The following article is an exert from my book The 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Graduated. Get your copy today

My mother raised my identical twin brother and me as the best as she could, and she tried to instill in us the ability to make right choices. She seemed strict at the time but now I know it was for the right reasons. Unfortunately for us, my mother couldn’t’ be there for every stupid decision I made.

Snowball Story
On one particular day, my brother and I were hanging out with some of the older kids in the neighborhood. As some of you know, when you hang out with the “older kids” it usually results in problems. Now they had this fascination with the woods that sat next to our house because it over looked a very busy street. They were particularly fascinated with throwing snowballs from the hillside down onto the cars driving by at 30 mph. For those of you who have never had the opportunity to launch a snowball off a hillside on to a moving vehicle when the snowball hits the car it makes a thunderous explosion. It also tends to upset the driver of the car, as you can imagine, as they zoom by, quite unassumingly. When we would all gather in the woods to throw the snowballs I always dismissed such requests to try it for myself. There were always a few who were eager to throw the snowballs at the cars but I would never give in. However, on this particular snowy morning I gave in. The small group of us walked into the woods that morning to do what we had done many times before. This time however I was the one who was going to be throwing the snowballs.
The Choice Was Made
As we walked to the top of the hill I could see my breath and heard the crunch of the fresh snow under our boots. As I picked up the snow, it was easy to pack since it was a wet snow the night before. As I packed the snow into the perfect round snowball I heard the car coming up the street. As it began to come into sight I reared back and threw with all my might. As I threw the snowball down the hill toward the approaching car it was as if everything went into slow motion. I watched the snowball get closer and closer with everything still moving in slow motion. The thunderous BOOM awoke me from my motionless haze. The snowball hit the unsuspecting pickup truck right on the windshield. Of course, as soon as this happened all of my friends ran because the truck came to a screeching halt and came up our hill to find who did this to his truck. I learned a very important lesson that day about ethics. When you are the one who is guilty all of your “older friends” automatically disown you as a stranger whom they have never met before. As this very angry many came up the hill he got out of his truck and found us and he was not happy. Needless to say once he found us, my friends all ratted me out as the culprit. This burley man spoke to my mother and she promptly grounded me from all activity for a very, very long time.
Choices Still Matter
The reason I tell you this story is to illustrate the point that ethics is a series of choices. You can choose to be ethical because you choose to do what is right and make right choices in your life and in business. However, just like my snowball story I made a bad decision that landed me in one heap of trouble. Are there decisions that you are making on a regular basis that in the future could cost you your career? Your family is counting on you. Your employees are watching you. Your choices still matter. You aren’t invincible. One day your choices will catch up with you. I don’t believe in karma but I do believe that unrighteousness won’t last forever. No one is perfect, I certainly don’t claim to be. However, it is healthy for us to do a introspection some times to ensure that the road we are on isn’t leading to professional and possibly personal destruction.