Being an extraordinary coach does not eliminate you from the pitfalls that affect the general population. In fact, sometimes being an extraordinary coach can put you at a profound disadvantage. In the marketing world, as you let people know who you are and what you can do for them, there are certain people that are going to resonate with you and there's certain people that are not going to resonate with you. In the climate where we live now, people can be resonating with you up to the point where they find out that you ascribe to a different political party from they. This can be somewhat nerve-wracking when in reality the political parties are simply two ways of looking at the same thing and that thing is America.
Another pitfall is that the political parties use race as a political football depending on what side of the aisle you find yourself. Ask yourself this question. How does politics figure into the person that you are? Because politics figure into the person that your clients are as well. When you meet the need of a particular population it is always a good question to ask yourself what do they need? When you are evaluating your target market it just makes sense. For instance, if you are overweight, then you might be in the market for some weight loss products. If you like working out, you might be in the market for some exercise equipment. If you are single and you want to be in a relationship, well then dating sites might be a place where you find yourself.
In the vein where I find myself, I sometimes find myself at odds with the overwhelming majority of people of my own race. I ask them, "Do you feel that you are able to manage your life's up and downs? Do you think that President Obama is being taken advantage of? When you hear of something happening to another black person do you immediately feel victimized as well? Do you think that there is such a thing as racial profiling?" These are all good questions to which for many of us the answer is a resounding yes. If that is your position, if you answer yes to those questions, then you may be a candidate for Al Sharpton's seminar that he promotes as part of the National Action Network.
On the other hand, I too, am a black person and that Reverend Sharpton targets for his seminars, but I don't say yes to those things that you just heard. In fact, when in the company of other people who are black like myself, I find myself experiencing a degree of vitriol. Vitriol has no place in the life of an extraordinary coach like myself and vitriol has no place in the life of an extraordinary coach like you. What do do? The more milder forms of vitriol translates as criticism. Whenever I hear someone speaking on the opposite side of an issue from myself, my tendency is to develop resistance. My tendency is to straighten the person out, to let them know where they are wrong and essentially what I end up doing is complaining about their point of view.
I accuse them of complaining about my point of view but in point of fact, I am the one doing the complaining. I find that when you are complaining about others complaining, you too are complaining. I have decided that the way to manage this particular malady is to put a positive spin on it. My desire truly is to avoid the looking good, being right syndrome and in order to do that, I have to stop criticizing, and if you want to do that, then you got to stop criticizing, too. Those of you that are black Republicans like I'm a black Republican, can no longer point a finger at the people who are not black Republicans and criticize them. We can no longer accuse them of being victims or having a victim mentality, because when you get right down to it, it is quite hostile to identify someone as having a victim mentality.
As you know, what is resisted persists. When you find yourself telling people that they shouldn't have a victim's mentality, well you immediately have changed your address to that of a person who is really committed to looking good and being right. Here's my take. I simply say that I'm not in that market. I'm not in the market of buying the, shall we say, the bigotry of America. I'm not in the market that buys into the fact that America is a racist country. I'm not in the market where people want to stamp on the flag and say that America has been victimizing them for hundreds and hundreds of years. I am not in that market. Since I'm not in that market, then I'm not buying that story. By not buying a story, I'm not criticizing. By not buying the story I'm not being negative. I'm simply saying what my point of view is and my point of view is if that is your market, if you are in that target market, then certainly people like Al Sharpton and others will benefit from you.
We're all going to spend our time and money somewhere and the people who offer us something that meet our needs, they're the ones that's going to get our money. Before you blindly fall into the trap of buying into something that doesn't serve you, you must consider whether or not you are in that market. If you're in the market that you haven't yet learned how to control your own emotions, if you're in the market where you are a victim of snap judgments, if you're in that market, then I want to suggest that you get out of that market because it's not serving you. Being in that market puts you at a disadvantage as far as I'm concerned. I do want to say "as far as I'm concerned" because the last thing that I want to do is to make you believe that I am the all-knowing third party, because I'm not. Being an extraordinary coach, certainly you have to take a position, certainly you want to know who you are and you want others to know who you are as well.
Being an extraordinary coach does not allow you to just simply go with the flow. Everybody in the success culture knows that if you want to be successful then you see what other people do and you do the opposite. There's no shortage of people that's complaining about how terrible racism is. Racism is just one of a number of maladies that we each have to deal with and we each have to manage and it doesn't deserve any more weight than anything else. Notice which market that you're in, purchase the things that the people that are meeting your needs are supplying, and make sure that you continue to be an extraordinary coach. As I like to end all of my blogs, I end this one with the very same thing, which is, if this blog has helped you, if it has given you something to think about then please share it with someone you care about and follow me on the blog. Last but not least, until next time, have a good time.
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