THE DRIVING FORCE OF MANKIND

The driving force of mankind underpinning all issues of ethics is a person's heart motives. Scientific research of our heart’s influence on our lives was published by Doc Childre and Howard Martin in a book called The Heartmath Solution by HarperCollins in 2000. An excerpt from page 4 reads:

“Over the past twenty years, scientists have discovered new information about the heart that makes us realize it’s far more complex than we’d every imagined. We now have scientific evidence that the heart sends us emotional and intuitive signals to help govern our lives. Instead of simply pumping blood, it directs and aligns many systems in the body so that they can function in harmony with one another. And although the heart is in constant communication with the brain, we know that it makes many of its own decisions.

Because of this new evidence, we have to rethink our entire attitude toward ‘following our hearts.’ At the Institute of HeartMath (IHM), scientists have found that the heart is capable of giving us messages and helping us far more than anyone ever suspected. Throughout this book, we’ll share the research that provides new evidence of the power of heart intelligence. And we’ll show how that intelligence can have a measurable impact on our decision-making, our health problems, our productivity at work, our children’s learning ability, our families, and the overall quality of our lives.”

Someone once said, “A man is like a tube of toothpaste. When he’s squeezed, what’s on the inside of him comes out!” Psychologists have long said that the hurts and wounds from one’s early childhood, even while in the womb, can determine and influence behavior throughout one’s life. The New Testament of the Bible contains verses like, “Out of the abundance of the heart a man speaks” and “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.”

In the book, The HeartMath Solution, scientists have proven that one’s “heart code” determines their behavior and influences the environment around them. Maybe it can be said this way: Whatever we believe in our hearts will guide our lives and influence our ethics. So, for example, if one thinks all blue collar workers are immature, have no common sense or need constant supervision, all blue collar workers working for that person will be treated in ways that support those beliefs. Worse yet, blue collar workers treated in line with these beliefs are likely to produce behaviors that demonstrate immaturity, lack of common sense and the need for close supervision.

A CPA once shared a story about one of his new clients. When she asked the CPA to prepare her tax return, the new client said that she had not had “good luck” with CPAs. She related that they had all made mistakes on her tax returns that cost her “lots of money.” When the CPA completed the return and presented it to his client, the client found several significant errors! In one instance, the CPA had put his personal social security number in the space provided for the client’s social security number!  The beliefs in our hearts can influence both our actions and those of others.

A person’s ethical behaviors are often learned or inherited.  Most importantly, they can result from character growth and development. One’s personal ethical responsibility is to make daily decisions based on pure heart motives, i.e., to do the right thing, at the right time and in the right way. Understanding one's heart motives is the beginning of applying ethics for success!