Integrity, Empathy & Wealth

Integrity, empathy and wealth – they are all connected. Let me explain.

I have said before that empathy is a two-part process. First a person must be able to understand what another person is feeling. And secondly, that person must also care what a person is feeling, enough to actually feel for them without conscious effort, or to show physical concern, or even to extend a helping hand.

Integrity is one of those concepts that is best understood by describing what it is not. A person that is able to understand what another person is feeling and misuses that awareness, in my opinion, lacks integrity. In essence someone who lacks integrity is a mis-user of empathy – they ‘fake’ the second part of empathy for personal gain.

Interestingly, if we take this definition on board, then a lack of integrity can be for two reasons – one, a lack of understanding of the other person’s thoughts or feelings (and a subsequent harmful action in their direction), or a lack of caring as to how they feel as a result of one’s actions. See, it is very linked to empathy.

Wealth and integrity are somewhat inversely correlated. Or to put it another way, I have met more wealthy people, as a percentage of the breed, that lack integrity than other sorts. This makes me think that in order to achieve and/or maintain wealth a lack of integrity is a key character trait that offers efficacy.

I have met outliers of course and this observation doesn’t apply to all of them. And yet others have high integrity most of the time, but preserve their intermittent dark-side behaviour for those moments that really count, in a wealth generation sense.