Avoid Getting Sucked In... And Sucked Dry

What is it with peo­ple lately?

Brow­beat­ing, bash­ing, and bul­lyrag­ging. Flames, stains, and blames. Put downs, let downs and show­downs. On forums, blogs, and social net­work­ing sites.

Sure, I under­stand peo­ple are fed up with scam artists and snake oil sales­men. And sure, I also believe we need fire­brands and rebels. Each one helps to keep the other side in line.

I love good debates. They’re not only intel­lec­tu­ally stim­u­lat­ing, but also they help insti­gate change, or give oth­ers the impe­tus on how to deal with it. I always love a good argu­ment, when that argu­ment is based on fact and substance.

But lately, some of them are really get­ting out of hand.

I’m see­ing peo­ple being snarky at best, and being out­right abu­sive with name-​​calling at worst. (I can just see hun­gry lawyers rub­bing their hands together, as they get ready to pounce on the grow­ing poten­tial for new slan­der, libel and char­ac­ter defama­tion suits.)

It’s sad that a few bad apples are rot­ting the bas­ket. But what’s worse than cop­ing with those annoy­ing whin­ers is deal­ing with the undue — let alone unde­serv­ing — stress they cause in their wake.

Rather than remain­ing log­i­cal, fac­tual and objec­tive, they tend to paint entire indus­tries with the same, broad, brown-​​colored brush­strokes, and expect the other side to sit idly by, or, bet­ter yet, to react and defend them­selves (feed­ing their own ego­cen­tric need for con­fronta­tion, think­ing that by doing so, they appear more than mere vig­i­lantes but as heroes).

I agree that peo­ple are leery and get­ting fed up. And that’s under­stand­able. But using the same tac­tics they con­demn to lam­baste (or even worse, intim­i­date) oth­ers is get­ting bloody ridiculous.

I believe they often do so to jus­tify their own inad­e­qua­cies and failures.

These peo­ple are vam­pires. They suck your energy, your time, your money, and the most impor­tant of all, espe­cially if you’re a copy­writer like me, your creativity.

Rather than learn­ing a thing or two, they take great pride in voic­ing their opin­ions — not in the hope that their voices are heard and lead to change, but that they are glo­ri­fied for tak­ing a stance, or at least suck peo­ple into their ego-​​feeding frenzy, not only to look good but also to feel bet­ter about themselves.

And that’s just as deceptive.

They’re not only rob­bing the peo­ple they man­age to get involved in their mud­sling­ing fest. They are also rob­bing them­selves. And the worst part is, they know it. But they don’t care.

Pas­sion is pow­er­ful. It can cre­ate multi-​​million dol­lar busi­nesses. It can move nations. It can change the world. Espe­cially when that pas­sion was ignited by a cat­alytic event. (And being fed up can be a cat­a­lyst in itself.)

But mis­di­rected pas­sion can also cause stress. It can cause undue harm. It can even cause wars. And it can, of course, cause death.

That’s why I’m a firm believer that pas­sion is pow­er­ful. But guided by prin­ci­ple, mean­ing when you can focus and steer that pas­sion in the proper direc­tion, your pas­sion can become a force of good that ben­e­fits the lives of so many people.

Includ­ing your own.

Archimedes said, “Give me a lever big enough and I can move the world.” But that alone is not enough. Hitler had his lever — whether it was his charisma or his army — but look what his pas­sion accomplished.

Don’t be a pas­sion­ate per­son. Be a per­son of “prin­ci­pled passion.”

As they say in the sales indus­try, peo­ple who put the com­pe­ti­tion down and say neg­a­tive things about them do so because they have noth­ing good to say about their own products.

(And peo­ple can see this from miles away.)

It only makes you look bad — not the other party you intend to harm.

I think it’s the same in all things. When you have noth­ing pos­i­tive or noth­ing of sub­stance to bring to the table, and all you do is put oth­ers down — or worse yet, using them as excuses for not doing well — then it only makes you look bad, not the object of your ire.

As a writer, pas­sion has been a crit­i­cal ele­ment. I’ve used it as a pow­er­ful tool to write some of the most suc­cess­ful pieces of copy I’ve ever writ­ten. But stress can also be a killer — whether it’s a killer of ambi­tion, a killer of cre­ativ­ity, or, in some cases, a killer, period.

Mis­di­rected pas­sion can become quite stress­ful on your­self. But deal­ing with bul­lies and provo­ca­teurs can be equally dam­ag­ing. The energy and labor-​​intense work it takes to deal with these peo­ple — and the destruc­tion they leave in their wake — can be incred­i­bly exhausting.

And on a writer, it can kill a career.

Matthew Stibbe’s Bad Lan­guage Blog is a blog on writ­ing, which I fol­low reli­giously. Recently, he posted ways to bust stress. I love them. But through­out my own career, I have a few stress­busters of my own. Let me share with you some of mine:

1) Leave sleep­ing dogs lie.

Let piss­ing matches put out their own flames by them­selves. Often, when wars go on around you, whether it’s in a forum or on a blog, or any­where else, try­ing to put your foot in can give either party an oppor­tu­nity to grab it and drag you in.

Try­ing not to join in a destruc­tive argu­ment is tough enough, but it surely is eas­ier than try­ing to win one. Because its sole pur­pose is to destroy! It only serves to feed the con­fronta­tional goal of the peo­ple involved.

Here’s how to win in an argu­ment. Don’t get sucked in one. I believe that the argu­ments you win are most often the ones you don’t join. Because your non-​​response, and your abil­ity to self-​​control, will say spades about you, your posi­tion and, above all, your integrity.

Even­tu­ally, they will die, any­way — and you, on the other hand, as well as your integrity let alone your rep­u­ta­tion, will stay alive.

2) Take a breather.

Or two. Or three. Sleep on it. Count to 1,000. Count to 1,000 back­wards. Really, this works. We often react in sit­u­a­tions, yet fail to act. Action is the best stress-​​buster there is. But reac­tion is the great­est stress-​​booster there is, too.

Peo­ple want to push your hot but­tons, fire up your hor­mones and get you all riled up. And when you react, you’re basi­cally let­ting them know that their ploy worked. Why not take a few steps back, let it sim­mer for a bit, and then act?

In copy­writ­ing (and even in sell­ing), they say that peo­ple buy on emo­tion first, and jus­tify their deci­sion with logic. This is, unfor­tu­nately, true in all things, not just in com­merce. Peo­ple buy in the things they hear or read, and feel a need to respond.

Instead, let your emo­tions calm down. When in comes to argu­ments or deal­ing with bul­lies, buy first on logic, then back it up with emotion.

3) Know the difference.

Fire­brands can some­times be obnox­ious peo­ple. But some peo­ple are obnox­ious not specif­i­cally in a pre­med­i­tated, mali­cious way, with the will­ful and egre­gious intent in try­ing to cre­ate pain and havoc. In my expe­ri­ence, most of them do the same thing — they are sim­ply react­ing, too.

Maybe they are the vic­tims of a sim­i­lar (or worse) sit­u­a­tion in the past, and they’ve become “once bit­ten, twice shy.” Maybe they per­ceive the sit­u­a­tion from a com­pletely (and per­haps erro­neously) dif­fer­ent van­tage point that you are not aware of or can never understand.

Maybe there’s a series of events, which may have fes­tered over time, and then sud­denly even the small­est thing can cause them to snap — or make snap judg­ments. Or sim­ply, they may be hav­ing a bad day. Who knows? You don’t, and that’s the point.

4) Stay away from excuse chasers.

You know the ones: whin­ing socialites, gossip-​​mongers and buck-​​passers. Some things are said in forums and blogs that are pure junk. They are meant to stir up con­tro­versy. They are used as linkbait. But worst of all, they are used as excuses.

Brian Tracy says to beware of “psy­choscle­ro­sis,” the “hard­en­ing of the atti­tudes.” Well, “foru­mi­tis,” or inflam­ma­tion of the forums, is a com­mon and nasty dis­ease on the Inter­net, too.

You may make money with forums, but you don’t make money in one (or worse still, wast­ing time fight­ing in one). Forums can unsus­pect­ingly steal pre­cious time and energy from you.

While some forums are help­ful, they also attract a lot of junk — whin­ers, com­plain­ers, guru bash­ers, and peo­ple who either seek trou­ble or stir up trou­ble in them as a way to cre­ate excuses.

Excuses for doing poorly. Excuses for shift­ing blame away from them­selves. Excuses for not tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for their own lives.

Avoid these peo­ple like the plague.

5) Loosen up.

Activ­ity is one of the best de-​​stressors. Writ­ing is a great way to let off steam, and I often write many posts, forum replies and arti­cles, that never get pub­lished. Just writ­ing them is a release in itself.

But I also mean any kind of phys­i­cal activ­ity. I’m a drum­mer in a band, and my music is a great way to “bang those drums” and take out my frus­tra­tions on some inan­i­mate objects.

Go for a walk or a jog. Have a nice long bath. Have sex. Exer­cise. Watch a movie — or even bet­ter, go out to a movie the­ater, and have a din­ner and a movie. And the best? Talk to some­one who’s will­ing to lis­ten. Just listen.

When you have some­one who you can “down­load” on, with­out judg­ing you, crit­i­ciz­ing you or feel a need to jump in all the time, hold on to that per­son with dear life. I have found that some­one. And I took my own advice: so I mar­ried her.

6) Do what you love.

I really enjoy my writ­ing work and I have much less stress than in my pre­vi­ous career. The adage goes, “Do what you love and the money will fol­low.” And this is cer­tainly true for me.

Own­ing and grow­ing my busi­ness took away a lot of the stress in my life, which allowed me to make a lot more money — and have a lot more fun doing it, too. When I quit my job, I no longer had to deal with harass­ing cowork­ers, idi­otic bosses, or abu­sive clients.

Sure, you’re still going to deal with dum­b­asses in busi­ness just as you would in a job. The dif­fer­ence is, you don’t have to put up with them to make money. You can choose who you want to work with. As “con­trar­ian self-​​help” expert Larry Winget said, “When it quits being fun, then you ought to quit.”

In the end, all of this reminds me of a gem by Eleanor Roo­sevelt, who once said:

Great minds dis­cuss ideas;
Aver­age minds dis­cuss events;
Small minds dis­cuss people.

In fact, Larry Winget, who by the way is one of my favorite moti­va­tional speak­ers (he prefers to call him­self the world’s only “irri­ta­tional speaker”), says it best, which sums it all up beau­ti­fully.

About the Author

Last 5 Posts By Michel Fortin

• How to Capture and Captivate Attention
• The Real Problem With The Flaw of Attraction
• Two Shining Stars in an Age of Darkness
• Changes, Relaunches, and Extreme Makeovers
• Superior Value Equals Superior Sales

Other Related Posts

• The Real Sinister Side of Forced Continuity
• Why Freelance Copywriters Go Hungry
• How to Negotiate Better Copywriting Fees
• Giving Thanks With This Birthday Giveaway
• When And How To Use An Alias In Business