Welcome to Integrity: The Best Foundation, the book and video series designed to help you live and lead with integrity.

Today, we're going to continue our study on the Pillar of Dignity, because people who embrace their dignity resist being victims, and they pursue a life with purpose.

Ruth Chilion has modeled the life of dignity for us. She knew who she was, and more than that, she believed she was not a fixed being; she could change. And she accepted responsibility for her actions and her reactions. How would she respond in the face of such difficult circumstances? What would her attitude be? Ruth's choice would define her life--not the difficulty, but her choice.

Now, Naomi returned with Ruth to Moab. She had a victim's mentality. She focused on the affliction and on the misfortune.

But not Ruth. She held to hope, and she was not about to give up. Immediately, she set up to set out to provide for the ladies. And the storyteller says Ruth was diligent in what she did, gleaning in the fields from morning to night. And she committed to consistency to do the right thing. And the result? It opened doors for her tomorrows.

Someone said, "Pray as though everything depends on God. But work as though everything depends on you." And Ruth's success was not attributable to good luck or to the favour of others, but to her diligence, her healthy habits, and her faith.

The fate of the British cycling changed one day in 2003. The governing body of the professional cycle in Great Britain hired David Brailsford to be their new performance director. At that time, professional cyclists in Great Britain had endured nearly 100 years of mediocrity. Since 1908, British riders had won just one single gold medal in the Olympic Games, and they had fared even worse in cycling's greatest prize, the Tour de France. In 110 years, no British cyclist had ever won that event. In fact, the performance of the British riders was so underwhelming that one of the top eight bike manufacturers in Europe refused to sell bikes to the team because they feared that other professionals would see the Brits riding their bikes, and their sales would decline. So Brailsford was hired to put British cycling on a new trajectory.

Now, what made him different from previous coaches was his relentless commitment to a strategy that he referred to as the aggregation of marginal gains, which is the philosophy of searching for a tiny margin of improvement in everything you do. Brailsford said, "The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke everything down that you can think about as it comes to riding, and you improve it by 1 percent, you will get an insignificant increase when you put all the improvements together."

Now, the fastest way to make a big change is to consistently do small things. Now, Brailsford said that as coaches began to make small adjustments, they redesigned the bicycle seat to make the team more comfortable They rubbed alcohol on the tires for a better grip. They asked riders to wear electrically heated overshorts to maintain ideal muscle temperature while riding. And they used biofeedback sensors to monitor performance.

The results, in 2008 in the Olympic Games in Beijing: The British won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available. Four years later at the Olympic Games in London, the Brits raised the bar, and they set nine Olympic records and seven world records. That same year, Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. The next year, his teammate, Chris From, won the race; and he would go on to win it again in 2015, 2016, 2017, giving the British team five Tour de France victories in six years.

Now, how does this happen? How does a team of previously ordinary athletes transform into champions? The secret was making tiny changes and those small improvements accumulated to make remarkable results.

"Be very careful then how you live. Not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil."

Now, too often we are convinced that massive success requires massive action. And whether it's losing weight, building a business or becoming a person of integrity, we need to make small steps rather than try to make earth-shaking improvements all at once. The impact created by small change, small habits, will affect your life in a radical way.

Suppose a plane is leaving Los Angeles and flying to Miami, but the pilot turns the plane just three degrees off course and it flies that same distance. It will end up in New York. Just a small change, but a massive difference. So my question is, what kind of trajectory are your habits creating in your life? Habits matter more than you imagine. Your life and leadership are a direct reflection of the small things you choose to do all the time.