Never Play Victim – It Only Attracts Predators

When life hits you hard - do you see yourself as a victim, or as one selected by life to author of the next comeback story?

The 'Victim Mentality' is a trap. Playing the victim means you've lost the winning mindset, and erected at least 3 artifacts of failure - believing the world is against you

giving away responsibility for your success, and waiting for rescue, even when the cost is slavery. 

The consequences of the victim mentality are dire because you instantly attract predators - people who exploit weakness (manipulators, toxic competitors, fairweather friends and betrayers). It also destroys any credibility you may have had as a leader and blocks your capacities for innovation and risk-taking.

SharkTank® is called that because the phrase metaphorically represents a high-pressure environment where aspiring entrepreneurs must put everything on the line to defend their business ideas against scrutiny, cutthroat competition and tough questioning from the Sharks (investors) who inhabit the tank. 

The show is the perfect analogy for why predators finish victims off faster. Those who have won funding on the show were often not those with the best products or pitches - but those who refused to become victims. Confidence has tided many a player over on SharkTank® when they had nothing left but bluster kept fighting. 

Conversely, many presenters failed on sight from pusillanimous presentation. Once Sharks, literally and figuratively, smell blood in the water, they hunt down the wounded and eat them first. 

Leaders and competitors can sense when you’ve given up and abandoned responsibility. In tough markets, victimhood signals unpreparedness, and predators along the food chain pounce.

If you've been the habit of victim, you can shift to victor. 

~ Take ownership, by radical responsibility to own your choices, mistakes and outcomes. 

~ Effect a 'mindshift'. Ask 'What can I do next?' instead of 'Why me?'

~ Be tensile. Abhor excuses and turn every setback into raw material for a stronger comeback.

Overcome victimhood by understanding that:

~ People follow visionaries, not victims.

~ 'Victiming' kills professional growth - own mistakes to accelerates mastery.

~ The market doesn’t care about your best excuses businesses make - only your best execution.

Practical tools to break the victim mindset:

~ Reframe challenges: Problems are signals for innovation.

~ Audit your language: Replace blame with responsibility.

~ Surround yourself with builders, not complainers.

~ Act fast: It is not the big that eat the small, it is the fast that eat the slow. Build momentum fast by small decisive actions. 

Repeat 'never play the victim - it only attracts predators', to yourself again and again. And each time life tests you, don’t ask ‘Why me?’, ask ‘What’s next?’ and follow through - that is, if you TRULY WANT to shift from being prey to becoming a pioneer.'