THE MOST COMMONLY ASKED QUESTION I get regarding owners and victims is, “What do you do if you have a victim in your life?”
Most people still want to change other people before they change themselves. They still don’t understand that if they were high enough on their own ladder, another person being a victim would not be such a big problem. It would be an interesting situation and an opportunity for giving, but it would not be a big problem.
You will never truly reinvent yourself until other people stop being a problem to you.
If some victim in your life is still “causing” you that much of an emotional problem, you have become a victim yourself—a victim of the victim.
People can easily see victimized thinking in their spouse or their work partner. Soon they are thinking, “That’s the problem. If they weren’t such a victim, I wouldn’t have such a hard time remaining an owner!”
After making sure that people understand that ownership is not about fixing other people, I usually give them my favorite Gandhi observation: “You must be the change you wish to see in others.” Gandhi was recommending self-reinvention as the only worthy activity in the world. If we reinvent ourselves, that other person will want to follow us, saying, “Show me how you do that!” We must be the change we wish to see in others.
Inspiration is the strongest teaching tool ever used. One of the reasons Alcoholics Anonymous has had more success than any other method of getting people sober is because it is a program of “attraction rather than promotion.” They don’t put pressure on you to get sober. But in case you want to, AA is there to inspire you.
Parents quickly learn this tool. Children do not listen to what we say; they listen to who we are. I can tell my son to exercise all day long and he will respond with, “Yeah, right.” But when I step up my own exercise program, he becomes interested, without a word from me.
Jeff Bucher, a sales manager with an office products company, has a very effective cold-calling technique that he passes on to his salespeople. But because Bucher has a deep understanding of human psychology and motivation, he does not try to teach his method to his people, he inspires them with it. When one of his people is struggling with cold-calling, Bucher hops in the car and says, “Let’s go call on some people,” and then he personally demonstrates his system.
The worst way to communicate in a relationship is to make someone wrong about something. The minute my communication has you thinking you’re wrong, I’ve put you on the defensive, and real communication has been replaced by the need to survive.
When I make you wrong, your first reaction is to defend yourself. And then by defending yourself, you become more convinced that you’re right. The more convinced you are, the less likely you are to change.
So by criticizing other people, we are increasing the behavior that we object to. Not a very effective way to build good relationships. Even if we say to ourselves that we are being “constructive” in our criticism, we are not. All criticism that makes someone feel wrong and defensive is destructive.
So if there’s a victim in our lives, the worst thing we can do is make him or her feel wrong for being a victim.
The best thing we can do is ignore the victimized thinking and wait in the bushes for an ownership moment. No one is a total victim. Everyone has moments of pure optimism and spirit. The trouble is, when those moments show up, we usually highlight them in the worst possible way. We usually comment on how rare the moment is.
“Well, where did that come from!” we say. “That’s not the Michael I know. Did you have a religious conversion or something? I’m usually the one who recommends these things, not you. I’m the one who has to always show us the bright side, not you. To what do we owe this rare and unusual moment? What have I done to deserve your first positive thought of the new year?”
By highlighting the rarity of the thought, we discourage our victim from thinking that way again.
The most effective treatment of a rare ownership moment is to really reward it, and in a sincere way, that encourages the victim to come up with another one soon.
When the victims in my life share an ownership moment with me, I like to slow down time. I like to stop the clock altogether if I can and really enjoy the moment. I like to tell other people about the victim’s ownership thinking, and refer back to it in the days ahead. I like to do as much with it as I can so that the victim begins to look for more ownership thoughts to create.
We don’t have to wait until a victim changes into an owner. A victim is already an owner. The problem is in the frequency of expression of ownership. Once we get good at honoring that expression, the moments will increase. The more we can relax about who the victim is, the more freedom that person has to experiment. Soon, the victim’s old personality disappears and they learn to be strong.
So, how do you change a victim?
See the owner in them.
Stop making them wrong.