Inspirations in integrity

Yesterday, I was sitting around being all mopey because I’m about two years behind on my personal goals to make enough money to bust my Gran out of the nursing home. She had to go into a facility three years ago, and it’s something I think about every single day I wake up. I promised her when she went in I’d bust her out one day, and I try really hard to keep promises I make to people.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s in as good spot — my family wouldn’t leave her in a poo-hole — but I worked long-term care in facilities just as fine as the one she’s in, and it still wasn’t a place I’d want my privacy-loving grandmother to live out the rest of her years. My personal feelings don’t change the fact that she needs professional care 24/7, and being able to afford private, professional, in-home care 24/7 requires large sums of money.

Anyway, my gran isn’t the point here. She tells me she’s very happy, and I’ve accepted where she is for now. The point is: Sometimes we have to make conscious decisions between making money and having integrity, no matter what our drive is to make the money.

I posed the question “What’s more important — integrity, or money, and why?” on our Facebook page, to get a little inspiration from the people we interact with the most, and as usual, they didn’t disappoint. Men like Jerry Novack and Bill Weaver answered, “Integrity. No question.” It reminded me that we know some of the finest people in the industry, who really do have a great deal of integrity, and I started feeling much better about being a broke-ass who can’t bust her gran out of the nursing home. I also happen to be married to one of the most honest human beings on this earth, so there’s that.

Kylie Worm summed it up with, “I once heard it phrased something like, ‘Integrity is the backbone and nervous system of life, money is the heart. The heart may keep everything supplied but the back bone and nervous system support and control everything else.’ Without integrity you’re just wealthy and worthless. Integrity is what makes you worth something.”

You go, Kylie, you know how much I dig those anatomy references. Great stuff.

And while we’re giving props to folks who inspire me to hang on and refrain from selling my soul to the devil for money, let me trot ol’ Jamie “Hellbent” Hagen out, with a great example of combining integrity and the ability to earn a premium rate.

Jamie owns Hellbent Xpress, llc, and is leased on with Cliff Viessman, out of Gary, S.D., pulling a food-grade tanker. He posted some pics of a receiver yard yesterday, and relayed this episode:

Receiver: “Can you blindside back through the gate and around these cars and get the trailer against the building?”

Me: “No problem.”

Receiver: “We get a lot trucks in here that can’t.”

Me: “Sir, Cliff Viessman is not your cheapest option but we are your best.”

That right there is some of the best stuff I’ve seen all week, and it exemplifies the reason having integrity doesn’t have to be exclusive of having money. Thank you, Hellbent. Faith in humanity restored. Let’s go kick some butt and make some money.