Moonday Musings: The Monkey and the Dolphin

The immediate moral here is that a liar is only fooling himself. But, for me, there's more to this story. The dolphin is an interesting character. He's a kind-hearted soul who sets out to do a favor for someone in need. He saw that the monkey was in trouble and he acted on his helpful nature. What he got in return is something many of us can relate to- disrespect and dishonor.

This is something that happened to me recently, and I'm doing my best to learn a proper lesson from it. It's difficult, because, like the dolphin, I'm a little more than miffed about it. I try very hard to help others wherever I can. I'm a big believer that by helping others, you help yourself. I try to live by that, even with people who are in competing businesses. I'm always happy to feature someone on my blog, facebook page, Samhain's Sirens, etc... and yet, there's always one who seems to want to make sure that my good deed does not go unpunished.

A couple of months ago, I was working with someone to help her change her outlook. I created an exercise for her to help her turn things around. She blogged about it and it took a bit of a viral turn. She mentioned my name, and I was asked (privately) by a few people about what I did.. what was this all about?

One of the people with whom I shared this idea was someone who was trying to feature herself as a spiritual teacher. I shared the information with her, even though I wasn't quite ready to make it public. I had some other irons in the fire, and wanted to get my new website up and running before going forward with it. I had given her some other advice when she asked me for it as well. 

I found out the other day that she took my idea, changed the title, and then ran it as her own. I had broken off ties with her a few weeks after sharing the information, mainly because I'd begun to see behaviors that I didn't like. Honestly, I never expected her to steal my idea, though. Like the dolphin, I feel disrespected and a little angry, too.

It's happened in the past, as well. At one particular company I worked for, I was asked to help someone in the medical records department. I came up with an idea for how to make the conversion to electronic records easier, and I developed a training to go with it. When it came time to present it, she told me she didn't need me there, but to stay close to the phone in case she needed to ask me a question. It turned out that she presented it to the Board of Directors as her idea. It wasn't until months later (after she'd received a huge promotion and raise based on my  work), that I even found out about it.

I'm trying not to follow the dolphin's example. I'm trying to remind myself that regardless of what one or two people have done, there are so many others who don't want to 'bite the hand that feeds them'.  I have to wonder if the dolphin hesitated the next time he saw someone who needed/wanted help.

I hope not. 

I want to learn from these situations in a way that doesn't cause me to become just another competitor in a hopeless sea of sharks and minnows. I want to be able to share knowledge and information in a way that makes the world a better place, even if in some small way. I want to do business differently. I want coopetition, not competition. 

Maybe it's a pipe-dream, thinking that if I set the example, others will participate on that level. Or, perhaps it's just best to shake that monkey off my back, let it drown and move on.

How about you? Have you ever had an idea stolen? Have you ever been in a similar situation? How did you handle it?

I look forward to reading your comments.