Crabs in a bucket stay in a bucket

Do you like playing with crabs?

The kind with pinchers …they have no feelings when they grab your fingers and clamp down?

Most people play with crabs with a stick to keep them at a distance so they don’t pinch.

Crabs will pull their own family and co-existence back down in the bucket if they see them starting to crawl out. Instead of helping each other to the top they snatch them back down into the bucket where they can all die without food and water to live.

Those “helpful” comments and messages you get on social media and the emails where someone would like to “help you out”. Those are not helpful messages. Those are crabs.

Someone who takes the time to point out your flaws, your misspelt word, when you missed a period where a comma should be …. those are crabs.

As you start to grow your business the crabs will multiply around you. You have to keep a stick close by to keep them at a distance.

I am no longer going to keep a bucket for the crabs to live in. When I have someone who is a complainer – I will refund them immediately and send them on their way.

If someone wants to “help me out” and we have zero personal connection. They will be blocked and sent on their way.

When I find the conversation around me making me uncomfortable that is my cue to move on.

Crabs are quiet and friendly. They smile and cut you down softly. Your inner energy feels the difference. If it makes you feel a little tug, or you think about it longer than the conversation lasted that was crab.

Lessons are learned

Last night I leaned against the wall next to my son, husband and mother in a smoky bar room listening to my cousin sing his heart out in his new band ShotgunJack sipping on a flat beer that had no flavor.

Choking on the cigarette smoke around us and people watching.
[Read the post here on Facebook]

He stood on the stage nervous with excitement, sweating and sipping on pineapple juice… completely sober!

If you know someone who sings in a band that alone is a special feature. He was looking out over a crowd who didn’t know his story because they are drinking their own under the table. Their crabs in a bucket.

As a rock band/ country band/ on the road travelling band member he has seen lots out from the stage. So many crabs crawling around and no one concerned about the next person only what would serve them at the time.

If you are holding a stick to pet your crabs, it’s time to dump the bucket

Your business comes with crabs

Your very own business comes with a bucket of crabs. They are the reason so many will quit. It’s not maybe – people will quit because of the negative comments from the people around them when they see the possibility for change.

People get nervous when you change. It makes them feel as if their life is on repeat or not comfortable with their own bucket of crabs.

People get nervous when they hear your language change from the good ole boy’s conversation to the one where you are moving in a new direction.

They will stop and take the time to let you know what you are doing wrong. They have to point it out to let you know you slipped. It makes them feel good to point your flaws out.

Never be too embarrassed to start small. We all start somewhere, and because you started you are already way ahead of those who are doing nothing.

The crabs in some people’s buckets are so loud and powerful that people can’t get out of the bucket. They will always slide back down into the middle of the crabs and they will walk on you not giving it a second thought.

I like to people watch.

As I was leaned against the wall sipping on the flat lukewarm beer I watched people stare off into the crowd surrounded by people but yet alone. Many of them you could tell this was a normal routine on a Saturday night. Many of them on their phones absorbed into their own thoughts, many of them trying to figure out tomorrow.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Crabs will tell you it does.

You get to make choices and some of them will feel hard but so freeing once you do.

If you are holding a stick to pet your crabs you need to know it’s time to dump the bucket.