[tungstenfurnace]

I know what you mean; I couldn't do it either.

However, he confessed his lie, and now he works making movies. They're lies too! They're fictional. Yet good things -- including important truths -- come out of them.

Richard Branson confesses in his autobiography how he started his business career with lies. He would phone up a bank and try to sell advertising space in his student magazine by claiming that a rival bank had already bought space and that they should get in on the action.

[iamwil]

I remember my dad telling me about different kinds of businesses one can start. He told me about a family friend that's running a pawn shop, and is rather successful at it. I asked him why he never went into the pawn shop business. My dad told me that wasn't a business he'd be able to do by his nature.

I realized a while later that what he meant was that there's lots of ways to make money, but not all of them will sit well with you. Each industry has its cultural values and accepted norms. Everyone's different with the ethical decisions that crop up in business's edge cases. You'll want to pick one that suits your nature so you can sleep at night.

Of course, business is all one gray area. While we may all bend the rules a bit for an advantage, beware those that do it too much. What you do attracts those you run with.

I remember reading in Tao of Warren Buffet saying something to the extent of (not exact quote) "Pick those that are smart, hardworking, and ethical to work with. Especially the last one, because if that isn't there, the first two are going to kill you."