Don’t Be a Sucker

What does it mean to be “a sucker?”  

One of the most popular chapters in Appreciation Marketing® is Chapter 5, entitled “Seven Deadly Creatures.” In it, we poke fun at different character traits that people (including ourselves) tend to exhibit as we go through life. Identifying these – not so good for you – traits, is part of what helps make us better people.

One of our “featured creatures” is The Sucker, or the Energy Sucker. This is the person who is always focused on the negative things in life and has a tendency (unknowingly) to suck the energy out of other people.

Surely you’d agree that it would be detrimental to both your personal and professional life if people viewed you that way.

As I scroll though Facebook this morning (as I do every morning) I’m noticing the usual current event posts. Yep, that moron Kanye West acted like an idiot at the Grammys again. The Chicago Little League team was stripped of its World Series title for cheating. Of course, we’re still hearing not only about how the New England Patriots may or may not have deflated footballs, but now the buzz is how Seahawks’ coach Pete Carroll blew the Super Bowl with a dumb call. Michael Moore is a Nazi. ISIS is executing people. And Obama doesn’t care. “I can’t breathe!”

I stopped focusing on the “news” a long time ago, because it puts me in a bad mood. I don’t watch the news before bed, and I don’t start off my day with it.  On the weekend, I’ll read about it in The New York Times, fittingly, while on the toilet (sorry).

The world is so overwhelmingly negative that oft times we want to talk about all the negative crap. Again, I sometimes stumble and do it myself. But it seems that people like to re-report all the bad news like there’s a reward for it.

I know people have the right to post whatever they want on Facebook. That’s not going to be my argument here. My only question is, do you want to be pegged as the Energy Sucker who reposts everything that’s wrong with this world? Or would you be better served if people thought of you as a beacon of light, an energy giver?

Food for thought.

Have a great day (unless you have other plans)!

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