirit do not own the message!
We are merely the conduit for the message. Spirit doesn’t mind us charging a fee for it if we are making it our life’s work. Claiming ownership and charging huge fees that lock away the message away from all but the most privileged is hardly in integrity.
How can you be spiritual, empowered and in integrity?
It’s a personal thing. It’s about taking personal responsibility and being discerning with who you listen to, and what goes into your mind. Filter the rubbish, embrace the wisdom.
It’s about picking up the lessons and habits that have been proven over decades, centuries even, to work and to always work. It’s about integrating them into your life.
It is about becoming personally empowered and building integrity into the environment around you and in your life, which will enable you to create your own success, wealth, and abundance, without making someone else wealthy at your expense. It’s not about giving your power away to a guru you may never meet, or their disciples, centuries after their passing. It’s certainly not about giving your power away to any religious leader or doctrine.
It IS about taking responsibility for becoming everything you COULD be, and sharing your own personal, spirit given gifts with the world. If it becomes your calling to make a career out of your gift, whether it’s Reiki, readings or channelling, then spirit will guide you to where you need to be, and show you how to make that work for you with integrity and bring you the mentors you need – as long as you are willing to accept the challenge. It’s not something you can half do.
Responsibility is total – you need to be personally prepared for it and a Personal Empowerment Program is what it will take, to lift your energy, intention and ability to where it needs to be. And if you think you are already prepared, ask yourself why a butcher keeps sharpening his knife…. Yes. You need to stay sharp too! Click this link to learn more.
Your personal empowerment program – your own pep talk every day!
If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment, integrity and spiritual development of other people you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates. It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better!
Til next time, fair winds and full sails,
Ray Jamieson
Jim Rohn as I knew him
Image from mlmtraffictactics.com
Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:
Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence