Victim or Victor?
On Thursday I attended an business luncheon, but one of the concepts I came away with was not just something to use at work. I thought I’d pass it along.
The speaker was a business coach from a company called Action International, and his presentation, “Creating a Raving Fan”, was all about providing such fantastic service that your customer becomes your raving fan. That he started off talking about attitude, like having fun and giving 100% to get 100%, doesn’t surprise me because I realize that attitude is everything. He used a couple of acronyms to describe the difference between what he called “victors” and “victims”. Victims lie in BED and let life happen to them. Victors take the OAR and steer their own ship. He visually arranged the acronyms like this:
O-wnership
A-ccountable
R-esponsible
___________
B-lame
E-verybody
D-enial
So, if you’re a victim, you need to ask yourself, am I blaming something or someone else for what’s happening to me? Is it everybody else’s fault? Am I in denial about what’s really going on, that I’m the real reason for my failure and misery? The presenter said, “Since you’re the one consistent factor in your life, everything happens because of you.” You victors know this already. If you’re a victor, you realize that you own your own ship. You take ownership of your situations. You are accountable to yourself and take responsibility for your thoughts and actions. You realize that no one else is going to fix your problems for you.
Kevin Liles, a hip-hop music executive, a former rapper, who later ran Def Jam Records and who is now a senior vice president at Warner Brothers Records, wrote a book about his success called Make It Happen. It’s full of advice to young people who want to succeed in business, especially the music business. He got the title of the book from something his uncle once told him when he was a kid… “There are three kinds of people – those that let things happen to them, those that watch things happen, and those who make things happen.”
Victim or Victor. Which one are you? Are you going to stay in BED and whine or are you going to take the OAR and get your ship to go somewhere?
