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

I’ve had a good year, as I said. I earned well into 6 figures and had an incredible month of December. It was the best month I ever had. But in the course of this year, I burned a lot of bridges. Let me explain.

I am a very outspoken and opinionated person. When somebody is that vocal, they’re going to have detractors. This is something I should have known from the start. While I did on some subconscious level, I wasn’t ready to accept it. So when I was attacked for my views, I fought back. Sometimes I said things that weren’t very professional. As a result, I made a lot of enemies and burned a lot of bridges with people who I could have had great relationships with. As a businessman, this was just plain dumb.

On a personal level, it was even dumber. How can people respect you when, quite bluntly, you act like an ass? They can’t. Oh some will come to your defense and say that you were provoked and that these people deserved to be blasted for their remarks. But in the end, it makes you no better than them. You’ve lowered yourself to their level.

It’s such an easy trap to fall into, and I fell into it more times than I care to admit.

So, last night, realizing that I had just made my most recent mess by responding to a lot of negativity in a totally unprofessional manner, I came to the conclusion that 2009 needed to see a new me if I was going to continue to have success online. So some changes are going to be made…lots of them.

No more arguing. And if I am attacked for any reason, I am simply going to ignore it. It doesn’t make me look any better acting like a lunatic.

See, it doesn’t matter how much knowledge you have. It doesn’t matter if you can teach people how to build 6 figure businesses. If you don’t have their respect, you have nothing. I just hope I haven’t learned that lesson too late.

I’ve been marketing online for 6 years and as some people have said, it’s time I grew up.

What about you? Are you happy with the you that you see in the mirror? If not, what are you going to change this year? Or are you just going to continue on the same path that you’re on? I can’t make that decision for you. Only you can.

Me? I have a lot of changes to make. I don’t know if I can salvage any of the relationships that I torpedoed over the last 6 years, but I’m going to make damn sure that I don’t torpedo any more of them in the next 6.

May you have a Happy, Safe, and Healthy New Year.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim