Well, That's A Lot Better Day

 Gosh, getting old takes away much of your confidence doesn't it?  The recent nonsense really did knock me sideways and it was taking up my days and making me anxious and doubting my own sanity.  These things feed doubt into your mind and all the confidence I had was punched out of me.  I wouldn't mind if it was me that set all this in motion or caused it.  Both actions taken were bolts out of the blue and pretty much unpredictable.

So now, I am pretty certain that the penny has dropped on their side and that they will soon realise that they have painted themselves into a corner.  Despite the awful way in which they have behaved, I left two openings for them to recover if they so wish.  I cannot make them do that, only they have the ability to do so.  I cannot imagine it will be easy having played all their cards at once and left themselves with little to room to manoeuvre.

All out attack is a strategy but it doesn't always work out how you think it will.  I recommend the book 'The Art Of War' by Sun Tzu - which has served me well over the years.  A 2,500 year old book it has some very useful lessons.  Some other lessons include (think it was Bonaparte) "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" I may have paraphrased that but it is also quite useful watching people digging themselves a deeper hole as they go about whatever they are doing to you at the time.

And so, a little peace and sanity have descended over me this weekend.  It's not that I have forgotten what I know about how people behave but more that it deeply affects me now.  I have ended up in this position (running a business) by default, by doing someone "a favour" if you like and as you know, being kind and nice to people gets you screwed over.  Happened all my life, probably happen again and I shouldn't be surprised I suppose.

The other lesson from a few years back was the greed and also self fulfilling prophecies that you come across in business, especially start ups.  Greed is where people can only see the £s and $s and the "riches" that the business promises but lose sight of the undeniable fact that you actually have to work for the money and work bloody hard it isn't just going to drop into your lap and if you don't pull your weight then you are going to be left behind with a broken dream and not understand why you failed (again).  The self fulfilling prophecy is often encountered too, where a previous experience is recounted and has been burnt into their minds and blow me down, if they don't make the same mistake as before almost masochistically and then complain that it happened again when it was entirely of their own making.