Last night I took a walk with my good friend Carol Dilks from Reston, VA. Carol is an experienced real estate agent. We have had many conversations about sensitivity and service to clients, and related things. She is a pretty aware and accomplished lady.
Carol is a former special ed teacher. She was a popular social worker on the streets of Tampa, FL. She started a foundation to support children who have lost parents to death, an organization which is still thriving. Not your basic salesperson who wants to serve themselves, not that I am saying that is the norm. I am just saying that to me Carol is unusual. We have traded stories from both our social activism and social service days.
Last night she told me a wonderful story. She used to do many real estate transactions involving diplomats and executives being relocated to the Washington, DC area. She was assigned a couple who had a few days to find a new place. Carol said that immediately she just could not stand the wife, and apparently there was mutual distaste. Carol simply did not like this woman, at all!
They had to spend quite a bit of time together, and the whole time Carol wanted to be rid of her. Carol is a consummate professional, though, and she gave them her best in showing them homes. Then, while Carol was driving the couple around, the wife said something in a particular way that Carol would have said herself. It was eerily familiar.
Suddenly Carol got it. She couldn’t stand the woman because the woman reminded her of a deep part of herself that she was not comfortable with. “She is me!” Carol thought. All of a sudden Carol “got” this woman, and all the tension was gone. The two of them finished picking a house alone without the husband, and they did great together.
What is wonderful to me is that Carol had and has the honesty and thirst for self-growth and truth that she was able to look the mirror dead in the eye and embrace what she saw.
We agreed that the way we hold things, and how open we are to what might appear, tasteful or distasteful, is huge and can lead to great change. For Carol, what started as something really uncomfortable led to both a pleasant new relationship with her client, and a pretty massive self-awakening.
Great job, Carol. Great story.

