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Naive Drama, Cynical Drama, and Business

Do you ever sense that there are obvious solutions, possibilities, and opportunities right in front of you, that for some reason you aren't able to notice? Have you ever suddenly noticed some way to improve your business that, once you noticed it, seemed so obvious you were left wondering how it was possible that you hadn't noticed it before?

That "not noticing" is self-sabotage. And it destroys many businesses.

There are people who don't sabotage their businesses. Think a moment--you probably know of at least one person who started a business and made money and never seemed to sabotage themselves. Who can you think of, in your life, who is like that? What do they have that you might not? And how can you get what they've got?

To heal self-sabotage in your business, you must first be able to find it. However, here's the rub--if you could see the things you are doing to sabotage yourself, you would already have stopped doing them! It's hard for you to see how and what you are doing to sabotage your your business.

Because the main symptom of self-sabotage is an inability to see obvious opportunities and courses of action, it's hard to tell how much you are doing it right now. After all, you don't know how much you are not seeing! So that makes it difficult to diagnose. Self-sabotage has a huge impact, but, strangely, it's very difficult to see.

However, there are clues. It turns out that, for most businesses, where there is sabotage, there is also drama. If you think about that person you know whose business just seemed to unfold and grow, you'll probably notice a lack of drama about it. Things unfold. Sometimes times are good, sometimes times are tough, but the business grows, and never seems to be a personal "big deal." There's little drama. And little sabotage. (Parenthetically: You will also find this to be true of the happiest people you know: there's not a lot of drama in their lives, either.)

Drama prevents you from seeing the obvious things to do to improve your business. It gets in the way of taking the simple, non-dramatic and reality-based steps you would take to grow your business in an orderly fashion. You either become so busy living in a dream-world of dramatic, big goals, or you get so mired down in the anger and emotion of your business being a dramatic war that you don't see the obvious. And that, my friends, is self-sabotage.

This is the clue that can help you find and heal self-sabotage: Businesses that experience self-sabotage also experience drama. Find and heal the drama, and you will go a long way towards finding and healing the sabotage.

There are two main types of drama: Naive Drama, and Cynical Drama. Does your business experience either of these?

1) Naive Drama. Naive Drama comes from over-inflating how great things are going to be, how big your business is going to be, and how easy big success and big money are going to be. This is the "thinking big" kind of drama, and it is often whipped up by people who say they want to "help" your business. "Make big plans! Think big possibility! We're going to change the world! It'll just happen! Think positively! You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought! Believe!"

This is dramatic because it is unrealistic. It is ungrounded. People who are around people who are engaging in Naive Drama feel like the Naive Dramatist has lost touch with reality. This was best demonstrated by a man I knew through a business support group I used to be in. In speaking about his MLM business--upon which he had spent $19,000 in the previous year, and earned less than $500--he said "My big problem is figuring out how I'm going to spend all the money I'm going to make." He was so wrapped up in his big, dramatic plans that he had lost touch with the actual bottom line numbers of his business--namely, that he was going out of business, fast. He was caught in the trap of Naive Drama, thinking big with no grounding in reality.

2) Cynical Drama. Cynical Drama is the reverse of Naive Drama. Often people who have been burned by believing in big plans and Naive Drama switch to Cynical Drama, thinking that it will help their business. You can tell if you are engaging in Cynical Drama by how violent and personal the metaphors are that you use when you think about and talk about your business. If you find yourself often saying things like "Everybody always screws us! We're taking it in the tail! What the f*ck are we gonna do?! Everybody is a jerk!", you may be engaging in Cynical Drama. To the Cynical Dramatist, the business is always under personal attack from all sides, and the only answer is to be a bigger and more dramatic Tough Guy, taking more fast action and working harder and longer. When that doesn't work, the Cynical Dramatist sees it as even more proof about how bad things are, and decides that being an even more harsh businessman and more aggressive Tough Guy is the only answer.

The truth is, spending a little time in both of these areas is okay, and even good for your business, but if either one of them becomes your main way of interacting with your business, you are being dramatic. And that drama is a sign that you are also engaging in self-sabotage.

Remove Naive Drama by:
- Giving your doubts about your business a place to live. If you have a problem with thinking "too big" and not being grounded enough, you should start giving your doubts about your business a place to live in your life. Spend at least five or ten minutes, twice a week, being uninhibitedly negative about your business. Write down all the problems, speak convincingly about how hard things will be. Find your negativity and let it run free, if only for a few minutes. This will ground you--and you'd be surprised how often you find yourself giving yourself great advice out of your "negative" self.

Remove Cynical Drama by:
- Making things less personal. You do this by deciding to stop explaining things that happen in violent, personal terms. Say "That's the way business goes sometimes," rather than "They screwed us, like everyone always does!" Explain problems and difficulty as part of the process of building a business, rather than as personal attacks.

- Writing down all problems, so you see them separate from you. Cynical Drama is fueled by making problems bigger than they are and more personal than they are. Writing down the problems in a clear, succinct, non-emotional manner reduces problems to their actual size, and makes them less personal.

- Declaring things will not be dramatic. It's amazing how often you can remove Cynical Drama by simply declaring that you are not going to allow something to be dramatic. Simply say, "I'm deciding that this is not going to be a big deal--it's just a problem that needs to be handled. It's just the way things are."

As you remove drama from your business, you find that it's easier to see the opportunities and "smart moves" that have been right in front of you, all along. Without drama, it will be much easier for you to become one of those people who simply runs a business, with all its ups and downs, and profits and grows simply, straightforwardly, without self-sabotage and without drama.

(July 2002)