VIR-II-0041
“Money got tight and I'm tempted to delay paying the people who worked for me.”
They did the work, on your word that they'd be paid. Now cash is short and the easy lever is to stretch them — pay yourself, pay the loud creditors, let the quiet ones wait. But they trusted your word with their labor, and a man who pays everyone before the people who worked for him has his priorities inverted. Keeping this word may cost you comfort. Breaking it costs you something you can't buy back.
Your Practice
- Put the people who did the work at the top of the list, not the bottom.
- If you genuinely can't pay in full now, tell them today, honestly, with a real date.
- Cut your own draw before you cut theirs. Your word came at their expense.
- Rebuild the buffer so you're never again choosing between cash and your word.