The “My Word is My Bond” Entrepreneur

Posted on November 2, 2025 by anentrepreneurswords

This blog is a bit of a lament. I grew up in my industry during the 1970s and 1980s when a handshake was still as meaningful as written documentation. The proverbial handshake was not necessarily a legal contract, but it might as well have been. Once we gave our word, nothing could change the follow-through on our intent. Legal documentation was merely a formality and there was not a lot of haggling over the verbiage. Sadly, this notion of “my word is my bond” has diminished in recent times.

Sometime ago we sold two large apartment communities that were part of our portfolio for several years. We went through a painstaking process of listing the properties for sale with a national brokerage firm. The properties were marketed extensively, and we issued a call for offers. Dozens of offers were received, and we opted to have further discussions with the top ten bidders. Then we made a call for “best and final” offers. Once those offers were received, we interviewed the top four bidders and determined a winner. We then told the winners verbally that we were accepting their best and final bid. In both instances, one of the unsuccessful bidders reached out within 24 hours and increased their offer. In one case, the increase was $250,000, and in the other case it was $750,000 higher. In our minds there was no decision to be made. We had already given our word to the initial winning bidders, and we had no problem staying with their offers, even though it cost us $1 million.

Contrast that with a situation that occurred with another of our business units. This business is involved in the syndication of historic tax credits. We offered term sheets to a developer who verbally accepted our offer and confirmed the acceptance in an e-mail. A couple of weeks passed, and we had not received a return of the term sheets signed by the developer. When we reached out to the developer he apologized and said that he had decided to accept an offer from another tax credit syndicator. Legally, he had every right to do this. But it certainly left a sour taste in our mouths. For sure, his word was not his bond, and he did not even have the courtesy to let us know without being prompted.

It all boils down to the simple yet powerful premise of Integrity. Our company embraces five Core Values, one of which is Integrity. We are proud of the fact that we can demonstrate in real time that we practice what we preach. Integrity used to be a foundational principle for entrepreneurship. I believe that it still is, but it has become devalued – especially where the almighty dollar is involved. The problem is compounded by the fact that too many businesses throw around terms such as “integrity” and “honesty” but fail to deliver on them. Hearing Honest Harry yap about how you can trust him to sell you a car at “$1 over invoice” has caused society to tune out.

So, what do we do about this sad fact of life? At this point, I do not really care about whether I can believe that the word of other entrepreneurs is their bond. Instead, we will just keep doing things the old-fashioned way. If I tell you something, you can believe it whether we have a legal document or not. Hopefully, you will treat me the same way. If I screw-up, I will step up and make it right whether I have a legal document compelling me to do so or not. I cannot count the number of times over the course of my career this has happened – at a cost of literally millions of dollars. This may not be the smartest business decision, but it is the right thing to do, and I can sleep at night.

At the end of the day, as entrepreneurs we should want to be judged by the character we display over the course of our careers rather than the amount of money we will have made.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

The Cheating Entrepreneur

Posted on January 29, 2023 by anentrepreneurswords

I’m not writing this blog to be judgmental. I’m really not. However, there are some subjects that cannot be discussed without sounding judgmental. So here goes. Let’s look at the topic of (gasp!) cheating. I can’t say whether cheating is more prevalent in the business world today than 10, 25 or even 50 years ago. It still is an issue that takes many forms.

Presumably we all started learning about cheating as small children. As a youngster, I remember many a board game that devolved into accusations of cheating. Our teachers and parents admonished us to never look at someone else’s paper when taking a test. Playground games were fertile grounds for cheating – remember four-square? “The ball hit the line and is out.” “No, it didn’t!” “You’re a big fat cheater!” Roll the tape forward and as adults we might see team members clocking in or out for colleagues; money being borrowed from the petty cash box; résumés containing college degrees that weren’t earned or military service that didn’t happen; padded expense reports and exaggerated (and sometimes untruthful) claims about all sorts of things.

This all may sound like a collection of relatively minor transgressions. So let me tell you a story. Several years ago, we had an apartment manager who used a corporate account at a local store to make some personal purchases totaling less than $100 – and she reimbursed the property without being asked. When questioned by her supervisor, she admitted her mistake. Following company protocol, the supervisor wrote a memo that ended up in her file advising her that she had violated policy with a dishonest act. In our system of progressive discipline, another such incident could be grounds for termination. This probably seems like an innocuous situation – right? But the story gets worse.

A few years later it was discovered that this individual had concocted a very intricate, elaborate and almost impossible-to-discover embezzlement scheme – to the tune of $160,000. Her property received federal rent subsidies, and while we never had any money missing – her property was always 100% occupied and all rents collected every month – she figured out how to defraud the federal government. As her employer, we had to immediately re-pay the $160,000 to the government and then filed a claim under our crime insurance policy. Of course, she was prosecuted but had spent all the money, so there was no way to recover the stolen funds from her. The biggest surprise came when our insurance carrier denied the claim. Why? There was a fine-print clause in the policy that denied coverage if we knowingly hired or retained an employee who was dishonest. And the damning piece of evidence was that memo in her file that contained the words “dishonest act” involving her use of a company credit account for personal purposes. I’ll spare you the ugly details of litigation against the crime insurance carrier as well as the errors and omissions insurance carrier. Needless to say, we lost and ate the $160,000 (plus legal fees).

The moral of the story is three-fold. First, understand the fine details of your insurance coverage and modify your policies and procedures accordingly. Second, be careful at shrugging off small acts of cheating or dishonesty. They are a window into the overall character of an individual. What may appear to be a seemingly simple “mistake” could be the tip of a very expensive iceberg. Finally, everyone needs to see us as the paragon of virtue. We entrepreneurs need to model “squeaky clean” for our team, our customers and for the public at large. As hard as it may be, we need to demand complete and total integrity from ourselves and everyone else in our organizations. We start by always doing the right thing – especially when no one else is looking. And we hold our colleagues and associates to the same standard. The temptation may be great to cheat to compete, especially if we are struggling to gain traction. But if we do, it’s hard to expect others not to follow suit.

Integrity is not a puritanical concept. Great leaders always do the right thing and show others that it is the only standard by which to operate.

An Entrepreneur’s Shame

Posted on July 17, 2022 by anentrepreneurswords

There’s an epidemic of massive proportion moving across this country at the speed of light. It has swept up the high and mighty – politicians, actors, corporate chieftains and many a lesser soul. Careers have been ruined and reputations destroyed. Why? All because of a pattern of bad behavior that is no longer being tolerated in society. Claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and racism are reaching a crescendo with no sign of abatement. We have officially entered the Age of Shame.

Entrepreneurs need to pay particular attention to this trend. We have an opportunity to do great things, but we can easily be derailed by our own actions. This is really very simple. We must be respectful of others at all times – period. We don’t make inappropriate comments to or advances on anyone else. We don’t take actions that could be construed as discriminatory of others. We treat others as we would want to be treated.

There’s a dangerous downside to the Age of Shame. The frenzy of accusations has created a lynch mob mentality – aka – Cancel Culture. No longer are we innocent until proven guilty. Now, convictions are swift in the court of social media. There are no trials in the current “me too” environment. We can easily become ensnared in this cycle unless we take extra care to avoid it.

Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Roy Moore, Mark Halperin, Bill O’Reilly, and Matt Lauer all have something in common. It’s called arrogance. These men thought their station in life entitled them to boorishness and worse. This sense of entitlement led them to become arrogant and fostered a belief that they were bulletproof. As entrepreneurs we may realize a great deal of success. The best way to inoculate ourselves from arrogance is to remember this. The more successful we become the more humble we should become. It’s easy to develop “swagger” with success. I’m not a fan of swagger. It’s too easy for it to become an in-your-face gesture which in turn can lead to the arrogance we must guard against.

We can avoid the Age of Shame and its corresponding pain and replace it with our own Age of Gain. We have much to gain if we do it right. We can display the highest level of integrity and model the type of behavior that others can admire. We are color-blind, gender-blind, sexual-preference-blind, and national-origin-blind. Our objective is to focus on pursuing our mission and vision utilizing all the talent that we have available. Once again, the simple calculus is that we are respectful of others at all times.

The notion of respect is easy to understand. When our team members, our customers and our vendors feel respected, they are much less likely to take offense at something we might say or do that could be misconstrued. In other words, we buy goodwill that allows us the benefit of the doubt. Harvey Weinstein didn’t get the benefit of the doubt because he was such a tyrant. On the other hand, if everyone we know sees our motives as pure, an unintentional faux pas may be overlooked.

Character really counts these days. Rightly or wrongly there’s a lot of judging going on. Walking the straight and narrow truly matters. Being completely honest isn’t just a hallmark – it’s absolutely necessary to survive in the current environment. Keeping our reputation intact is essential to navigating the minefield of shameful accusations and hyper-reactions that we are witnessing daily.

When we are respectful of others at all times, we are less likely to be a casualty in the culture war that is raging. In so doing, we can sleep at night without worrying about the consequences that we might otherwise face.

This blog is being written in tandem with my book, “An Entrepreneur’s Words to Live By,” available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle (My Book), as well as being available in all of the other major eBook formats.

Cheat to Compete

Posted on February 18, 2018 by anentrepreneurswords

Presumably we all started learning about cheating as small children. As a youngster, I remember many a board game that devolved into accusations of cheating. Our teachers and parents admonished us to never look at someone else’s paper when taking a test. Playground games were fertile grounds for cheating – remember four-square? “The ball hit the line and is out.” “No it didn’t!” “You’re a big fat cheater!” Roll the tape forward and as adults we might see team members clocking in or out for colleagues; money being borrowed from the petty cash box; résumés containing college degrees that weren’t actually earned or military service that didn’t actually happen; padded expense reports, and exaggerated (and sometimes untruthful) claims about all sorts of things.

This all may sound like a collection of relatively minor transgressions. So let me tell you a story. A number of years ago we had an apartment manager who used a corporate account at a local store to make some personal purchases totaling less than $100 – and she actually reimbursed the property without being asked. When questioned by her supervisor, she admitted her mistake. Following company protocol, the supervisor wrote a memo that ended up in her file advising her that she had violated policy with a dishonest act. In our system of progressive discipline, another such incident could be grounds for termination. This probably seems like a pretty innocuous situation – right? But the story gets worse.

A few years later it was discovered that this individual had concocted a very intricate, elaborate and almost impossible-to-discover embezzlement scheme – to the tune of $160,000. Her property received federal rent subsidies, and while we never had any money missing – her property was always 100% occupied and all rents collected every month – she figured out how to defraud the federal government. As her employer, we had to immediately re-pay the $160,000 to the government and then filed a claim under our crime insurance policy. Of course she was prosecuted but had spent all the money, so there was no way to recover the stolen funds from her. The biggest surprise came when our insurance carrier denied the claim. Why? There was a fine-print clause in the policy that denied coverage if we knowingly hired or retained an employee who was dishonest. And the damning piece of evidence was that memo in her file that contained the words “dishonest act” involving her use of a company credit account for personal purposes. I’ll spare you the ugly details of litigation against the crime insurance carrier as well as the errors and omissions insurance carrier. Needless to say we lost and ate the $160,000 (plus legal fees).

Integrity is not a puritanical concept. Great leaders always do the right thing and show others that it is the only standard by which to operate.

You can also listen to a weekly audio podcast of my blog. What you hear will be different than what you read in this blog. Subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also click on this link – Click here to listen to Audio Episode 84 – D or D?

The Age of Shame

Posted on December 17, 2017 by anentrepreneurswords

There’s an epidemic of massive proportion moving across this country at the speed of light. It has swept up the high and mighty – politicians, actors, corporate chieftains and many a lesser soul. Careers have been ruined and reputations destroyed. Why? All because of a pattern of bad behavior that is no longer being tolerated in today’s society. Claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment and racism are reaching a crescendo with no sign of abatement. We have officially entered the Age of Shame.

There’s a dangerous downside to the Age of Shame. The frenzy of accusations has created a lynch mob mentality. No longer are we innocent until proven guilty. Now, convictions are swift in the court of social media. There are no trials in the current “me too” environment. We can easily become ensnared in this cycle unless we take extra care to avoid it.

Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Roy Moore, Mark Halperin, Bill O’Reilly and Matt Lauer all have something in common. It’s called arrogance. These men thought their station in life entitled them to boorishness and worse. This sense of entitlement led them to become arrogant and fostered a belief that they were bulletproof. As entrepreneurs we may realize a great deal of success. The best way to inoculate ourselves from arrogance is to remember this. The more successful we become the more humble we should become. It’s easy to develop “swagger” with success. I’m not a fan of swagger. It’s too easy for it to become an in-your-face gesture which in turn can lead to the arrogance we must guard against.

We can avoid the Age of Shame and its corresponding pain, and replace it with our own Age of Gain. We have much to gain if we do it right. We can display the highest level of integrity and model the type of behavior that others can admire. We are color-blind, gender-blind, sexual-preference-blind and national-origin-blind. Our objective is to focus on pursuing our mission and vision utilizing all of the talent that we have available. Once again the simple calculus is that we are respectful of others at all times.

June 1, 2014 – Frankfurt Am Main, Hessen, Germany – Sexual harrassment at work: A businessman is touching his female co-worker’s leg. (Credit Image: © Frank May/DPA via ZUMA Press)

Male Pink Flamingos

Posted on March 30, 2014 by anentrepreneurswords

Question: I have some less than flattering physical traits. Should I consider cosmetic surgery to keep my appearance from negatively impacting my success as an entrepreneur?

Answer: This question reminds me of the male pink flamingo. I’m going to stereotype here, so bear with me. For past generations (including mine) the color pink is more often associated with femininity than with masculinity. So metaphorically imagine what it must be like for the male pink flamingo. He lives his entire adult existence cloaked in bright pink. And yet it doesn’t seem to bother him one whit.

OK, I know pink flamingos are birds, and birds aren’t self-conscious. Which makes the point. Why as humans are we so concerned about our physical idiosyncrasies? There’s no question that society still gives a slight edge to beautiful people. But first impressions don’t make the world go round. It’s the substance of our character and the depth of our passion that is vital to building and sustaining relationships. I’ll bet if we made a consensus list of famous entrepreneurs we’ll find few that would make a casting call in Hollywood. I won’t name names, but can attest to the fact that this list includes the tall, the short, the very short, the rotund, the bald, the wrinkled, the liver-spotted . . . you get the picture. And when we see a photo of one of these women or men what are we thinking? I don’t see the thick glasses, but I do see an amazing bright individual who has achieved great things.

For most of us, the trouble started when we reached puberty. We were so intent on being attractive to the opposite sex that we often saw ourselves as just the opposite. And every little childhood slight magnified our feelings of inadequacy. Fortunately with age comes maturity (usually) and for the most part we are able to let go of our desire to look like we did when we were 17. But every once in a while we look in the mirror and self-doubts bubble up.

Self-doubts may simply be replaced with self-awareness. Are we well-groomed? Are our clothes clean and pressed? Do we have a smile on our face and exude a positive attitude? As an entrepreneur, I can tell you that I’ve met with some people who were wearing $2,000 Armani suits or carrying $7,500 Hermes Birkin handbags and everything about their appearance, attitude and mannerisms told me they were trying too hard. Likewise, I’ve met with entrepreneurs who were wearing off-the-rack at Wal-Mart and had childhood acne scars but were truly extroverted and genuine. Who do you suppose I trusted more and wanted to do business with?

Like the male pink flamingo we can make the choice to be comfortable in our own skin. Then the first impression we make will be about the things that really matter.

An Entrepreneur's Words to Live By

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