Victim or Owner: The Book That Changed How I See My Own Life
Every year there are one or two books that jump off the page at me. Books that don't just inform me, they actually change how I move through the world.
A few years back I read a book by Jamie George called The Thrivalist Handbook, and it rearranged something in me. It changed how I see myself when it comes to victimhood versus ownership.
Before that book, I didn't realize how much of my life I'd spent walking around feeling like a victim. A victim to:
- difficult relationships in my life
- a bad hire
- certain financial situations that didn't go my way
- The market
- painful words someone threw at me online
Here's the thing about victimhood. It's comfortable in a strange way. You lean into it and you get stuck there. You can't move. And if I'm honest, sometimes I even enjoyed being a victim. That's its own conversation for another day.
The alternative is ownership. And ownership is harder, because it means looking at my own contribution to the mess. Maybe I'm not as innocent in these situations as I want to believe. Maybe I'm not as perfect as I'd like to think. Ownership means I have to own what I bring to the table, and own the new learning and the change that's required of me.
Now let me be clear about something important. There are people in this world who are real victims of truly awful circumstances. I'm not saying your pain isn't real, or that it's your fault. What I am saying is that at some point, if you want to thrive instead of just survive, you have to move past the victim seat. You have to own who you are and grow from that place.
I had our whole staff at ColsenKeane read this book. We spent a couple weeks talking through it together, and it's been something to watch how differently we show up for each other now. We have new language for it. New categories to see each other.
It's a short read, maybe an hour, but don't let that fool you. It will change how you see your own reality.
I even had my sons read it years ago. Watching them start to name the difference between being victimized and owning their reality has been one of the better fruits of that hour of reading.
If you're an entrepreneur, this matters more than you think. At some point people are going to come at you. Some of them will want your demise, whether they mean to or not. You cannot let that haunt you. You have to keep moving. Ownership is what lets you do that.
Here's a link to order Jamie's book. I can't recommend it enough.
