Why is it we can scream from the top of our lungs when everything is going great? However, we don’t share things when life gives us lemons? Social media is filled with people on great vacations and life’s many blessings, but it never contains life’s difficulties. What is the standard response when someone asks you how business is going? Is there a reason that we are afraid to say that business has been terrible?
This all comes down to one common theme: EGO.
Don’t get me wrong, I protect my ego like a wild dog, but I have been learning when to let go and not be so protective. However, I am far from perfect and still have a lot of work to do before I am a master at playing off of my ego.
I was recently working with a client when they asked me for help with a sales problem. The client felt that they had a great product, but they couldn’t get people to buy their product. We began the deep dive with my simple questions: “What have you tried?” The client quickly responded with “Everything!” Is that an ego-protecting response or a response that is really looking for a solution?
I took a deep breath, and a very long pause so that my client could think about their answer. He then said “What?!”, as if he was being attacked by my silence. I simply stated that I didn’t say anything to him and that if the silence was hurting him, then he was free to continue explaining his position. He paused and then apologized. He admitted that he was frustrated with the process of getting his product out to the market place and that he had a lot riding on this project. This made him a little sore on the edges and a bit sensitive at times. I simply asked him if he was ready to do an open and honest dive into why his marketing had failed. He calmly said “yes”, which was when I knew he was truly ready to tackle the problem head-on.
If your response is protective, then your ego is getting in the way and you really should take a pause. People want to help, but they can’t help if you aren’t open and honest about your business. The fact is that we are all struggling at one point or another, but oftentimes it is our ego that prevents us from being open and honest which is a barrier to receiving help from others. Heck, one of my businesses just went through the worst four-month stretch of its history. We simply had to get to work as a team, figure out the problem(s), and make the necessary corrections to get the business back on the right track. If we hadn’t put our egos to the side, then we wouldn’t have been able to work as a team to get the ship moving in the right direction.
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