I recently was doing some business and couldn’t understand why all of a sudden there was a line in the sand around one critical item. What I mean by line in the sand is a sort of artificial wall that exists for no reason other than the other party has decided they don’t want to negotiate or converse anymore and they will not allow you to move past the line without argument. Have you ever had this happen to you during business or life discussions?
In this particular case we had contracts around everything and I knew there was nothing in the contract that set a limit around what we were working on. It made no sense and felt arbitrary to me. It did get me thinking though about where in my life and business I may be being arbitrary.
Dictionary.com defines arbitrary as, “subject to individual will or judgment without restriction;contingent solely upon one’s discretion”. I encourage you to look at how you are living your life and running your business. If you seem to be making decisions based solely on your discretion, consider why that is. Look at the results of those decisions and then ask yourself, if I did not draw the line in the sand where I did, what result could have been achieved?
If you can see a more powerful result by erasing that line and revisiting the situation to get a better result, I recommend you reopen the door and invite a new result in. You might be pleasantly surprised at how business and relationships will change just by admitting you were being arbitrary.
In the situation I was telling you about, we eventually worked it out but not without unnecessary delays, hard feelings and even some loss of respect on my part for the other person and company involved. If you are involved with a similar business dealing, consider calling the other person out on it in a non-confrontational way, and see if you can both erase that line.
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