Far too many of us look at the prospect of our fleeting, mortal lives with dread. We fill our lives with busy and hurry—seldom, if ever, stopping to check in with ourselves and ensure we’re living out the promise of our purpose. One of my goals with the Saturday Morning Muse is to help drive a shift in perspective—from the negative to the positive—from “I have to,” to “I get to.” If you want to be an effective, compassionate leader in life and in business, start engaging in your own mindfulness practice. What do you want to be known for? Up to this moment, have you done the best that you could?

Far too often, when confronted with a challenge, we talk. We talk to deflect. We talk because we don’t know what else to do. We talk to release nervous energy. To make matters worse, when we start talking, we usually start relaying a story of a similar challenge that’s happened to us. The individual who’s going through the challenge doesn’t want to hear about our suffering or similar situation, they want to be heard.

In my opinion, the minimum acceptable height of “the bar” is to be a decent human. You see, it’s in times of great stress and conflict that the words I live by come into play the most. When the going gets tough, sometimes everything boils down to a fairly basic choice—to be a decent human being, or allow base instinct and ego to take over and say/do things that I’ll regret later. “Andy, just be a decent human being right here, right now.” But what does decency mean? Let’s explore.