The young girl on the other end of the phone argued with me.

“Do you have your receipt? You didn’t fill out the online form?” She asked.

You would have thought she’d spent money at my place of business, not the other way around. I was calling because the product I’d purchased wasn’t working and she, well she was arguing with me about every detail abut at no time did she concern herself with the real issue; the broken product.

It was a great example of how businesses, like people often struggle to embrace their errors, mistakes and the costs of them. The dance of justification. The dance of irresponsibility. The dance of unconsciousness. The dance where rules and administration trump responsibility. Been there? Arguing with someone you paid good money to, for a product or service that doesn’t work?. Isn’t it irritating when companies resist taking responsibility, when we as clients aren’t heard, when others don’t make their mistakes-right?

I find that in my own life, I do the same thing.

I resist my errors, mistakes and shortcomings. I try to hide them. Deny them. I argue with people about them. My natural tendency is to protect my fragile ego and self esteem. So for years I falsely did everything I could to hide my shadow, cover up my errors and mistakes thinking this was the only way I could protect my cowardly self and hope to someday amount to anything.

Boy was I wrong. As wrong as this customer sales representative and her company is.

The truth, I’ve found is that humility, personal power, responsibility and courage are all tightly interwoven. And it was when I practice humility and embrace my shadow, my errror’s that I show up a person I and others can believe and trust in.

Integrity. Personal responsibility. It just may be the most attractive thing in the world. Yes, even better than a Brad Pitt, George Clooney look a like!

When we embrace the less than stellar, embarrasing, even hurtful we’re able to let darkness circulate. What you, I and the sales clerk resist, persists. Personal courage and responsibility. They require the ability to embrace one’s shortcomings, mistakes, errors and bring one’s shadow near.

Now, excuse me I need to go help a customer service representative embrace her shadow without growing my own):

Pam Hoelzle

Make a life, not merely a living

And do all the good you can my friend, while you can!

425 218 5864