Have you ever considered how your enemies are the consequences of living your personal values? Winston Churchill recognized the relationship between enemies and personal values when he spoke these words:

“You have enemies? Good! That means you stood for something, sometime in your life.”

How often are we afraid someone may not like us if we stand up for what we believe?

How different would our communities be if we discarded the politically correct speech and actually said the truth and stood by what we said?

Now some might say “Standing up for what you believe might offend someone; this is not how we can get along.”

Thousands of years ago a very wise man by the name of Socrates developed a three way test:

Is what you say kind?

Is what you say truthful?

Is what you say necessary?

Today I might add a fourth test:

Is what you say courageous?

Courage is required to stand up, to live our personal values. We can be kind in speaking the necessary truth. Yet if we don’t have courage to take action, we will fold into a puddle of mush along with our personal values.

When we accept the fact not everyone will like us, that is a small demonstration of courage.  Human beings are social creatures and have this innate desire to be liked. Purposefully creating enemies is contrary to basic human nature.

The founders of America because of their shared personal values toward liberty created an entire country of enemies. They also created enemies in other colonists as less than 10% of the population was actively involved in what we call the American Revolution.

Today America continues to create enemies beyond failed political initiatives.  The liberty and freedom we have is hated by many because we are a country free for the most part to live our lives how we want to lives our lives. Living our lives returns to our personal core values.

Enemies are a natural consequence, a by product of living our personal core values. If we have no enemies, that may suggest our personal core values have not been tested.

This question then remains:

How much courage do you have to accept the fact by living your personal core values you will create enemies?

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Leanne Hoagland-Smith is THE People and Process Problem Solver. She supports forward thinking leaders in bridging the gaps between the two problems restricting strategic business growth – people and processes. Leanne can be reached at 219.508.2859 central time USA.  Follow her on Twitter or check out her profile on LinkedIn.