Walk Away… With Your Integrity Intact

It is a perhaps an unfortunate but inevitable fact that we can end up doing business with people who lack integrity; they mislead, duck, dive, blame  and refuse to take responsibility.

What we often end up doing, more than anything else, in these rare but tricky scenarios is beat ourselves up that we couldn’t not make it work. Running parallel to giving the self a hard time is the opportunity cost of the wasted energy that could have been better invested in wholesome relationships.

The fact is, no matter how talented you are,  you can’t do business with someone who lacks integrity. That change lies outside of you and sits with them.

What you can do though is make sure you walk away with your integrity intact.

My advice is when you have  done absolutely everything possible to resolve matters; you can put your hand on your heart and say you have tried every option (and that’s the measure) – then you can walk away with your integrity intact .

You know, you could have brought in bring in Marcus Cicero, Kofi Annan or Nelson Mandela to mediate and it would make no difference when integrity is absent.  Don’t wrestle with pigs – the pigs love it and you’ll get covered in sh*t… as they say.

Not all relationships work out, no matter how fine a human being you are –  and when we realise that, the best option is to walk away as quickly possible and that might take a day, a week, a year.

This has been a public service announcement on behalf the of the Real Relationships are Messy Society.

Image Alex Mueller