Fear of confrontation destroys dreams

Over the past few weeks I have been dealing with people in the centre who have been, let's say, less then pleasant. I spend a lot of my time pumping myself up with enthusiasm. I constantly think positive and always look on the bright side of things. One of the reasons you very rarely hear about some of the real problems that I face on a daily basis is just that I try to construct my reality so that I can always feel light, bouncy and positive.

because of this I tend to think of other people as people who can basically be trusted and that the majority of people are good and honest. However, this has meant that I have slow to deal with people who start to cross the line between what is acceptable in a gaming centre and what isn't. This was partly because I wasn't totally sure what should and shouldn't go on myself.

Over the past month I have focused my views on what is acceptable behavior and what isn't and Yesterday it culminated with the banning of several people from the centre who crossed the line big time.

I have learned a lot in the past few weeks. Stuff you can only learn from being in situations like these and that experience, regardless of how unpleasant they were, I would not trade for anything. I believe that I've started to cultivate a real no bullshit (bad word justified) attitude to people when it is clear they have no intent to follow rules put in place to benefit others, and who will wiggle and squirm and use the most stupid and foolish techniques to get what they want.

In this episode I have realized just what it was at the beginning that stopped me confronting these people. Fear of confrontation. Every time I had to approach people and tell them to behave in a different way to that they were acting in, my heart beat would increase and I would sweat.

What kept me confronting though, and not backing down, was my remembering my views on change. That change is constant and that in this world, you can only succeed by changing. I realized that if I feared confrontation I would be fearing the thing that I claimed I wanted to represent, change.

Now I barely need to think twice before telling someone that their behavior is unacceptable and to tell them the consequences of the continued behavior. I wonder though how many of the people who are afraid to go into business for themselves are afraid to do so because of the fear of confrontation....

- James