Why your personal standard is the one thing you can never trade for power, approval, or influence.
I watched Last Week Tonight this week, and somewhere between the jokes and the outrage, there was a moment that made my jaw drop.
John Oliver was discussing Bari Weiss, a woman who built her career on words like “truth,” “courage,” and “independence.” The kind of voice that, at first, seems to rise above the noise.
But as Oliver unpacked her new corporate role, something felt off. Not because she isn’t capable, but because the narrative she now represents seems almost allergic to the principles she once preached.
It’s the same dissonance I feel when I think about Alice Weidel in Germany, standing on a stage built on opposition to her own existence. An openly gay woman leading a far-right party that rails against much of what she embodies. It’s a paradox almost too absurd to process.
I’m not here to moralize these people individually. They’re complex, intelligent, and most importantly, human, which means flawed. And I recognize that the decisions they make, public and private, are rarely black-and-white. Pressure, opportunity, and personal survival all shape choices in ways outsiders can’t fully grasp. Yet, even with that context, they illustrate something that keeps gnawing at me: how easily personal values can be traded for proximity to power.
We like to imagine that we’d hold our ground, that our principles are fixed and immune to compromise. But power, in all its subtlety, rarely presents itself as a blunt proposition. It seduces. It whispers. It rewards flexibility, not conviction. And little by little, the line between what we stand for and what we tolerate begins to blur.
Values are easy in theory. They sound noble in conversation, look good on company walls, and make for tidy posts online. But values are not meant to be convenient; they are meant to cost something. Integrity is only proven when the price rises.
When you abandon these very values, you don’t fall all at once. You slide. Inches at a time, rationalizing further as you go. “It’s complicated.” “It’s a strategy.” “It’s for the greater good.” Until one day, you realize you’ve arrived somewhere you once swore you’d never be, applauded, promoted, validated, but hollow as fuck.
It isn’t just personal. When people in visible positions—some journalists, some politicians, some leaders—trade authenticity for advancement, they make it seem like principles are optional, that truth can be adjusted for the right opportunity. And that’s how cynicism spreads. If even those who should know better can’t hold the line, what chance does anyone else have?
A standard should never be up for negotiation; that’s the whole point of having one. It’s the guardrail that keeps you from becoming whatever the moment demands. You can refine it, challenge it, doubt it, but you cannot auction it off.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth: living by your standard often means losing things you thought you wanted: influence, approval, belonging. But what you keep is rarer, the knowledge that you didn’t bend when bending would’ve been easier.
I’ve been thinking about this lately, about what it really means to hold a standard when the world runs on negotiation. We talk about alignment, authenticity, and purpose, but forget these words have weight and demand sacrifice.
So here’s my question for you this week:
What parts of your standard have you started to soften, and for whose approval?
Power is always temporary. But the person you become while chasing it, that’s the part that stays.
Life is lived,
Willy