Saturday, January 05, 2008

Should I Avoid Negative People?

As you may have already known, staying positive is one of key attitude we all should have to keep us motivated all the time. Whether you’re a business man, self-employed or an employee, staying positive is the only attitude that can make you happy and performing in your job. So now, you heard othe brilliant idea to stay positive is to “Avoid Negative People” around you. Yes it is a very famous phrase used by a lot of motivators out there:

“To Stay Positive, Avoid Negative People”.
Those negative people are most likely affect your attitude and influence you to become negative as well. On the other hand, the positive people influence you to become a positive thinking people. Yes, it is making sense but I’m going to challenge it.

Ok, do you see something is wrong here? Let’s me give you a scenario. If your wife is a negative people, are you going to avoid her? If your sons and daughters are negative people, are you going to avoid them? If your best friends are negative people, are you going to avoid them? No, you don’t want to avoid them, do you? Instead you want to get close to them to help them, don’t you think so?

So I come out a conclusion that the “phrase” is correct but need a little of modifications. Here you go:
“To Stay Positive, Avoid Negative People if you’re follower”.
You don’t avoid negative people if you’re a leader. You transform them and help them to become a positive person. Leader doesn’t focus on avoiding negative people to make them a positive thinker but only follower does. If you’re follower, which means you can’t control who you want to be (become negative when mix with negative people and vice-versa), you avoid negative people probably is a good thing to do.

So my next question to you, do you want to be leader or follower?

10 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Or as Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world [around you]."

ChampDog said...

Yes, whatever changes we want from our life it should be inside-out and not the other way round. Of course, sometimes when we are weak we need outside-in to encourage us or motivate us. However, we shouldn't forget that the bottom line is still inside-out.

Anonymous said...

Yeah I agreed everyone like positive thinking people. Not everyone is so perfect in this world. We are human and we will definately be negative sometimes. So we need to balance between the positive and negative. We cannot avoid them unless you can tell me that you are 100% positive. Right? Just sharing my opinion.. not offence ya.. Hehe.. :P

ChampDog said...

You're right, no one is 100% positive. Of course no offense but I though my post is bias towards not to avoid negative people? :)

Mt. said...

from another perspective, "make use of the negative people .... "

sometimes when ones is over-positive, he may overlook things. That's why quite a handful of 'positive' guys fail miserably. so when a negative encouter occurs, the 'real' positive guy will take what he needs from that incident, ie. highlight, issues, potential problems etc ... and say thank you to the negative dude ... that way, the negative guy feel appreciated and may become more positive in future while the positive guy get new piece of information that he can be more suceed in his path ...

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Sorry that I did not see you comment earlier in my bulk moderating comment.

I just approved and posted.
In think one way or another, we are surrounded by negative people and useless people all days long, but the important thing is how we handle these people ?

I am a very positive person because I got to because I was born with a lot of congruential diseases so I need to stay positive for myself, my parents, my siblings and now my own family :).

I think what make me different from a lot of other negative people is that I am very focus and goal oriented.

I love your blog about become financially independent. Good on you.

I love people plan and think ahead.

Cheers
Jamy from Florida
(I am from East Malaysia, just came back from there).

Anonymous said...

There're too many negative people around us. So you're right, instead of avoiding them, we should mingle with and transform them.

Wow, I really sound like a leader huh? Not actually I just try not to be a mere follower.

Your little boy pic looks so cute lar!

ChampDog said...

@Michael
I agree. Sometimes over-positive can over-look things. We need negative people to compliment each to achieve the next-level result.

@seaykopitiam
Thanks for your comment and compliment. I’m great to hear that you can stay in positive in whatever situation and environment. Sometimes being negative is not totatly a bad thing. How to make use of your negative energy is another thing we all need to learn.

@Zing
Yes, we should help them instead of avoiding them. It also depends how good you’re in control of your behaviour. Sometimes negative people have a very powerful influence! In life, we don’t need to be always a leader in any situation. A good leader in fact is also a good follower.

Thanks. :) That little boy was me.

Unknown said...

If you're a leader then you would offer your negative followers a chance to change. If they choose to remain in their negative states then you simply fire them. Once they are no longer bringing their negativity into your surroundings you hire a positive person to replace them.

Negative people infect others with their fear and self doubt. They kill innovation dead in it's tracks. They cost way too much to keep around.

ChampDog said...

I have almost forgotten I have this post. I think everyone of us has the negative energy. The only make the difference is how one can utilize this negative energy to become the useful energy instead.

Put it this way, positive energy could harm too due to over optimistic. Don't you think so? It is a matter of fact how you use the energy to get something that you one. Negative energy is not necessary a bad thing, it could be a very good thing if we know how to make use of it.

I believe a complete team, you need both of those people. You can't just fire all the negative guys and only keep those positive fella. This won't bring the team to the next level. That what I'm trying to say, being negative is sometimes not really a bad thing. It can be good as long as we know how to make use of it. Anyway, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.


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