Bob Phibbs, the Retail Doctor® blog at Retaildoc.com

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My buddy Steve Strauss at USA Today gave seven tips for how to create a viral video on the American Express OPEN forum.  You can read his full post here.  I took it as a challenge – how far would I go to get my point across?  Could I make a video that would go viral and grow my exposure on the ‘net, be a bit shocking and controversial but be true to my brand? I had to find out.

Taking the challenge, I made the video about this post which you can watch here.  If you’ve seen the video, read on, if not, please watch it.

You have a problem with the city, or a customer takes advantage of you or a couple of your employees quit with no warning. It happens.  For most of us, we brush ourselves off and move on. But what if you can’t? What if you let those situations stack up inside of you?  That’s what I’m talking about today; making yourself miserable.  I call it, peeing in your own hat. What does it sound like?

• “They’re all on the Internet. They get all the information from me and then go buy from someone else.”
• “Local government doesn’t do enough for small business to attract customers to my shop.”
• “Why should I spend a lot of time training employees, they’ll just leave in a couple of months anyway?”
• “If it weren’t for bad luck I wouldn’t have any luck at all.”
• “Customers are all idiots.”

When I use the verb “peeing” it metaphorically references a bodily function of getting rid of the waste, the negative, the worthless. Yes we all do it to some degree, what I’m talking about is what happens when you hold on and dwell on it, like some type of grudge collector.

A buddy of mine said he couldn’t get past the idea or the visual and asked, “Why would you want to pee in your own hat to begin with?” That common sense question is obvious to outsiders but may not be so clear to the person doing it.

That waste product, that negative energy starts to define who you are. It becomes a buffer against the real world that includes ups and downs, struggles and triumphs; it becomes a loser’s limp to allow yourself not to change.

At some level it has to make them feel better but it makes for a downward cycle of low self-esteem (often masked with cynicism,) high turnover of employees, low profits for the business, and a miserable shopping experience for customers.

It provides comfort that its not your fault something is wrong. But it also leads you to be in denial about how others look at you.

We smell it on you. And we avoid you.

In a broader sense I could be talking about your partner, your child, your parents, any number of things where it is, “us against the world,” we are a victim.  Even your employees.

A blog post I wrote about mindset was picked up by retail-sucks.com and I received over fifty responses about how I was wrong and retail is terrible, they can’t change and they won’t change. Check out their site to see all the angry stories about how awful their life is. It gives a false illusion of safety.

No employer would want anyone that was so focused on what was bad about their job. When you’re 18 to 25 and have all the natural hope and promise of youth reduced to anger, suspicion and feeling of being “done in by the man,” it can make you very callous; I know, I’ve fallen into it at times myself.

And whether you are a business owner, manager or employee, because misery loves company, you tend to seek out other people who feel the same way. The danger is that you accept this hive mentality of being a victim, instead of breaking through to be proactive and change those circumstances.

Want to get over peeing in your own hat? Tell others about this occurrence, watch the video and ask them to call you on it.

In that way, you can let any negative energy dissipate instead of ferment and move on to find solutions rather than reveling in waste.

What are some examples you have seen of someone, metaphorically speaking, peeing in their own hat?

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