I try to keep this blog to basic marketing tips and don’t usually post my personal feelings about things, but I am making an exception here. You may or may not want to read this. That’s your choice.

This past year I lost my mother. No, I’m not looking for sympathy. Death is part of life and we all have to go through it. So I’m no different from anybody else. However, I hope that when a person loses somebody close to them that they get something from it other than just sadness. This is what I got from it.

Life is short…way too short if you ask me. And because of that, there is no room for negativity in it, not when this negativity does nothing to improve the quality of your life. When that happens, you have to cut it out or it will suck the life out of you like a cancer.

Today, I had to abruptly cut somebody out of my life. No, I won’t mention any names. It’s not important who it is. Point is, this person had been making me feel less than good for quite some time, always needling me and pointing out my shortcomings and other faults. I’d end up getting annoyed and would allow it to ruin my day, no matter how good the day otherwise was. Well, this is something I no longer have to worry about with this person. I’ve made it so that I won’t have to hear their needling any longer.

What this does is it allows me to now concentrate 100% on my business without having to worry about spending even a fraction of my day throwing things around the room because somebody pissed me off. And if I have to cut off 10 people tomorrow, then that’s what I’ll do. I have decided to surround myself with only people who are positive influences on my life.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I cut off people who have constructive criticism. In fact, I welcome people to show me where I can improve my business. Hey, if my sales page really can use improvement, just don’t tell me it sucks, tell me what’s wrong with and give me an idea of how I can make it better. That’s the kind of criticism I can take and welcome.

Negativity will kill you, especially if it’s not constructive. All it does is weigh you down and takes your attention off the things that are important. Up until I lost my mother, I put up with it. But now, like I said, life is too damn short and I won’t let anybody drag me down just because they enjoy doing it.

So here is my advice to you. If there is somebody in your life who has nothing good to say to you, and if it’s possible (with family it’s tough)…remove them from your life.

You’ll be a lot better off for it.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim