Some people don\u2019t just see their business as a means to an end. Many of us view our business with great passion and imagination. For me, I don\u2019t just see a competitor as a competitor. I see them as a rival. I might as well be Superman and they\u2019re General Zod. If you\u2019ve got that kind of fantastical view, then you might really embrace this post.<\/p>\n
While you have your General Zods of the business world, you\u2019ve also got your Lex Luthors \u2013 people whom you\u2019re friends with but secretly hate. If they feel the same way about you, then you\u2019ve got your business frenemy, which is an enemy masquerading as a friend. You both are friendly enough, but you would secretly love to outdo each other. You both know it, but neither of you are uncivil enough to admit it for any number of reasons \u2026 including the fact that you might need each other.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0Fast Company<\/i>\u00a0article by Prasad Thammineni, entitled \u201cBuilding a Business Around Frenemies,\u201d takes a bold look at this unique position. Arguing his point on cloud companies, he writes \u201cThe core of the frenemy theory is this: The very nature of the cloud is collaborative, and users don\u2019t want to be hamstrung by a certain service. If your company chooses to make other cloud services work well together, you\u2019re going to attract a loyal user base. But it goes a level further than just playing nice with others. We can associate 40% of our revenue with our frenemy partners.\u201d Prasad terms the strategy as anti-proprietary, rightly arguing against business isolationism in what\u2019s the start of a \u2018Frenemy Manifesto.\u2019<\/p>\n
In addition to the Zods and Luthors, you\u2019ve also got to deal with Bizarro. In Superman fiction, Bizarro is the mirror image of Superman in which everything good about our original hero is reversed \u2013 almost like a shadow character, a failed doppelganger and essentially the Green Goblin equivalent of a gremlin-like self. We all have one, but it\u2019s a question of which version of you wins out.<\/p>\n
Inc. Magazine<\/i>\u00a0writer Geoffrey James gets this. In his article, \u201cTurn Self-Sabotage into Success,\u201d Geoffrey writes a decline in project enthusiasm (and essentially conviction) as an inner gremlin that causes self-sabotage. He quotes Tom Roth, COO of a sales training firm called Wilson Learning, who gave him the \u201cStop-Challenge-Focus\u201d technique. The technique involves forcing yourself to first identify the belief causing a frustrated emotion preventing you from moving forward. Next, question the validity of that belief (where you\u2019ll usually find it\u2019s not based on fact), and then create an inner counter dialogue that supports your goals. Follow it up with action. Not knowing what I was doing had a label, I\u2019ve used the technique on myself. The busier you get, the more likely you are to be discouraged by your own goals through nothing short of your own mindset.<\/p>\n
Pscyhology Today<\/i>\u00a0gets it right with an article on this subject. According to them self-sabotage \u201cis the conflict that exists between conscious desires and unconscious wants that manifests in self-sabotage patterns. It not only prevents you from reaching your goal, but also becomes a safety mechanism that protects you against disappointment. In other words, your brain is protecting you from getting hurt\u00a0by doing what it thinks is best, which is keeping you within your comfort zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
So really it\u2019s not about failing, it\u2019s about having to admit that maybe you weren\u2019t good at something. Try not to think of it that way. Rewire your brain to think that it\u2019s not that you failed, but that you\u2019re strategy failed. This way, the goal isn\u2019t a failure, but rather the way to best achieve that goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some people don\u2019t just see their business as a means to an end. Many of us view our business with great passion and imagination. For me, I don\u2019t just see a competitor as a competitor. I see them as a rival. I might as well be Superman and they\u2019re General Zod. If you\u2019ve got that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":309,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2171],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond"],"yoast_head":"\n