Business owners, are you guilty of being a rescuer?
Do you try to pump life into your staff, clients, peers and friends?
James (Jim) Rohn was a favourite motivational speaker of ours and I had the good fortune to meet him on a number of occasions. He gave us all some great life and business lessons. One of my favourite sayings that Jim gave us was “Save your plasma for the living!”
He used the expression a lot when he was training sales people. As sales people, which all business owners are in some form, we often persist too long on a particular opportunity trying to get someone on board as a client. Then when we get them as a client we often think down the track, I wish I hadn’t bothered. Some people just don’t want to be helped – they want the attention – but if their “issue” goes away then so does the attention.
It doesn’t just happen with clients, it also happens with team members and peers. These people are referred to in ‘psychology’ as ‘victims’. They seek out ‘rescuers’ in order to get attention but never actually want to be saved! The third group in this triangle are the ‘persecutors’. These people just love to create drama. They thrive on making other people’s (victims) lives a misery. And then the ‘rescuers’ jump in to save the ‘victims’. In psychology it is called the Karpman Drama Traingle.
It plays out much too often in a business or in a team. Often the poor business owner finds himself being the ‘rescuer’ in order to keep the peace and keep the business moving forward. Our advice to the business owners who find themselves in this position is “Save your plasma for the living.” In other words put your energy in to those who want to live and go places! Don’t burn out trying to pump life in to those who really don’t want it.
Could you use the power of an informal advisory board?
“I’m so confident that you will be impressed with the Advance Mentoring Group (AMG) process, that I am offering the first month’s meeting and personalised business assessment, at no cost to you except for your time.”
If you are a business owner in Western Australia, apply to come along to a AMG meeting. You will get to learn about AMG groups and how they can help you and your business get to new heights! Check out other pages on this website for more information and testimonials.
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