Thanks for sharing your story with us Jane.  A great demonstration of character based leadership in practice. Sometimes we have to keep listening until we can hear.  Only then can we truly take responsibility for the relationship.  Great advice as always.

On the flip side, just because someone interpreted you as being self serving, doesn't mean you have to take it on as the truth about you.  You demonstrate how to walk that delicate line here.  When faced with an assessment that doesnt fit our self perception it is important to both be open to the possibility that we could be deflecting what we dont want to face about ourselves, and make sure we are not owning an assessment that may not be a truth about who we are.