A very long time ago my brother and I used to get gifts of worn clothes from a family down the street. One day I was called to come get a few used clothes. I went with my brother to pick them up. On getting home, we tried them on and some fit us. Suddenly, I put my hand inside the pocket of one of the trousers and I found money in it. New naira notes (10 naira and 20 naira mostly). We were excited and thought we found gold. Chai, poverty na bastxd! 😡 I went ahead and informed our mother who immediately asked us to return the money to the family. My brother and I were a bit reluctant (as per hungry kids 🤗), but we heeded our mother's instruction and went to return the money. On getting there, the family acted surprised that we returned the money. To date, I suspected it was a test that we passed. But what followed was unlimited access to the family and their entire household. We enjoyed the company of their kids, ate there, and spent so much time with them in their house. And they also come to our "slum" to say hello to us. So when I see people do bad things and blame poverty, I counter it with the fact that poverty is not the absence of money in your pocket, it's the absence of ideas plus morals in your head. If our mother wasn't a morally upright woman or we (the kids) were not obedient to our parents, we would have failed that test. This is what I brought into my business. No matter the corruption around me and my business, I choose not to have plenty of customers because I wouldn't want to cut corners, take money without delivering or cheat a customer. Recently two customers overpaid for their products. One paid an extra 75k and the other 2k. For one week the 75k man didn't take his calls, so we couldn't even deliver those feeds to him. He later reached out to say he was sorry, he wanted to make a downpayment for extra bags of feed. To date, he is not ready to pick up the feed When we called the attention of the second person (2k). He smiled and said he was waiting to blast us if we didn't call his attention. He went further to say we should "keep the change" Integrity in business is a key factor for sustainability. If my mother hadn't taught us Integrity, perhaps we would have folded our businesses by now or be jumping from one business to another because we are trying to avoid people we defrauded. So I've been in fish farming for about 2 decades now and I still have over 4 decades to spend in the business. Someone once said, "People buy you before they buy your product" Do you have the integrity to sell? Sell it and make more! And by the way, the family we used to get used clothes from, their son is here on X (formerly Twitter) He may read this thread. And smile. ☺️ I've never shared this story with him or anyone close. This was around 2001. And don't forget, My business is agribusiness with a major bias toward fish farming business. Follow my business page Prodave Integrated Services -Catfishpreneur And WhatsApp channel https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va5f0Pk1XquQ1nzcuQ0M P.S Let's hear your story about how you exhibited integrity in life and business/workplace. #integritymatters #agribusiness #prodave #aquaculture #mystory #catfishpreneur