Raise your hand if you lie.
(Laughter)
Now, right now, if your hand is down,
you're probably a bigger liar
than the person nearest to you with their hand up.
(Laughter)
But it's OK, we all lie. Don't worry. I lie all the time. Ask my mom.
(Laughter)
But the problem is that little things turn into big things,
because how we do anything is how we do everything.
So if you lie now, it's going make lying later way easier,
but if you tell the truth now, the truth comes way easier later.
But it's difficult because today we're flooded with definitions
like honesty and hypocrisy and humility,
and maybe we don't even know what they actually mean,
because if you google them, on the surface, the definitions are easy,
but when you put them into practice,
they don't work.
Humility is unique,
because when you have humility, people don't notice.
That's the most important thing about humility.
It is nobody notices but you.
(Laughter)
Nine times out of ten, if you ask someone if they have humility,
the answer will be yes
simply because they think they're being honest.
But it's not honesty, it's not meekness, it's not belittling yourself.
Humility is not thinking less of yourself.
Humility is thinking of yourself less.
Right?
So...
It's funny, someone was asking me and I was trying to tell them about humility.
And the most important thing is when you work in your groups,
your teams, your leadership, wherever you are,
your ministry of your church,
nobody notices.
But it doesn't work unless you have integrity.
Integrity is when you align your actions with your beliefs.
The Latin adjective "integer" means "whole" or "one."
Think of it like that. That's where the word "integrity" comes from.
I think of it as a pizza,
so if you cut the pizza, you separate the pieces out,
but it leaves a missing part in the center.
When you don't have a center, you don't have a point of reference,
you lose your integrity,
and it leaves you asking a question
like, "Why do I feel this way? What am I missing?"
And oftentimes, we try to use beauty, fame, money, success and popularity
to bring the pieces back together,
but it just doesn't work.
It leaves you confused and wondering, you know, ''Why do I not feel important?''
But the thing about integrity is that it leads to hypocrisy.
If you don't align your actions with your beliefs,
you kind of become a hypocrite.
You know, acting has always been a passion of mine.
I like the theater, the lights, the sound.
And in high school,
I was studying for a vocab test and the word was "hypocrite,"
and the Greek root suggests something along the lines
of an image of a person who wears a mask
and pretends to be someone he or she is not
in a theatrical production.
And when I think about that, I think we all have masks,
and maybe we don't even know what they are,
like our social media or our internet or the things we post.
But the theatrical production is just our lives.
Do you post things about what your life is like,
or do you post things about what you want people to think that your life is like?
Do your tweets start with "I,"
or do your tweets start with "We did this?"
It's all something to consider.
It's like the movies, you know, Iron Man, Batman.
They all start out with a mask in the beginning of the movie,
but by the end of the movie,
we figure out who they are.
You know, the person is revealed
and it's because they're missing the humility side of the equation.
You know, I think for humility and integrity,
one thing I like to do at this - I mean, I feel like I'm 12 up here -
but one thing I like to do is look up.
I look up to people, I find mentors in people.
I can study off of teachers and people who have built legacies.
One of the things I do is - a person I looked up to is named Ellie.
And when I think about Ellie,
she 100% has no prejudice against color, race, religion.
She can face the world without lies, she can take blame without resentment,
She can even start the day without caffeine.
But it's interesting because as soon as I think I'm just like Ellie,
I remember that Ellie is just my family dog.
(Laughter)
So, as soon as you think you have humility and integrity
and you're not a hypocrite,
you're just as good as your dog that sleeps on the floor.
And so, all this is to say - I'm not bashing my dog, I love my dog.
We all love our dogs.
But the thing is that there's no levels to humility and integrity.
You either have it and you practice it, or you have it and you don't practice it.
There's no in between, no one's better.
If you're great at it, you're as good as your dog.
And so, my idea today is to encourage us to align our actions with our beliefs,
think of ourselves a little bit less, others a little bit more,
and we'll know exactly who we are and we'll know exactly what we want.
Thank you.
(Applause)