Integrity audiobook

"Character - the ability to meet the demands of reality."I read Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality by Henry Cloud. Book #50 of 182, 304 pages, finished 4/14/2017.Integrity is your standard pop psychology/business book - introducing and re-defining a common term in a way that makes it accessible and helpful for business leaders.The heart of this book is about redefinition and expansion - mostly around the words 'integrity' and 'character'. Particularly in the case of integrity, Cloud argues that the word has been watered down to just mean that a person doesn't lie, cheat, or steal.Cloud's point is that integrity means that the disparate elements of a person's character are integrated, and that there aren't gaping holes that will shipwreck the person in their professional or personal life.A person of true integrity, in his estimation, has the following 6 character traits, working in concert. As I go through each of these, I'm going to do a brief self-assessment of how I think I stack up at this moment:1. Establishing Trust - Having the emotional intelligence to connect with the feelings behind the actual facts and figures of questions, fears, and concerns.I have no idea idea where I rank here. I think I am incredibly capable of it, but often self-sabotage myself. I give myself a 2.5/5.2. Oriented Toward Truth - This one gets me in trouble and at the same time makes me valuable at the same time. The idea here is - who is the person on your team that will bring up the elephant in the room and confront the boss / client / spouse with what's *really* going on.I think this one (and one to come) define who I am and how I think. 4/5.3. Getting Results - Beyond knowing the technical aspects of a line of work, some people are able to focus down and get results, and some people aren't. The core is knowing who you are, what you're good at, and what you aren't.I've been growing in this deeply over the past few years - my personality trends toward "I CAN DO ALL THE THINGS!", but it's just not true. In the last 6 months, I've refined so many of the things I do, and delegated/automated/documented them away from me, for the better of everyone around me. 3.5/5.4. Embracing the Negative - The only value any business has is it's ability to solve problems. That means directly confronting problems and finding a way through.I'm an emotionally driven dude. This one is hard for me - setbacks are a blow to my mindset, hopefulness, and cool. I get through it, but it takes longer than I'd like. Interestingly, I think meditation is improving this in my life. 2/5.5. Oriented Toward Increase - Some people are wired and driven to continually grow, learn, and improve. Some are sitting on a long-term plateau. This is my FAVORITE. Of all of the changes in my life in the last 2 years, this one is something I can rally around and own. The habits, the diet changes, and the 182 books are all this trait. 5/5.6. Oriented Toward Transcendence - Do I see myself a small part in a much bigger cause - be that religious or otherwise? Cloud is certainly a Christian, but his definition here is wide open to any cause that is larger than one person.I struggle here. Not because I don't want to be oriented toward some form of life-long cause that goes far beyond myself, but it's more that I haven't found that cause yet. 2/5.Finally - would I recommend this book? I dunno. Books in this vein overlap each other to a tremendous degree. I can only read so many pages of 'emotional intelligence is important for work' and 'you probably should have some defined values.'If you aren't already inundated with this type of thought, this book would likely be a breath of fresh air for you.

This has been added to my list of must reads! I find the integrity of so many people and organizations being questioned today that I found this book one of the most valuable I have read in a long time. The subtitle is the key to what makes this book so important in the culture we live in today. "the courage to meet the demands of reality" is a real challenge for many today. Think about the many ways we use the word integrity when we are talking not just about people but about organizations, buildings and even data, and you begin to see why reality is such an important part of our life. Using four dimensions of establishing trust, being oriented toward truth, getting results and embracing the negative you are challenged to rethink the way you live and lead others. The discussion on how to build trust might just be the most important part for many today as he deals with moving from building connections to vulnerability. The last section of the book about the importance of realizing that the key is to see ourselves as a small portion of something much bigger than ourselves will help you see how it all fits together not only for yourself but for the organizations you lead. This will be on my must read list!

Couldn’t recommend this book enough... Before reading this, my understanding of integrity was quite limited. Integrity teaches us how character/integrity is multi-dimensional and much more than just sticking to moral values. At a high level, integrity could be broken down into 2 types: 1. Personal & 2. Interpersonal. Personal would be examples of seeking truth in all things, seeking growth in areas of life, results orientation, and problem solving. Interpersonal would be conveying truth (not lying or misleading or inflicting bias), building trust, giving feedback (which takes massive courage and tact) and navigation confrontations in a healthy way. Love this!

I've been learning about differentiation and empathy lately, two seemingly contradictory approaches. I've known about the importance of empathy. But it's differentiation, that a therapist friend lately helped me see, that makes empathy possible. And I think Cloud does good work on fleshing this out. He is known for his work on boundaries - how to remain separate, in order to stay connected. But the goal is not only separate, but whole. And that's what integrity is all about. So, this book is moving the ball forward in my understanding of differentiation. There's a lot of balancing you need to do as a leader. Separate and together. Truth and love. Strong and vulnerable. Cloud put it this way, "To build trust, you need to be strong enough to depend on, but vulnerable enough to identify with. Your vulnerability is what makes your power available to people." He encourages his reader to say what needs to be said. But say it in a way that shows you care about the person. "Go hard on issue and soft on the person." And only integrated people can do this well. They can talk to others because they let others talk to them. He encourages the reader to allow others permission to ask them this question: What is it like to be on the other end of me? Once you allow people to move into your life, then you have the capacity (integrity) to move into theirs. Then for my favorite quote. He says, "Confrontation does not have to be adversarial. It merely means we are going to face this issue together instead of putting our heads in the sand and ignoring it. I like the phrase, 'to turn your face towards' as the meaning of confront. It does not mean a military destruction of the other side, but a coming together of two people facing some problem and finding a solution that brings it all together. It's not me versus you. It’s you and I versus the problem. We are a team against what is wrong and coming together to fix it." None of this can happen well if there isn't a deep and abiding sense of integrity. Integrity is the hard work that makes everything else easy (or at least possible). And he gives his reader lots of tools for becoming a more integrated character. I'm becoming a big fan of the work of this author and would love to get through his entire corpus of material. So helpful for healthy living.

One of my new favorite books. One of those books you feel every human should read in order to be a human. The only criticism is how succinct he is. He goes through concepts so stinking fast and so clearly that you hardly have time to ingest them, let alone figure out how to use and apply them. Just great stuff. I should probably just start it over again, right away, but I have other books waiting.

This book would make a great gift to a college graduate or anyone in a management/leadership position at work or even a mom or dad. It teaches how to be successful thru the tool of integrity. The author keeps your attention by including many interesting, real-life stories, such as when Tylenol pulled all of their bottles from the shelves in 1982 so that no one else would risk death after a few bottles were found to contain cyanide. It's a little bit of a long read, but well worth it.

While integrity is always only involved with honesty I have learned that integrity involves more than that. I am grateful to understand that integrity is so deep I need to learn more about it again. Let me keep this book close. I'll need to reread it again.

This is definitely not your typical book on integrity - or at least what you think the meaning of the word integrity means. I was expecting another book espousing the usual self-help advice on how to be a more honest, moral, and upright person especially when no-one else is watching...you know, that how you act in public should be the same way you act in private. I'm sure we've all heard this before and strive to be men and women of integrity - based on this definition.But Cloud raises the stakes and puts an entirely different twist on the meaning of integrity and explains how a person's integrity and character are intertwined, with his ultimate definition of integrity being, "having the character to meet the demands of reality." So, using a methodical approach to explain WHY integrity and character matters and is the essence behind successful people in both business and life in general, he uses many stories from his experiences as a psychologist and executive coach to help explain and draw the reader into the narrative. At first I was going to give this book a review of 4 stars due to what I felt was some "droning on" at times. But I then thought about it and realized that it's been a long time since a book like this has so completely altered my thinking about a topic or issue and changed my perspective so thoroughly. Because of this, 5 stars is a useful rating...prepare to be challenged and to think about your own character and integrity, and if you are truly meeting the demands of your own reality and life story.

Let me begin with what I didn't enjoy about this book: the overly simplistic and sometimes condescending writing style. It is my belief that if an author feels you need to explain a metaphor, idiom, or word, after using it, he should not use it at all; the reader is intelligent enough to look up the phrase should she for some reason not know what it means. Also, this is a book about business. Not about romantic relationships or Christianity. I enjoy both romantic relations and Christianity, but the examples seemed to have been thrown in to meet a minimum page count. If these illustrations had been flushed out further, and related to one another, I would have found them a lot less annoying.That said, this book had some great concepts I have already begun applying in my professional life. In fact, I have a couple pages worth of quotes from the book, just to remind myself how I can apply the lessons presented in the book on a regular basis. Integrity, as defined by Cloud, encompasses much more than being a nice person and not lying: it's the way you affect people after you left, it's how willing you are to continually improve yourself by whatever means necessary, it's how you confront people who are helping and hurting your organization. In conclusion, despite the somewhat annoying writing style, this book is worth a read. If you don't feel like you can fit it into your schedule, I'll leave you with a quote from the book: "Therefore, [high performers] do not wait until they have the time. They make the time, first."

This books includes information about character, character in business. Basically business relationships are no different that any other relationship. The ability to stand outside of oneself and see strengths and weaknesses is essential to growth and a healthy being whether as an individual or as a business. Most of us, contain a tragic flaw that can bring us down in life. Leaders often live out a flaw which can bring down their whole life as well as their business.

Summary: A book detailing six primary aspects of integrity, or character. Each section of the book breaks down a separate aspect of character by discussing what it looks like, how it effects your personal and professional life, and ways to strengthen it.Review: First off I think Dr Cloud probably should’ve just called this book character, because very early on and he states that having integrity is having good character and then spends the rest of the book talking about the six aspects of character. That aside I actually did really like the book and I liked its layout. He establishes, as I said, six main aspects of having good character. * Connect authentically * Oriented towards truth* Finish well* Embrace, engage, and deal with the negative* Oriented towards growth* Be transcendentThen he devotes a separate section of the book to each aspect and really talks through what it looks like, how it’s applicable in your personal and professional life, and how to improve it. While there’s no checklists to tell you what to do exactly I did finish each section with an idea about what I kinds of things I could do to improve each character trait.Overall I really liked the book and while it may not be my favorite philosophical leadership book of all time it was really good, and I would highly recommend it to people looking to do a little bit more work to improve themselves in a personal and or professional way.Time to Read: 5 hours

To my surprise it WAS business focused a lot. And the author IS a role model for integrity. But To me it just seemed a stretched out book that did not get born out of the need of being written, but rather to write another one. The book is a about competent and good communicating people NOT being eth

Encouraging & inspirational Just finished "Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality" by Dr. Henry Cloud.There are many different ways to define integrity. Clinical psychologist Henry Cloud offers a thorough examination of how to examine and improve one's character. His business and personal examples stress becoming a fully integrated person in all aspects of life.Filled with many practical but challenging principles toward self-improvement. I loved the perspective and approach to examining six dimensions of character outlined by Dr Cloud. Encouraging and inspirational. Highly recommend. Check it out.