Last month, I shared a tool that my husband and I have been using behind the scenes to leverage our time and money. As a fellow entrepreneur looking to leverage your time, I felt it was something you may want to know about so I decided to share it with you.

The response was very interesting. Here is some of it:

“Interesting tool! I will look into it.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

And then there was this email that hit me like a ton of bricks:

“…SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!…”

What?

Now, being the highly evolved person that I am, I just simply smiled and let it roll off my back.

NOT!

I got miffed. I got upset. I ranted.

And after a bit of that, I took some deep breaths and found myself feeling really bad for this person. This was obviously a person who needed to lash out at someone for something… anything. After a day or so, I thought about it again and wondered what lesson there could be in this for me. Surely there had to be a lesson in this that I needed to hear.

Here’s what I figured out.

We all do this from time to time, myself included. Maybe not exactly like this, but we act out in this way. You see, this email came from a man who contacted me months before about “desperately needing help,” in his own words. After more phone conversations than I care to count with him and his wife, I realized that while they said all the right things to sound like an ideal client, their actions made them less than ideal. They run a million dollar coaching business and want help with gaining leverage, making better use of her time and raising her profile so she can stop being on the road over 300 days a year. Bingo! I can help with that. But what they couldn’t do was make a decision. What they couldn’t do was move the dial. What they couldn’t do was take any meaningful action on what they desperately want to do. So when an out-of-the–box opportunity presented itself to do part of what they are looking for, it pushed his buttons and he took offense. Big time.

Bottom line: His reaction had nothing to do with me. It was all about him. I just happened to push the button on his “stuff.”

It made me wonder if there was a place in my life where I was taking offense at something in this way and blaming someone else for my own “stuff.” It didn’t take me long to find it. And now I’m working on cleaning it up. Instead of being offended or seeing this person as a nemesis, I’m choosing to see her as a teacher. I’m choosing to be inspired by this person and grateful that we crossed paths. She pushed a button for me, and while I didn’t lash out and spread bad energy like the person I’m talking about in this article, I get to check in with myself now and figure out what this triggered in me so I can keep growing, moving and learning.

You see, when someone pushes a button, that means there is an unresolved piece of us that needs attention. And it’s our job to notice these triggers so we can stop blaming others and instead start looking within to find out what that is being pushed and prodded so we can experience personal growth.

How about you? Have you ever experienced something like this?

The truth is, the more you put yourself out there and gain a following, the more you’ll also get people who don’t like you, even if you are coming from the purest of heart. Some people who don’t like you will follow you and share with you how much they don’t like you. It’s a strange use of energy if you ask me. But as I heard someone once say, “Hug them, wish them peace then move on. You’ve got too much good work to do.”

© 2013 Meredith Liepelt, Rich Life Marketing