Auto Repair Shop Owner's Daily Dose 50: The Blame Game

The Blame Game by Rick White, President 180BIZ

I was watching the news last night and a third of the news program was all about how we're blaming China for the Coronavirus. I started thinking about it and thought that blame is a useless activity. Why? Because it doesn't do anything. What the best you can hope for is someone that'll say, “Yup, it's on me. My bad.” What does that do? It might make you feel better for a moment. But I'll tell you what, you're wasting your energy. You're wasting focus and you're wasting resources. You do not want to worry about the blame game. Guess what? It doesn't matter.

Throughout life, things are going to happen to you that isn't fair. I’ll tell you what on behalf of life, let me apologize now. Because the reality is there's going to be things that happen to you that aren't fair. You can spend your time in a blame situation where you're going to figure out whose fault it is. But I'm telling you it's a waste of time. Nothing gets better.  Here's how you know if you're playing the blame game. When you're asking questions that start with “Why” or “Who, you are playing the blame game. Instead, I want you to understand that life isn't fair. It sucks. Give yourself a couple of seconds to deal with that, but then it's time to figure out what's going on. And what I mean by that is you must accept responsibility for where you're at.

Look, this virus sucks. And here's one of my concerns right now. I think we're opening the states up too fast. It’s too quick because the politicians are bowing to public opinion. People are putting livelihood ahead of life. And it may not be their life, it may be someone they care about. So please be safe out there. But what I'm getting at is this is a situation for everybody. It's not about blame. Who cares if it started with a lab in China? It doesn't make a difference. Who cares if China covered it up like they would be the first country that covered something up.  Like we've never done that in the United States. No, come on. You know, he who is without sin. Let them cast the first stone.

What we want to do instead is take responsibility for where we are, what our current condition is. When we blame we stare at the problem. When we try to assign a cause to it, we do nothing to make your life better. What I'm asking you to do instead is ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” That is the question I want you to ask yourself. “What am I going to do about it?” Look, terrible things happen to people. There are abuses and accidents and false accusations and all kinds of things that can happen to us. And we can either sit there and become a victim and stare at it and try to figure out who to blame. Or we can step back and say, “You know something, here's my current situation. What am I going to do about it?” That's what you need to be asking yourself.

So, I don't care where your situation is right now. There may be something in your business that needs your attention so that you grow exponentially. That's what you should be paying attention to. That's what you should be investing your focus, your energy, and your resources on. Do that and watch what happens to your business. What I want you to do is ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?”

Look at where you are right now. It's important to remove the emotion.  In other words, be real with your current situation and know what the real thing is.  

I was talking to a shop owner the other day. He said that his business sucks. His entire business didn’t suck, he just didn’t have enough cars. So figure out what the exact issue is. Take the emotion and ego out of it and be real. Then ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” You’ll increase your business this year so much more than you did in the last 10.  That’s just by asking yourself that one question. Do it and see.

Let's have a great week. Let's have a great day. Take responsibility. Not blame. Because if you recognize you're the cause, you can also recognize that you are the cure. Have a great one. Take care and God bless.