In my work with small business owners and entrepreneurs, I am often confronted by a client who simply can’t seem to take personal responsibility for his or her company…or for that matter his or HERSELF. There’s always SOMETHING weighing them down. An employee is regularly late for work and “doesn’t get it”, a vendor or supplier “changed their pricing and didn’t tell us,”The bank “just doesn’t want to lend to small business owners.

By contrast, I am occasionally (and pleasantly) surprised by the client who takes 100% personal responsibility for the success or failure of their company. That late employee? They will spend more energy training him. The vendor’s pricing changes? They will

The VICTIM feels that there is nothing he can do to change his or her life. Victims are typically pessimists. Others are sugar coated passive optimists in denial.

VICTIMS have lists of reasons that explain why they don’t get results. Excuses.

One common victim excuse is personality. They feel they have been handed a lot in life, that they are whom they are, and that they can never change. “It’s just my personality.” In the victim mind, life happens to them. Things are generally not going well, and it’s always someone else’s fault. Blame, resignation, abdication, passivity, cynicism, bitterness, resentment, self-pity and entitlement are all displays of victim thinking and emotion.

In contrast, OWNERS love life and are filled with gratitude. They are true optimists that face reality and choose optimism. They seek to find and experience the benefit from every circumstance, and view life as a game to be played and won.

OWNERS don’t obsess with their own importance and personality; rather, they reinvent themselves and embrace change. Problems are puzzles to be solved. Other people are to be loved and respected. Life is a gift to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest. Owners choose their response based on their values regardless of how they feel. They know that great feelings come from great actions and great thoughts.

You can trust an owner, because what they do what they say they will do. Owners are not concerned in other’s opinions of them. Their focus is service. They know the joy is in giving and serving, even if others are not pleased. Serving versus pleasing. They recognize they have ONE life to live, their own, and will ultimately answer to only One, their Creator.

So today you have a choice, OWNER OR VICTIM? Here are some distinctions that I picked up along the way somewhere. I’d love to give credit for these, but honestly, so many people talk about this that I can’t remember exactly where I got this particular comparison. So for now, let’s just thank EVERYBODY who ever talked about this…especially Steve Chandler.