It was a big winter in the West. Like many of my friends and neighbors, I’ve had to reach out to skilled tradespeople to help put my house and my property back together after our record breaking year of snow. I was mostly in search of gig workers with unofficial side businesses, but my boyfriend was contacting established businesses with solid reputations for his snow smashed house. We both got the same response. Over, and over again.
You might be thinking the response was, “No, we are too busy.” I mean, that would make sense, right? It was a huge winter, and similar damage was done to thousands of houses in the community. I don’t know of one person who didn’t have some ice dam damage in our mountain town this year. But, the response we got over and over again was, “Let me check my schedule, and I’ll call you back.” Only, they never called back. Out of respect and patience, my boyfriend and I would wait a week, then call back, only to get the same response or no response at all. Back to ground zero. Call a new number, get the same response on loop. 1. Call 2. “Let me check my schedule.” 3. No response.
The cumulative effect is that work is taking eons to get done. Usually the 3rd or 4th call would yield results, but that was 4-6 weeks after the initial need was determined. Granted, scheduling service in a resort town with both a transient employee and tourist population is incredibly difficult, but I believe authenticity could make it a lot more efficient.
When people are authentic, they tell the truth. Even when it’s not pretty, they let you know what is real, so you can make a decision that is based in reality. It sounds something like, “Thank you for calling. There are a lot of people that want my services right now, and I’m down an employee or two. I don’t want to lose you as a customer, but I can’t get you on the schedule for at least a month or more.” I think that was pretty much the truth for the roofer, cleaner, plumber, and flooring companies that we called. They didn’t want to say, “yes” and they didn’t want to say “no” with good reason, so they said nothing, and we waited.
Shifting to authenticity means that we can say both “yes” and “no” at the same time with clear details that lets other people know where we stand. “Yes- I appreciate your business and want to keep you as a customer, and No- I can’t do your project right now. Here’s the details on what I can offer you…” Though you may not do the work at that particular time for that customer, you have established communication that builds trust, and trust builds loyalty and gratitude.
So, yeah, across the country, in towns big and small, inauthenticity, rooted in the fast paced busyness of life and not taking the time to slow down and consider what is really behind our behavior is actually just slowing us all down with inaction, avoidance, and procrastination. This slow down infects a community and becomes a frustrating slog of existence. And when combined with the other challenges of life, it’s killing us too.
I just lost a dear friend. There were a few, short, painful hours where none of us knew where she was… but in my heart, I knew. I knew because for years, I’d watched my friend choose alcohol to hide her pain. I tried all of my novice ways to get her to open up about using this crutch. I talked about the times when I drank too much
to hide my pain, she didn’t bite. I asked her how her life was going, and she would make the obligatory small complaints about messy kids, and lazy boyfriends, and I didn’t probe. But I watched her body change. I watched her personality waiver. And I watched her power through tremendous challenges and heartache and still show up to the potluck with three side dishes. I didn’t know how to access her truth, her authenticity, so I wasn’t able to stand beside her, hold her hand, and promise her that we could find a healthy way to handle the pain. Instead, she buried her pain, her truth, her authenticity, then all of her. And we can’t get her back.
Our authenticity allows us to accept and love all of the messy, broken, and beautiful parts of being human. Inauthenticity is how we hide our messy and broken parts from others, and try to only show the beautiful. But all of the people who are watching the show are human too. And what they really need to connect with us is our access to our beautiful, messy truth- to be beautiful, broken, and messy together.
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