Lessons Learned from Leeches

Leeches killed Robin Williams.  I realized this watching a video of Robin Williams making a public service advertisement with a young cancer patient.  He was totally in the moment with her, completely dedicated to making her happy.  Here was Robin’s problem.  There were more cancer patients, personal assistants, managers, staff, and fans than he could ever make happy.  Not being able to meet the expectations of seven billion earth inhabitants killed him.  Ultimately, there just wasn’t enough blood to feed all the leeches.  Leeches kill business owners as well.

A leech is a thing that feels entitled to feed on your talents, efforts, and success.  If you’re successful, you’ll wade through ponds infested with leeches every day.  Leeches can be vendors, customers, staff, friends, and even blood relatives – especially blood relatives.

There are two types of leeches: time leeches and money leeches.  I often encounter time leeches, who want to market their services to my clients.  They don’t describe their requests that way.  They talk about joint marketing efforts.  However, I have two thousand clients to their twenty.  When a leech looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see a leech.

You may find money leeches in your immediate family.  She’s the sister, who only needs a few thousand dollars to make the mortgage payment this week.  She promises to pay you back by payday.  But payday never arrives.   Soon she and her spawn move in with you on a temporary basis.  Temporary means until the sun burns down to a white dwarf in a few million years.

I’m starting a support group called Leeches Anonymous.  As with Alcoholics Anonymous, the first step towards a cure is realizing you have a problem.  However, the second step, unlike AA, is realizing that the problem isn’t you.  It’s OK to kill leeches.  But Frank, won’t the leeches hate you as a result?  Yes.  The third step in our recovery is realizing that not everyone will love you, and that’s not only OK, but it needs to be that way for you to survive.

To kill leeches, you use the “N” word.  “No” kills leeches more effectively than fire, and killing one leech kills others as the word spreads throughout the leech community that you’re an asshole.  The key to being happy is being called an asshole by the right people.

I’ve had a couple of asshole moments lately when the leeches surrounded me and bled my spirit dry.  Leeches aren’t necessarily bad people.  I cut ties with a charity event, when my expected time commitment spiraled out of control.  That commitment, combined with a bunch of others, caused me panic attacks at night.  I chose sleep and mental health over a very worthy event.  Yes, I’m an asshole, but a better rested one now.  I couldn’t meet any commitments in an exhausted state.  Some leeches had to die for others to live.

Carefully choose the leeches you let live.  You don’t have to kill all the leeches, but put the ones you don’t kill on a paying basis.  I don’t kill all the joint marketing leeches, just the ones where there’s no money in it for me.

Sometimes customers can be leeches.  Evaluate which ones feed you back financially and emotionally to compensate for your effort.  Kill the rest.  And yes – the emotional payback matters as much as the financial.  We all have customers, who kill us emotionally despite the money.

Attracting leeches is a sign of success.  More leeches means more success.  So don’t feel bad about having leeches.  Feel bad about not killing them.

As always, thanks for reading!  For real tax and accounting advice, visit the main S&K web site at www.skcpas.com.  Until next time, let’s kill some leeches.