Weekly Wisdom #153 - When Negativity Becomes Destructive

Hey everybody, it's Dean. Welcome back to this week's weekly wisdom. Hey, first of all, thanks for all the great comments last week. I know every week you leave amazing comments. Maybe they touch my heart a little more because they're about my gram who's really special to me. Wanna let you know, I do read every single post when it's underneath this video. So if you want me to read something, you want to give me a message, love to hear it. Wish I could read all the posts, but there's just way too many. Oh, and if you're just joining us and I don't have your email address and you're here up over here, I think you can enter your name and email address and I'll send you an email reminder when these blogs come out. Also this month we are donating below or above. You can click and get my new book, 30 Days to Real Estate Cash. It is an amazing book, probably the best book I've ever written. And we're going pink this month. So half of the proceeds from the purchase are going to go to breast cancer awareness or towards the cure for breast cancer. Figure we do our part. Okay, this week I want to talk about my buddy's in New York. Okay. And if you're watching, I might get in a little trouble on this one. But I'm just gonna say it like it is. Every year I go back to New York and I sponsor a golf tournament where money goes to Make a Wish foundation and a lot of other people in need. And it's fun. I sponsor it or one of the biggest sponsors. And then the next day I actually go pheasant hunting. I do it once a year. I think it's pretty awesome. Don't worry, all the birds get eaten. And if you're not a hunter, I'm sorry. But it's fun. Okay, so but while I was there, one of the rituals, the yearly rituals, I've been doing this about six years now is when I land, we land at the airport. I drive straight to my favorite Italian restaurant called Cena 2000. It's down on the river in Newburgh, New York, Great Italian restaurant. And I meet my buddies there, buddies that I knew since fifth grade. And every year it's kind of a reality check. It's a little tiny town. We lived in upstate New York, above Newburgh, about 15 miles above Newburgh. Went to high school with 110 kids, right? So I went to dinner and I realized and this is in no way disrespecting my friends or Talking bad about them. But I realized as the years go by, their conversations get more negative and more negative. So I sat down with them, and I realized that every time something good was brought up, 10 things negative were brought up. You know, even one of my friends literally said, he's like, you know what I realized recently? The day you're born, you know, is the day you start dying. You know, somebody talk about somebody getting married, and someone says, yeah, but you hear so and so's cheating. Talk about somebody, you know, winning at an election. Yeah, but you hear so and so died. Every time I brought up something positive, or even if somebody else did, there was 10 things negative. And it made me realize these are people I love and care about and have known forever. And I was trying. And here's what I want to tell you. For years, without them even realizing this sounds like I'm putting myself above them. And I don't mean that. I just think a little different than most people. I would try to insert bigger future things, right? So we're not talking about, hey, the good old days, and now it sucks, right? We're talking about, hey, we had the good old days. Let's have some good, better days in the future. And I would insert it, and sometimes I'd get the conversation on a fun, positive note. Well, this is the first year that I noticed I couldn't spin it. The economy's bad, the president's bad, the country's bad, everything bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. So when I left there, I was kind of sad that I couldn't spin it and that I can't let my friends, people I care about, see that what comes out of their mouth is the life they live, Right? I don't want to get into that again because I know I've done it in earlier blogs, but what we say every day is the life we live. If we think we live in a horrible country, the president's horrible, the Congress is horrible, the economy's horrible. If we think all that is horrible, which, whether it is or not, if we think that that's the life we live every day. If we focus on the negative news, if we focus what's wrong with things, not what's right, if we focus that yesterday was better than tomorrow can be, that's the life we live. So easier said than done, because we live in a negative world, and there's a lot of negative stuff out there. So I want to share something that I saw from two people that I respect. Don't watch a lot of tv, listen to A lot of tapes, videos, and don't go to a lot of events, but two that I do. Every once in a while I catch Joel Osteen. I happen to know Joel. He's a great guy. He's the same guy in real life as he is when he's at church on Sundays or when you see him on tv. Really awesome guy. And then I used to. And I've listened to Anthony Robbins in the past and got some really great stuff from Anthony. So I want to share two things they had in common they probably don't know that I want to share with you. Today, being negative is very easy. Focusing on a bigger tomorrow is hard. But that's, you know, when everybody's going left, when you're a contrarian thinker, that's the path to the better life, the bigger future. So two things they had in common. It says when you are negative, when things feel stressed, when things are going wrong in your life, when you just feel like it just can't happen and maybe you're down on yourself. They both said at different times, go hang around or be around people who have it much worse than you. And it's impossible to be stressed. It's impossible to be negative. So they've said it in different ways. And I'm kind of paraphrasing, but how I look at that is like that old saying, you know, you complained about not having socks until you met the person with no shoes. And you complained about no shoes until you met the person with no feet. Now, listen, let me just say something. I'm being really serious here. Everybody's level of stress, worry, anxiety and negativity in their life is their own level. It's their own feeling. And yours doesn't. Yours is no worse than somebody that you feel is doing something has something ten times as bad. Somebody struggling to eat is stressed. And you may be struggling because there's too much going on in a day because you're driving your kids all over and trying to do work and daycare and be at dance. Let me just tell you something. Don't ever judge and think, I can't believe I'm stressed. And I'm just. I can't believe I have this when somebody has it worse. That's not the point. Because your stress feels to you the same way as it feels to anybody with something more significant. It's your stress. It's still bad, it's still tough. It still can turn you to negativity. So here's what I think is really the answer is Find somebody who has it much tougher than you and spend a little time around them. Really, I really mean that. This is an assignment. I know this has nothing to do with real estate, but I think it's really important when you're stress because your first deal fell through when you thought it was going to happen in 30 days and you're 45 days in and somebody bought it out from under you or the assignment didn't happen and you're freaked and upset. What if you went and spent a day at a soup kitchen? Would that bug you as much? I know I'm being a little dramatic on both ends of the spectrum. You know, your boss pisses you off, you're racing, you get in the car. How about when you get in the car? Sometimes you're having a stressed day and your kids are in the back and they're yelling and screaming and you ask them be quiet and they're not. You're just like, ah, but what if you called that person, you know, that maybe lost their child or don't have children? See, I don't want you to think I'm minimizing what you're going through, but there's always somebody going through something worse and all it does is makes you have this feeling of wow, I need to step up and help that person or understand that person. And I promise you, it takes away the negativity, it takes away the stress. Now I know this is a pretty deep assignment, but I'd really like for you to think and maybe give me some suggestions below because I don't want to make this a 10 minute blog. Give some suggestions of things that you could do for people that have it worse off than you. I promise you this. You can't complain, you can't be stressed when you're around people who have it much worse off than you. So in this time in our country, when the economy is horrible, when so many people are struggling financially, I know it's stressful, I know it's easy to be negative, but we got to stop it. Because what comes out of here creates the universe around us. If we're negative, if we look at the glass half empty, we are going to continue to get that. You got to find a way to shake it up if you're already past it. If you've been watching my blogs for years and you go, dean, I'm so far past that I don't have negative thoughts, I don't hang around with negative people, then you're good. But if you're not that person you're bobbing in and out. Go find someone who has it worse off than you. Try to help them. Try to make a difference in their life, even if it's just a phone call a touch, or going to a soup kitchen like I plan on doing on Thanksgiving. So that's my message for today. Hope you guys are amazing. Talk to you soon.