Online Business

Davidemerald, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Attribution for The Empowerment Dynamic featured image.

At the the end of my last post I said I was going to flip the Drama Triangle on its head and take a look at the Empowerment Dynamic. The Empowerment Dynamic is the work of David Emerald. After a series of challenging life events he was moved to explore the Drama Triangle designed by Stephen Karpmann. This got him to thinking about the roles of persecutor, victim and rescuer and how they brought forward a mindset of fear and anxiety.

He found this negative dynamic in himself as a victim. Why then,  could he not turn it on its head to provide a more positive outlook on life. What he came up with was TED. The Empowerment Dynamic. The sides on this Triangle are Coach, Challenger, and Creator. Each of these are vital qualities when it comes to affiliate marketing.

Empowerment

Emerald could see as he looked at the Drama Triangle the roles of persecutor, victim and rescuer created a merry-go-round of angst a downward spiral if a person could get out of the maelstrom of fear and anxiety. It may seem that the rescuer might have some redeeming qualities but if comes from a sense of need and the need isn’t met then the rescuer move into victimhood. Nothing empowering going on here.

Empowerment means accepting control for all aspects of your your growth. I prefer to put myself in the middle of the Dynamic and see each side as a facet of myself. These qualities are then easier to internalise and make one’s own.

Empowerment allows us to assume a challenge from something outside of ourselves, or to create a challenge from within ourselves that will move our lives or businesses forward. That immediately brings the creator into play. In order to be empowered to advance this idea we need to work out the resources required.

If there is something missing we may need to seek some assistance for the project. We may need to find a coach for ourself or we may need to coach others to empower them for their part of the project.

Learning something new is empowerment. It gives us new options, the ability to forge a new path for our life. My finding affiliate marketing and Wealthy Affiliate has enabled me to cut a new trail for myself. Wealthy Affiliate is the most complete platform I’ve found for affiliate marketers on the web. It provides all the sides of the Empowerment Dynamic for anyone willing to follow the system. You will become a Creator. Wealthy Affiliate will challenge you and coach you. You could become a Coach yourself showing others how to follow its methodology.

Coach

What qualities would we be looking for in a coach?

We may expect him to be an expert in the particular field we need assistance with. You may hold that very expertise yourself and share it with someone else on order to move the project forward. This would enable you to maintain perspective on other features of the project. To keep a wide angle view of things.

If we’re looking at qualities of a coach there maybe attributes he is looking for in you. He or she will be looking for people that are teachable or coachable. They’ll be looking for someone who can be accountable. That will put a line in the sand and stick to it.

The very features we are looking for in a coach and mentor are more than likely aspects they’ll be looking for in us. Humility, honesty, trust, respect, empathy, willingness to share and to learn. Not only will we be looking to them for motivation, they may be looking at us to see how we motivate others.

In the empowerment dynamic the coach is the antidote to the rescuer. The rescuer’s interventions come from a place of thinking they have the answers to everything. A coach uses curiosity to move his client towards his own answers, to his own solutions. When you do this the solution or answer is more deeply embedded into the clients consciousness.

Creator

David Emerald who came up with the Empowerment Dynamic, says the Creator is the consciousness that grows when we tire of or begin to see through the futility of being a victim. The victim allows life to happen to them and then demands of life, “Why are you doing this to me?”

The creator allows life in all its facets. Perhaps life throws them a challenge. They respond by creating a solution to the challenge and then moving on to the next thing. When we allow life, it becomes a blank canvas and our response to challenges is the paint we daub onto it. Its a whiteboard on which we sketch our plan and then adjust as required.

A victim bases his reaction to life on what happened in the past, “Why does this always happen to me?” The creator might come across a similar event and develops a response to it that will empower him to move beyond it.

A creator will fashion something of beauty. She’ll be the person who makes lemonade from lemons and then sells it from a stall on the street. To the victim the lemon will just be something sour on his tongue.

Our life preferences can become addictive. Victimhood is a preference. At the time we took it on it may have seemed a natural consequence of events. But was it? Perhaps we weren’t able to check in with ourselves at the time; or maybe we had no one that listened to us when we were seeking answers. It may have been the Big Boys don’t Cry syndrome, or the Suck It Up and move on syndrome.

If our life preferences are addictive I think I want to be addicted to being a creator. When you’re a creator you have options. Instead of the light at the end being an oncoming train perhaps as a creator you can be the driver of the train heading towards the light of day.

Challenger

They say there’s a fine line between pleasure and pain. In the Empowerment Dynamic I’d say there’s a fine line between its Challenger and the Persecutor in the Drama Triangle. We have to be so careful when communicating a challenge that we don’t overstep the mark and venture into persecution territory. As I had begun to think about this section I was introduced to an article on feedback at Strategy + Business. It makes for very interesting reading.

It would be easier to pose a question to someone you are challenging in order to get a feel for how they’ll accept a challenge. An unsolicited challenge is likely to turn them off and send them ducking for cover even if that is within their consciousness. They may throw an invisibility cloak over their sensitivities and not be open to anything you might say.

It is easier as a challenger to be invited to give feedback than to just put it out there. In this case some will just turn off. I remember a few times being given feedback and because it was given by someone who I trusted I had to sit down and deeply think about it. I definitely had to push pause and rewind. And then considering. Is this really who I appear to be to another human being. Is what I’m doing serving my best interests.

Often when we’re reaching beyond the glass ceiling in our lives we butt right up against the feeling of being a fraud. What right have I to put these ideas out there? What if someone catches me out? The heart will give us the answer to that.

Whenever I have to look at my failures I gain a deeper sense of humility. Failures are a great source of challenge to our status quo. They are an immediate reality check to our beliefs.

One of the things I find the thought of intensely challenging is the concept of 360degree feedback.

I heard about this while listening to Take it to the Next Level by Marshall Goldsmith. He is an executive coach with an interesting way of working with clients. He’ll only get paid if the coaching is successful. The people he works with are on the threshold of becoming top level executives.

He takes his clients through this 360degree feedback.They seek feedback from managers, reports, family, friends, church, hobbies etc. getting a complete picture of how this person is in all area of this life. There is on place to hide. Talk about a challenge.

When I find someone whose not afraid of challenging me in a sensitive and appropriate fashion then I heed what they have to say. These guys are the Values Police and hold us to a higher order.

What am I doing and where am I doing it?

As a person seeking authority in my niche as an affiliate marketer I must ensure that what I put out there is in the best interests of my audience. The Empowerment Dynamic offers me a framework for this. I use these tools to check in with myself first. Am I embodying these qualities in myself before I ask them of someone else?

What am I doing and where am I doing it? I am using the Wealthy Affiliate platform to structure my offering. The platforms within the overall platform encompass the empowerment attributes of coach, challenger and creator.

They have a feedback platform where you can ask for an evaluation of your website. You are able to ask for comments for particular pages and posts in their Site Comments function. In either of these arenas you may receive advice that may be challenging to you.

Their Blogging platform, Site Content and training functions offer you the ability to bring your creator to the fore. You can make a difference not only in your own life but also in the lives of your audience.

When we’re writing posts in Site Content and providing information for someone wishing to buy a product or service, we need to think about possible objections they may have. Any objection is a challenge to what the seller believes about his product. So consider this carefully.

And finally you can seek coaching, not only through following the different trainings that become available on a daily basis, but you can also ask questions. Those questions you can turn over to the community to receive answers. So you may get a range of answers to sort through and find what fits best for you. Finally there is the Live Chat. 24/7 there are people online to connect with and seek help from if required. It’s a community that looks after their own.

Summing up: The Drama Triangle & The Empowerment Dynamic

In this and the previous post I have discussed these two tools as being useful for affiliate marketers.

I see the Drama triangle being a powerful tool as long it is used with a sense of detachment. It is a tool of Self Knowledge. Witness events that happen to you or you are involved with through its lens. Try not to see yourself in the tool.

It was Zig Ziglar that said, “Failure is an event, not a person.” With detachment we can see that these events whether they be a personal challenge or a glitch in the matrix of your hobby or niche, are happenings that can advance your business when you use them as examples for your audience. Yes, you may have felt persecuted or a victim to events. You may felt those who rush to rescue were interfering.

Use it simply to uncover the reason you’re focusing on this particular area or product and then use this knowledge to provide great service to your niche.

The Empowerment Dynamic is a tool of integrity. It moves our communication from past to present and future. Where the Drama Triangle often dwells in what happened before, the tools of Coach, Challenger, and Creator are firmly planted in the present and sowing the seeds of empowerment for the future

Blessings

The Drama Triangle arose from the therapeutic method of Transactional Analysis (TA) the where the client’s social interactions are analyzed by the therapist. From a social perspective it was thought that in any interaction the client inhabits either a child-like parent-like or an adult persona.

Transactional Analysis

TA grew out of the work of Eric Berne who proposed that the client through childhood and adolescence develops scripts and life-plans that inform their relationships with others. These are expressed through their ego states and as mentioned before their social transactions.

These transactions became pattern-like and he referred to them as games. Each side of the social transaction would be seeking to win. Hence, we now have the whole win-win and win-lose scenarios. How each side conducted themselves in these interactions is by presenting as Child, Parent, or Adult.

Stephen Karpmann further added to these ideas with his development of the Drama Triangle. To him the three corners of the triangle represented the Persecutor, the Victim (not in the traditional sense but as in feeling like a victim) and the Rescuer.

How can this help us in the field of Affiliate Marketing?

The Drama Triangle’s Victim

One of the things an affiliate marketer looks at when he or she is deciding on a niche is, did they have a problem they had to solve? They can then find products they used in their solution and market them through the content they produce?

If an affiliate marketer has a problem, at some point they felt “Poor Me”, victimized by the difficulty they experienced. If you’ve ever had a challenge, a disease, or an obstacle, you want to find an answer to it and grow past it.

Even if as affiliate marketer you are focusing on your passions, you probably suffered through some setback that created an obstacle to your enjoyment of the pastime. Again something you needed to find an answer to find your way back to your happy place.

Some marketers have had health challenges they’ve had to find cures for, or ways to live with the challenges when it left them with a permanent disability. Those cures and the systems they developed to live comfortably with their disability become the products they used to combat their persecutor.

The Drama Triangle’s Persecutor

These problems, obstacles, set backs and challenges are our persecutors. It makes our job easier if the persecutors are things in the external world. A bit more difficult if they reside within us as procrastination, lack of motivation. When this happens, we can become our own worst enemies.

The times that “It’s all your fault” rings in your ears can be debilitating and sometimes send you into a bit of a downward spiral. Luckily each day is a clean slate and the persecutors can be put behind us.

As we grow into our business more challenges will come up to persecute and victimize us. All these become opportunities to further our story and create more traction for the market.

Any means we use to overcome our persecutors can potentially become a product to market through an affiliate system.

The Drama Triangle’s Rescuer

What we use to conquer our persecutors, whether they lie within or are external manifestations, becomes our rescuer. They can see we’re a victim being set upon by our persecutor and come to save us.

Negative self talk is something I’ve come up against as I been navigating the field of affiliate marketing. It was only this morning that I was doing it again. Wondering whether what I was writing for this post was any good or not.

This is a perfect example of the Drama Triangle at work. I’m bullying myself about my credentials to put this information out. I become a victim to my own sense of self-worth. Then in turn I notice what I’m doing to my esteem and have to pull myself up, give myself a swift kick in the behind and jump right in and get on with it.

No I wasn’t blocked. Yes I’m actually OK. And yes I have something to say here that may be of use to an audience who are going through a similar situation. By recognizing when I’m getting into that funk and revving myself up with a little positive vibe and self talk I come back to the good space where I’m open and listening to the possibilities coming through.

I then take some action. Sitting down at the computer and tapping out a few good words is good to keep the motivation flowing. You realize – “YOU CAN DO THIS”

Resolution

We’re almost continually going through this process of persecutor, victim, rescuer especially when the percentage of our negative self talk is actually higher than our positive self talk. The cycle is always seeking resolution. We need to be vigilant, and switch to the positive when we feel the negative taking hold. And then to take a positive action to cement the change in our mindset.

When challenge is going on internally for us, yes, we can play all parts of the triangle. When it is going on in the external world, though we may be the victim and rescuer, the persecutor makes its presence felt. We may also experience the rescuer in our day to day reality.

I was ready to venture down the path of affiliate marketing and had tried a couple of opportunities that never developed traction for me. I can’t even remember how it happened but I was reading a blog or email and the site Wealthy Affiliate was mentioned.

I followed the clue and discovered one of the most valuable corners of the internet there. They have platforms for training, blogging, domains, websites, SEO, creating content, and comments. Everything you could need to begin your journey into affiliate marketing.

I wouldn’t say they came to my rescue, because once you begin you have to become your own rescuer by utilizing the wealth of material on their site. I found my rescue in them.

Aside from the rescuer both the victim and the persecutor have a negative connotation. In the next post I’ll flip the triangle on its head and we’ll look at “The Empowerment Dynamic” – challenger, creator and coach.

Blessings