Negatalkers: People at Work Who Drain You
By Dr. Dennis O'Grady
Are you bullish on negative news or positive news in the workplace? Do you stand by as an energy thief sticks a siphon in your communicator car gas tank, sucks your juicy motivational energy dry, and makes your get up and go, well, all gone and spent? Is your office space a place negatalkers come to vent about the latest work woe, scandal or gossip tidbit? Then chances are, you might be your own worst energy-draining enemy.
NEGATALKERS ARE NOT REALISTS WHO ARE HELPING, BUT PESSIMISTS WHO ARE HURTING EVERYONE
I'm not blaming everyone who is negative, because that alone's their full-time job. I'm just saying that you've got to give your energy a chance, and turn off negative talk news stations at work. How to know if you're a negatalker, or a condoner of negatalking:
- EXTREMISM. Negatalkers blows things WAY out of proportion in ways that speak of lurking disasters and unmitigated emergencies.
- WORRY WART. Negatalkers focus a 100-power magnifying telescope on even the smallest of worries in your brain, and thus turn a rolling snowball into an avalanche that all but kills the hope of personal change.
- TAR BABY. Negatalkers' "psychocritiques" stick to you like tarry black goo or goop on your bright blue or burnt orange communicator car. "You should make me happy!" is the whine used to promote feeling good about bad feelings and taking on a pessimistic life view.
- WET BLANKET. Negatalkers throw a wet blanket over the burning passions and talents that could easily produce positive, powerful results in your work world.
- MAKE TROUBLE. Negatalkers make trouble for themselves and others, by doing more of what's not working, and focusing on the little mistakes you and I make instead of the big miracles that positive actions could produce.
- LINT-PICKERS. Negatalkers are smarty-pants who analyze the lint in their own deep belly buttons or pull on the loose thread in your business suit. At lunchtime, they will hand you a manure sandwich to chomp into, one that says sensitivity is for suckers, and that being truly genuine is a gargantuan bore.
- LOSS LOVERS. Negatalkers are big Chicken Littles who foretell a future of loss...loss...and more loss, that serves to drag you down and make you frown and drown in an ocean of misery that later you will be blamed for because you're too "naive" and upbeat on the subject.
- BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER. Negatalkers can't take a positive person and talker for long, because misery loves company, and negatalkers seek out judging and scandalizing others, plying cynicism and playing pessimism mind games while extracting perverse satisfaction from others' suffering.
- LAZY. Yes, negatalkers love to be in control and hate peaceful living that promotes progress and happiness...and they are the world's best negative but effective communicators. However, negatalkers also avoid work and working, and procrastinate by stirring the pot and thriving on trouble.
Foggy communication highways need your clear and confident communication.
CYNICISM: PUBLIC ENEMY #1
NegaTalkers are LAZY. They also live by their own rules and are control freaks whose insecurity has gotten way out of control. Although cynicism is public enemy #1, that's exactly what negatalkers take pride in, spreading it around at work like nobody's business. Negatalkers get out of work, and excellent performance at work, by upsizing the negative and downsizing the positive. Go figure.
IT'S YOUR JOB TO MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY AND STOP LISTENING WITH INTEREST TO NEGATALKERS
Well, surely you've learned by now that ultimately it's your job to make yourself happy and pursue your heartfelt goals that will make your workplace a more positive place to work because YOU are going around being the positive person you are. So, how to get your happy back? Close your gas cap when negatalkers are sucking your motivation dry, and drive off down the road of positive and effective two-way communication that realizes potentials instead of driving them into the nearest ditch.
