If you ever listen to Paul Harvey, he told a story last week about a young man in Texas who applied for a job as a policeman. In the job interview they asked if he had ever committed any crimes. He said (true story) that the previous week he had held up a convenience store and assaulted the clerk. He was rejected for the job and subsequently arrested.

His mother told reporters she had tried to discourage him from applying for the police job because she thought he was more suited to become a businessman. In other words, if you're not too bright or too honest maybe business has a place for you.

Every day we read stories in the newspaper that reflect poorly on the competence and credibility of even the most recognized businesses and business leaders. Ethics has become the defining business issue of our time. By conservative estimate, yearly losses due to unethical behavior in business exceed the profits of the largest 40 companies in North America.

We have seen ethical lapses and moral failure put great institutions like Arthur Anderson, Enron and Barings Bank out of business. We have seen it destroy lives; not just the lives of those involved in the decisions but the lives of thousands of innocent employees investors and their families.

As a society, we spend over half the amount per capita in advertising, influencing others' opinions, as we do in educating our population to be able to think for themselves. As we've become a society that increasingly values cleverness, personality and glamour over character, wisdom and goodness, why are we so surprised when ethical lapses become commonplace?

I read an article recently where an expert said ethics are as simple as "do the right thing." But my experience says "it's not that simple." Companies that make selfish choices between doing right things and wrong things don't last long.

Inevitably, in business the unethical company cuts off the very branch they are sitting on. As we used to say, "what goes around comes around." What distinguishes great companies is making good choices when the decision is not right vs. wrong but right vs. right behavior. But "do the right thing" or "tell the truth" are only suggestions about criteria, not answers to actual questions. The classic example used to illustrate the moral dilemma choosing between right and right is the manager who is given the list of people to be downsized at a later date. For business or legal reasons he is told to keep it confidential until people will be told. Then one of the people on the list tells him he's buying a new house and asks if it's a good idea. The manager knows this guy is on the list and if he buys the house, it's going to hurt the guy. What is the right thing to do? Violate the confidence, the loyalty, his responsibility to the company that writes his paycheck? Or tell the truth to the man who will be greatly hurt by the decision if you don't tell him what you're not supposed to. And if you do tell him, what happens to you if the company finds out you violated their trust and possibly some legal restriction?

In business ethics classes they offer a lot of ways to frame the decision. "The greatest good for the greatest number is very popular." But what if you just took a physical exam? Perfect health. Then find out four or five of your relatives are in a car accident, on life support. But with organ transplant they all live—without, they all die. You are the match for each person. Is the moral thing or the right thing to do to give up your life (donate all your organs) so these people can live? "Greatest good for the greatest number." You've got 30 years to live. They have 200 in total. But, that can't be right, can it? Don't individuals have basic rights?

The classic example here is Truman's decision to drop the bomb in World War II. Clearly, the greatest good for the greatest number. It ended the war early and saved countless lives but killed a whole lot of defenseless civilians and children. What about their rights? Although history (people with clean hands) lauds him for the decision, Truman never reconciled that decision in his own mind. He was never able to let go and really move on.

You've all heard other experts' opinions on the "right" way to make the "right" decision. Including the newspaper test. If you read it in the newspaper, what story would you want? The mama test. If you had to tell your mother, which story would you prefer to tell? The obituary test. If your life was defined by this decision, (can't take it with you) if all those who know you would remember this and only this, if this were your obituary, how would you like it to read? And finally, the "Golden Rule" test.  "Do unto others." The point is that just like we cannot define wisdom simply by  intellectual capabilities, knowledge or expertise, or define leadership by the 10 principles to follow, we cannot define ethics as simply as "what is good" or "what is right." We want to do the right thing but what is it?

• It's what is good.
• It's what is virtuous.
• It's how you would want your child or your mother or father treated.
• It's how you would want to be remembered.
• It's what you would not want to have to tell your mother.

As human beings we are always seeking the Holy Grail — one big answer to life's questions, the silver bullet that makes life's tough choices perfectly clear. But ethics is not a moral victory where you cross the goal line, spike the ball and do the touchdown dance. It can only be achieved or expressed in daily behavior. You never get to the end zone, do the touchdown dance and declare victory. Every day is a new fight, new struggle.

Cutting corners never lasts, never works. When it's all on the line someday, if you've made a living out of cutting corners you won't be physically or mentally prepared. Inevitably you will come up short and inevitably the corners you are cutting will not only get bigger and bigger, but also sabotaging your competitors (including even co-workers) will just seem part of the game. And you will rationalize: it's just a game. Everybody does it. Success breeds arrogance and arrogance creates a sense that the rules no longer apply or you won't get caught.

One of my favorite movies is "Crimes and Misdemeanors" by Woody Allen. In the movie, Woody Allen plays a lone soul searching for morality and reason in an otherwise irrational and imperfect world. One of the sub plots involves an esteemed eye surgeon loved by his family and friends. Admired by his peers and the community. A man who by all accounts has realized the American Dream. He is a good man. An admirable man. A spiritual man. But a tempted man. He engages in an affair with a younger woman and when his guilt and remorse drives him to end it she resists. Threatening to tell his wife, to expose him to the community that holds him in such high esteem. He is frantic at the thought. He has led an exemplary life. One mistake and it's all gone. Where is the justice in that? He rationalizes this can't be right or fair.

In a moment of extreme weakness he allows his brother, who lives a quite different life, to eliminate the problem. Now, he is overwhelmed with guilt and remorse. What has he done? He considers confessing but his brother will hear none of it. He partly confesses to his rabbi that "a friend" had an affair. But not about him and not about murder. His rabbi's advice only deepens his guilt in violating God's laws. Eventually we lose track of this story line until the last scene of the movie where the philanthropist/philanderer encounters Woody Allen at a wedding where the various  subplots converge. He finds out Woody Allen is a film maker and offers a story line for a fictional movie. The story is his actual experience. We now learn the police have blamed the crime on a drifter who has multiple murders to his credit so one more doesn't really change anything. But the man knows God will most certainly punish him for this, since society will not. But the man prospers. Everything about his life couldn't be better. Every day he waits for God to intervene, but He doesn't. He has grown up believing God knows all, sees all and the unjust will be punished. But it doesn't happen. Woody Allen says, "But that would be a movie of tragic proportions." The man thinks his worst fear is that God will punish him. But when He doesn't, he realizes that his worst fear is not that God will punish him but that He will not. Without punishment he is left to deal with the daily doubt that everything he has believed in, everything that gives his life meaning, could be wrong. Maybe God doesn't exist or He doesn't care if you're just or unjust. Or is that the ultimate punishment? To be forever inflicted with guilt, doubt and insecurity?

That chilling story is not at all unlike the world we create for ourselves when we cut corners, knowing the right course but overcome with moral cowardice or greed. Don't ever think regardless of how well intended you might be, that in a moment of  weakness or thoughtlessness that you can't make a decision that could haunt you forever, even though others have long since forgotten or forgiven. For here's the catch. If you're not an ethical person, you're doomed to get caught sooner or later. If you are an ethical person and you cut that corner, it doesn't matter if you're caught or not. Because you'll know. And you'll have to live with the consequences of knowing that you just lost the trust in the only person in the world you could ever really trust. You.

If any of you watch "The Sopranos," whatever you enjoy about that show, you should take from it that Tony represents the frightened child in all of us. He personifies and exhibits the ultimate fear we all have—the fear of being found out. At home, he is a loving, caring, family man. A father who (to his children) provides for their every need through a highly successful career in waste management. At work, he is not only physically imposing. but also the intellectual leader. An all powerful mob boss who is respected and feared by everyone including the authorities (who he constantly outsmarts).

But internally, he is a mass of contradictions. He is a fraud who will inevitably be found out: by his business associates that he's not as good at what he does as they think he is, or worse, by his children as not a good person for what he does.

His contradictory life of murder and corruption in his business with his own desire to be a "good" person in his personal life never leaves him. While on a trip with his daughter to visit various elite colleges, Tony is sitting in the entry hall to the admissions office and above him he is drawn to the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne carved forever into both the wall and history: "No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true."

Tony may have it all. All the power and all the wealth that any one may wish for. But he is a very unhappy man —  very bewildered and very tormented about which person he really is.

Ancient story of the blind man who was leaving his host's home late at night—His host gave him a lighted candle to carry. The man said "this will do me no good for I am blind." The host said "yes, but it will alert others to your approaching." The man left with the candle and successfully maneuvered himself through the streets. Then finally ran head long into another man. The blind man shouted at him, "What's wrong?? Did you not see the candle I am carrying?" "Sir," replied the other, "your light has gone out." As you sit there today, chances are your light has never burned brighter or more intensely. But my warning or advice today is that competing priorities, the demands of family and work or simply time, can incrementally dim or extinguish that light if you let it.

We can become blind to how far we have drifted from the path we originally started down.

William James said, "As individuals we typically lead lives inferior to ourselves."

But it doesn't have to end that way for you. Someone described heroes as those who conquer their evil or cowardly inclinations. We define ourselves by the choices we make and your choices are still in front of you. You can lead a heroic life. Just:

• Don't cut corners.
• Don't look for the easy way out.
• Don't be cowered by bullies.
• Don't sell your soul or, worse, give it away for 15 minutes of fame.
• Don't stay anywhere if doing the right thing is not an option.
• Never give up.
• Believe in yourself, but remain humble and grateful for the opportunities.
• Be genuine. Authentic.

Don't ever stop asking the question, "For whom does it serve?" "Why is the world better off from this?" And as I said this morning, "Be ashamed to die until you've won some victory for humanity."