Have You Ever Felt You Were Being Manipulated By A Competitor?

Have you ever run into a person in your travels that some would deem as a competitor, if you believe that there is a such a thing as competition, that greet you with hugs and smiles and lay it on really thick like they are your long lost friend and after they have gone, you just don’t feel good.

They lay it on with the smiles and comments like:

• How’s business?

• Does it bother you that clients stand you up for an appointment?

• Aren’t you tired of dealing with those same old clients?

• Let’s get together.

I’m reminded of some psychological warfare that I observed back in the 80’s when a competitor invited an associate of our company for a series of lunches and drinks to talk about businesses which eventually lead into what wasn’t working with our company. The next thing you know, the competitor had convinced the associate that was with our company that there was a job waiting for them at their company and that they should go and talk to the President. So the associate made an appointment with the President to talk about the job opportunity. The President said; “what job opportunity”.

In 1983, Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled wrote a book called People of the Lie: The Hope For Healing Human Evil. Peck describes the stories of several people who came to him whom he found particularly resistant to any form of help. He came to think of them as evil and goes on to describe the characteristics of evil in psychological terms, proposing that it could become a psychiatric diagnosis.

I can share the remedy for this through this storey about The Scorpion and the Frog.

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.

The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn’t see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.

Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.

“Hellooo Mr. Frog!” called the scorpion across the water, “Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?”

“Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me?” asked the frog hesitantly.

“Because,” the scorpion replied, “If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!”

Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!”

“This is true,” agreed the scorpion, “But then I wouldn’t be able to get to the other side of the river!”

“Alright then…how do I know you won’t just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?” said the frog.

“Ahh…,” crooned the scorpion, “Because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!”

So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog’s back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog’s soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.

Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog’s back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.

“You fool!” croaked the frog, “Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?”

The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drowning frog’s back.

“I could not help myself. It is my nature.”

Then they both sank into the muddy waters of the swiftly flowing river.

Self destruction – “It’s my Nature”, said the Scorpion…