My buddy Tim says, “A binding promise is crucial for creating deep and lasing trust and zeal.” Tim told me about an article by a guy named Lewis B. Smedes, entilted “Controlling The Unpredictable: The Power of Promising,” where essentially LBS locates the very basis of our identity in the power of promising. LBS says, “Some people ask who they are and expect their feelings to tell them, but feelings are flickering flames that fade after every fitful stimulus. Some people ask who they are and expect their achievements to tell them, but the things we accomplish always leave a core of character unrevealed. Some people ask who they are and expect visions of their ideal self to tell them, but our visions can only tell us what we want to be, not what we are. So who are we? …We are largely who we become through making wise promises and keeping them.” LBS quotes Sir Thomas More (from Robert Bolt’s, A Man For All Seasons) where he says, “When a man takes an oath, he’s holding his own self in his own hands, like water; and if he opens his fingers then, he needn’t hope to find himself again.”