As a business owner, dealing with negativity from individuals can be difficult at times. In this  episode, Franziska shares her best tips on how to cope with people who are offloading their own fears and frustration on to you.

00:22 The Poop Shower

1:08 4 best ways on how to respond to Poop Showers

2:31 Most importantly – observe yourself


Franziska: Hi and welcome back! So last week, I shared one of my favourite mantras which is always responding with kindness. Today, I‘d like to share with you the poop shower.

I shared this concept at our annual retreat, The Experience. Then, at the retreat, so many people came to me and they said, “yeah, the poop shower, you know, I can really connect with that.” Or someone even said, “sometimes I‘m the one giving a poop shower.”

So what is a poop shower? A poop shower is basically when somebody is downloading their own fears and frustrations onto you. We definitely sometimes get poop showers by, maybe, customers or family members, or partners.

So there‘s a way to deal with poop showers because I think it‘s really important not to walk around with too much poop on our shoulders because those are the stories that really weigh us down.

So what I want to share with you are four things that you can do.

First one is knowing that it‘s probably got not much to do with you. So, if somebody is downloading onto you, a customer or anyone in your business, or in your personal life, it‘s probably got not much to do with you. Maybe, they had a really bad day or just maybe things are not going so super well for them. So, the only way they can act right now is not amazing. So know that it‘s probably got nothing to do with you.

Secondly is the belief that I have is that people generally do the best they can in that moment. So, maybe that is just exactly the only behaviour they can display right now in that moment. It doesn‘t mean that they‘re bad humans, it‘s just that that‘s all they can do right now.

Number three is which I mentioned last week is always respond with kindness. Always respond with kindness. I know this is really something we can practice and get into. The whole team now is onboard with this. So, we actually encourage each other or we laugh at each other more than anything. When there‘s something funny going on or there‘s a phone call with another telecommunication company or anything and then we always go, “respond with kindness”, “respond with kindness.” It really helps you to take the air out of the situation that might be otherwise frustrating and to respond with kindness. So, those are the three steps.

Most importantly, observe yourself and make sure that you are not the one giving the poop showers because they‘re not that fun and they‘re not fun to receive. So, observe yourself and make sure you‘re not the giver of those showers because I think you are an amazing human, you run an amazing business and the more you are aware of these behaviours, I think the more you evolve, the more your business will evolve.

So, again, thank you very much for watching this. If you know someone who needs to hear this episode, please share it with them. I look forward to seeing you next time.