I once found myself in a small group of people, following a business event. Some of them I knew, others I didn’t, so the standard ‘what do you do?’ question was asked.

What followed was quite a humbling exchange. As soon as I mentioned my name, one of the attendees said, ‘didn’t you write that book about not working Fridays?’.

Before I could answer, another started to tell my life story (from the book) and in some detail. It felt like I was watching a TV mini-series with me being the actor. Quite worrying this guy seemed to know more about me than I felt comfortable with!

People that really know me; know how I hate this type of attention, and that I’m not very comfortable telling you this, but what happened next got very interesting...

It was one of those throw-away comments made by one of the group that intrigued me to the way people think.He said: ‘but I bet you were born that way’. I had to do a double take and ask him to explain what he meant. His response was very telling: ‘some people; no matter what they do, if they fall in sh.t they come up smelling of roses’.

I knew from his tone he meant no harm by it, but he really did believe that life happens to us – not for us.

It reminded me of the story of the two wolves:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”

He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

I am a firm believer that life happens for us, and I will use every challenge as a tool for personal and professional growth. It’s my experience, that the mindset of life happening to us, only traps us in a helpless role.

I also know first-hand how hard it can be running and leading a business; especially with these two wolves inside us.

So, What Happens in Your Business When You Feed the Dark Wolf?

• You focus on and lead with ego: creating a toxic workplace where your team will fear speaking up.

• You become driven by greed, chasing short-term profit at the expense of customer trust, which in turn destroys long-term value.

• You operate out of fear and micro-manage your team; killing innovation and burning out your best talent.

• You dwell on envy and obsess over competitors, making you become a “me too” instead of a market/industry leader.

And What Happens in Your Business When You Feed the Light Wolf?

• You foster transparency by sharing your vision, mission, values, and numbers to build internal trust and to empower your team.

• You cultivate empathy; listening to your team and your customers which builds brand loyalty.

• You practise humility by admitting mistakes early, fixing them, and learning from them.Eventually, your business will then start telling you there is a problem, before it even arises!

This week, take a step back and look in the mirror and see which elements you relate to.

More importantly, you must feed both wolves. You cannot ignore the “dark” business traits like aggressive competitiveness, fear of failure, or a desire for control.

And you must harness this aggression into drive, use the fear to create a risk free and open environment, and turn control into efficiency.

Martin

Martin Norbury

Investor | Business Mentor at Advocate | Author of I don’t work Fridays