On this episode of The Chris LoCurto Show, we’re talking about negative people you should avoid. There’s so much to unpack here that we had to break this episode into two parts!
As we walk through this, keep in mind that everybody has something in their life, in their Root System, that causes them to see the world in a negative way… We all struggle. You may even see parts of yourself in these 8 negative people.
We cover the who, what, why, and how in this episode:
Knowing what the negative types are and who they are won’t transform your life, but the why and how will:
Why are they that way? How do I handle these people in my life?
IF you are operating from a heart of love… which is incredibly difficult to do with everybody on the planet… then you’re able to see that sometimes people are negative, and it could be because of something they’re experiencing in their life.
The First 4 of the 8 Negative People You Should Avoid:
The Naysayer.
This is the kind of person who is constantly telling you, “That’s not gonna work…you’re going to fail. You’re not good enough. None of the stuff that you’re trying to do is ever going to work.”
The longer you stick around folks who treat you this way, the more it’s going to get beaten into your head that they’re right. The more that gets beaten into your head, the more you’re going to go off and do stupid things to try and prove them wrong. Forget enjoying life…I’ve got to prove this person wrong. OR…and this is tough for people to understand before they go through Next-Level Life, but you may be looking to affirm that what that person is saying, is true.
The Know-It-All.
No matter how much you know from experience, from learning, or God-given wisdom, the Know It All always tries to make you feel like you’re an idiot.
This is similar to the Naysayer, somebody who is constantly looking to get their worth by knocking you down. If they can make you look stupid or convince you that you are stupid, then it causes them to feel as though they are more worthy. More on how this seeps into your Root System in the episode.
The Drama Queen.
Misery loves company. They will go out of their way to stir up as much drama as possible and suck other people into it. This is the person taking to Facebook about their “First World” problems, looking for rescuers.
Why is somebody a drama queen? Because they’re losing worth like crazy. More on what this means and how to handle the drama queen in the episode.
The Taker.
This person is always interested in what you can do for them. They are quite often a victim and always turn the focus back on themselves and what they are dealing with. Do you know this person?
Episode transcript:
Chris LoCurto: The eight negative people you should avoid. That is coming up next.
Welcome to The Chris LoCurto Show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.
Welcome to the show folks. Today we’re talking about negative people, and so as we hit this topic, there are some caveats I want to make sure that you understand. One of those caveats is you may be one of the negative people we’re going to talk about today, so keep that in mind as we go through this. One of our core values here at the Poimen group is that everybody has a Root System, honor that. Everybody has something in their life and their past and there in their Root System that causes them to see the world in a negative aspect. Now, for those of us that are believers, we’re born into a negative world, we’re born into sin, right? We’re born into a world that is not our home. I mean, we’re here for a short period of time. The next one’s the important one, right?
Getting it right here makes an important difference in the next life, but while we’re here, that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to face or experience negative situations. Now, if you are operating from a heart of love, which is incredibly difficult to do with everybody on the planet, then you’re able to see that people struggle. You’re able to see that sometimes people are negative, and it could be because of something they’re experiencing in their life. There are so many times that I help team members or clients to look at a situation, and I say to them, “Let me ask you this: what do you think they’re experiencing right now? Why do you think that they might be negative right now?” So as we go through this, I want that to be a major focus because you still probably need to get some negativity out of your life.
In Next Level Life we talk about this all the time and one of the things we help them to see is that when you’re leaving Next Level Life, if you have a lot of negativity in your life, then guess what? In the beginning, you’re going to have to put in some solid boundaries. Eventually, as you get healthier yourself, then you can start moving the boundaries closer and closer and closer because you’re able to handle situations with the tools that we give you. But in the beginning, there are some folks that leave that they’ve got to go put in strong boundaries right away. For some folks, it’s not even an issue. We have some folks that man, they come through this event, and the folks that you see in their life are incredibly healthy. I mean, just great people to have around them, but that’s not everybody. So depending upon the strength that you have to be able to deal with these situations.
At the same time, you’re trying to understand your root system and understand why things are affecting you the way they are. Why you may be choosing negativity while you may be choosing some bad decision-making in your life. You may have to be strong, you may have to put some things in place to keep negative people out of your life. Who might those negative people be? It could be anybody. It could be family, friends, teachers, leaders, or coworkers. It could be anybody that you experience. Sometimes it could be the person that is serving you when you go get your coffee in the mornings. Maybe you need to choose a different place to go get coffee. It could be anybody. The point is, is that if you’re going to get healthier you can handle situations better.
It’s smart to make sure that you’re putting things in place to keep negative people out of your life. Now, for most people, their family makes up the majority of the areas that we’re talking about. We would all love for our family to have an incredibly positive impact on us. Some people do, and some folks have families that are just incredibly selfless and very loving, that isn’t the norm that we discover here. That’s not the most of people, but it is great to see when folks come through and that’s exactly what they experience, and sometimes the people that are coming through are, are those amazing people that are very strong, very selfless, very solid in their relationships. But for a lot of folks, that’s not what they experienced. They experienced long-lasting negative effects from a family, friends, and close people in their lives.
So keep in mind, I’ve said for a lot of folks, not everybody is like that. I just had a gentleman going through Next-Level Life who had the greatest loving parents I’ve seen. I mean, just powerful, great loving parents. In fact, to some extent, too loving…not allowing this person to experience tough situations in life to make better decisions. So phenomenally loving people, not negative, very positive. There were some areas that were holding this person back because they hadn’t had the opportunity to go get kicked in the teeth by life. So as I share with every Next-Level Life attendee, who has negative impacts, we don’t make any monsters and we don’t make any victims. We focus on discovering why these things are. So as we may talk through and discover that there’s negativity in somebody’s life, we’re not going to sit there and make them a victim or make a monster out of the person who’s bringing the negativity.
Why? Because that’s pointless. We call it the surface-level responses. Here, let me teach you how to cope with this person or this situation. We blow right past that. We get down to why is this happening. Why is this person choosing to make these decisions? Why are you choosing to make your decisions? We have had person after person. I mean folks that have been going to counselors for a decade. Folks that have been going to multiple counselors that come through next level life and as they go through they’re like, we’ve never hit this level of stuff ever. It’s because we don’t focus on coping with the surface level response. We help you to see why it’s there in the first place. When you discover that information, you can make completely different decisions like putting in healthy boundaries.
It’s very difficult to put in a healthy boundary with somebody that you’re still getting your worth from and you don’t understand why and you don’t think that you are or you think that you’ve got it under control or you think that you’ve stopped dealing with that. All my highs d’s out there always going like, “Oh yeah, I, I got done dealing with that a long time ago.” Oh really? You mean you swept it under the rug and it’s going to pop up here in a conversation about 30 minutes. “Yeah, absolutely.” You’ll see some of this stuff that we feel like we dealt with and we think we’re done with and then come to find out we’re still making decisions based on that junk. So, as I say, we want to get, to the why. Why does this exist?
The deeper level in the root system to discover why these things are down here. So as we go through this, if you’ve not been through Next-Level Life, my biggest suggestion is to try and figure out how to put healthy boundaries in place. There are a bunch of tools that we give you through the event, but this is some stuff that you can start doing right now, start avoiding these processes so that you can get healthier. But listen, if you’re not focusing on getting healthier than you’re just a victim, all right? Everybody’s negative and I can’t do anything about it. Well now you’re a victim so, you can’t be that. You can, you can choose that, but that’s not going to grow you. If you’re listening to this show, my assumption is you’re wanting to grow you. Because the things we discuss are growing you, so, make sure that as you’re setting healthy boundaries or removing possibly these types of people from your life that you’re focusing on getting stronger.
I’m always going to point you straight to Jesus, that’s going to be the best place for you to go to get your strength. If you’re not spending a lot of time in his word, you’re missing out. You do not understand that this is a living, breathing word, the word of God. So spend time with him. Spend time growing, spend time obviously putting tools in place that we talk about, to get you better in a better situation. If all you do is listen to this kind of stuff and then look at everybody else and point your finger, you’re not learning, you’re not getting it. It’s much more than that. At the end of the day, our goal is to guide everybody to be able to love other people. Even those that are struggling. Even the negative people, even the abusive controlling people, you don’t have to like them. You don’t have to have them in your life but understand that they’re coming from a jacked-up background as well and probably a pretty bad root system as well.
So let’s dive right in. And, as we go through this, I want you to ask yourself the question. Be honest, once again, I don’t want you to focus on this as being a victim in this process, I want you to ask the serious question, do I have these people in my life, and which ones? So write them down as we talk about it and let’s start thinking through what are we going to do. How are we going to put healthy boundaries in place? How are we going to get you healthier? So the first person I want to focus on, the first person that you probably should avoid, is the Nay Sayer. This is the person who constantly says whatever you propose to do will not work. They have every reason and excuse in the book why you will fail at pretty much everything you try to do.
We start off with the Naysayer and a bunch of people are like. Yup. And usually, we point to a specific parent pretty quickly or we point to a sibling, a controlling sibling. Maybe sometimes it might even be a leader, but this is the kind of person who is constantly telling you, oh yeah, that’s not gonna work. No, no, that’s not gonna work. Now I want you to understand this is not necessarily the same thing, for a lot of folks that are high s out there, which is a good portion of the followers of the show, right? A good portion of you are high S. Sometimes you struggle so much with change that you can be very quick to say, that’s not gonna work. That’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a person who looks at you as an individual and says, you’re going to fail.
You’re not good enough. None of the stuff that you’re trying to do is ever going to work. Here’s what I can promise you. The longer you stick around folks that say stuff like that, that talk to you that way, that treat you that way, the more it’s going to get beaten into your head that you can’t do it. Here’s the bad side of that. The more that gets beaten into your head, the more you’re going to go off and do stupid things to try and prove them wrong, the more you’re going to go focus on, you know, just burying your head in something and saying, forget the world right now, I’m going to go do this thing so I can prove that one person wrong. Forget enjoying life. Forget God. Forget any of this stuff. I’ve got to prove this person wrong. There are two things you’re looking for when you do this.
The first thing is to prove them wrong. I can do this. I am good enough. I am able. The second thing you may be looking for, and this is really difficult to understand if this hits home, give us a call. If this hits home, then it, you know, it’ll make sense pretty quickly, but it’s tough for people to understand this and see this until they’re going through Next-Level Life and once they do see it, it just blows them away. You may be looking to be affirmed that what that person is saying is true. Folks, if you are trying to prove this person wrong, if you are making bad decisions, unhealthy decisions, and unhealthy decisions may be burying yourself into something to try and make it where you’re achieving something to prove this person wrong and missing out on life and missing out on family and missing out on you Know God, right?
A lot of times we will step out and make bad decisions to prove people either wrong or unfortunately, many times we’re trying to prove them right. We’re trying to prove that the Naysayer is correct. I am a failure. I do fail at everything. There isn’t anything I’m able to pull off. Either way, you look at this, the choices that you’re making, the decisions that you’re making are hurting you. What’s the right thing to do? Put some distance between you and that naysayer or naysayer. Some of you have a family of naysayers. Some of you come from a family and it just gets blown away with…That’s just the way the family is. We’re just passionate. No, you’re a bunch of naysayers, you’re so negative, nobody could pull anything off. Some of you just need to put some distance in there, right?
And put healthy people around you. People that are going to look at you and say, yes, you can do this, or hey, that’s really actually kind of stupid for you to go after that. What are you looking for? Why are you trying to accomplish something like that? What is it that you need? Where’s your worth coming from? Right? So the Naysayer first person, we want to put some distance between us, if possible. And again, focus on the positive, focus on the healthy. The second person: the know it all. No matter how much you know from experience, from learning, or God-given wisdom, the know it always tries to make you feel like you’re an idiot. Now, keep in mind, nobody can make you feel that way, they can highly suggest that you are, but they’re constantly suggesting that you’re an idiot and none of your thoughts or ideas have merit.
This is again the same type of thing as the Naysayer, somebody who is constantly looking to get their worth by knocking you down. If they can make you look stupid, if they can convince you that you are stupid, that you’re an idiot, that you’re not smart enough, that you’re not good enough, then it causes them to feel as though they are more worthy. I know, I know. It doesn’t make sense. Guys, we’re in a fallen world. We were born into this crap, right? That’s why there’s a better life coming. So that type of person, that type of negative person can constantly add to your bad decision-making. If you’re allowing those thoughts in, if you’re allowing that person to set your reality that you are dumb, that you’re not good enough, that you’re not smart. I can tell you I deal with this a lot here.
I have a lot of folks that will come in, crud, I have people on my team that will experience this right, that they’ve had that know-it person who constantly treated them like an idiot and constantly treated them like they just weren’t smart enough that they will make decisions to try and prove that they’re not smart enough. They will do bad things. They will have been decision-making. A lot of folks that come to the next level life, a lot of folks that come through StratPlan will have these, you know, you can see their decision making is trying to prove that they’re not smart enough the whole time they’re focusing on, either proving that they are smart enough or affirming that they know it all is right, that they’re not, and not seeing how badly they’re damaging their own life. How much they’re damaging their future by making decisions that are absolutely self-sabotaging.
They’re sabotaging their future, their processes, their life, their relationships. Because they constantly feel as though they are not smart enough. Listen, none of us are smart enough. None of us are smart enough. We think that we’re intelligent. Guys, the gifts and talents that we have aren’t ours, they come from the Holy Spirit. So listen, focus on the things that he wants you to focus on. Don’t go and try and prove somebody right or prove them wrong. The focus on him focuses on God. The more you do that, the less you worry about whether or not you’re smart enough. The more you ask for his wisdom… Daily, this is in my prayer…please give me your wisdom and knowledge to lead your children. Daily I’m asking for that, and the crazy thing, God sure gives it to me. I’d love to say this is all my stuff, but it’s not.
It comes from him. So that may be another negative person that you need to put some distance between. Okay, so those were the first two of the eight negative people you should avoid. We will learn more when we come back right after this.
The next person is the drama queen. I do believe the old saying that misery loves company is absolutely true. Some will go out of their way to stir up as much drama as possible and suck other people into it, right? They tend to focus on folks whose heart cares for others and tends to be too big to consciously protect themselves. You can see this all day long if you choose to. If you’re somebody who spends a lot of time on Facebook. Oh my gosh, I was so glad that day I realized that I could still have friends on Facebook but not follow their feeds because I am not a big social media guy.
I don’t spend a lot of time on that stuff. But every now and then when I would go to flip through a feed or something, you can see the drama queens. You can see the folks that are throwing out the most ridiculous negative stuff and trying to draw people in and who are the people that respond? Guys, if you literally, if you go through your feed and maybe you’ve done a great job of getting these people out of there as well, but anytime somebody posts something to get other folks to comment and rescue, there’s a drama queen. That’s exactly what you’re looking for. You see it in your life. You may be the rescuer you may not even realize how much you are affecting you negatively and enabling the drama queen.
Now, why is somebody a drama queen? Because they’re losing worth like crazy. They’re trying to find worth and so how do they do that? They will complain about the most ridiculous thing and wait for all the people who respond. Oh honey, I’m so sorry that you’re experiencing that today. So your toaster broke down. I remember when that happened to my toaster. What a horrible day that was. Oh, for the love. People are getting their arms chopped off around this world. People are getting their heads chopped off, standing up for Christ, and were really complaining about some of the most ridiculous stuff on, you know, on the planet. Well, why are they? Because again, they’re losing worth and they’re trying to find a way to gain it. How do they gain worth? By trying to convince you that you need to care for them, that you need to rescue them, that you need to pour into them, solve their problem, all of that stuff.
Hey Rescuer, here’s the problem. Every time you do that, you’re enabling them to live that life, so you’re literally helping them to stay a victim. You’re helping them to make bad decisions like this. Do not do it. Don’t do it. If you want to comment on somebody who’s acting this way, comment like I just did. Somebody is coming to going, “You’re not gonna believe what just happened? It’s just been the worst day.” Oh really? Why is that? “I got up this morning, my toaster’s broken. I couldn’t make my whatever toast or what are those pastry thing is I couldn’t do and that I had to rush out the door and so I’ve had like no breakfast whatsoever.” Just look at him and go, I’m sorry…Are there other options that you can do to take care of this? Could you get up earlier and maybe have time to make something else?
They are not going to like you I can promise you this, so expect it this is very difficult for your rescuers, but give them another option. Hey, really? Is this really the response? One of the things I’ll do in the next level of life from time to time was I will look at a person and I will say, Hey, let me ask you a question. Is your response equal to the situation? It doesn’t take long for somebody to go, oh my gosh, I am being a victim aren’t I? Yup, because really you just said this is the worst day and the reason why it’s the worst day is because you weren’t able to do your toaster strudel. Whatever those things are, is it really that bad? Is this really the worst day of your life or can you just get over yourself? So once again, that type of drama, the more you enable it, the more it will come to you.
So the more you enable somebody to act that way, expect them to continue to come to you because they’re looking for you to enable them again because they’re losing worth and they’re trying to gain worth and they believe they’ve gotten worth from you, enabling them. So put some distance in there. The fourth negative person that we probably want to put some distance between us and them is the taker. This person is always interested in what you can do for them. They are quite often a victim and always turn the focus back on themselves and what they are dealing with. So if you are struggling with something, they will tend to tell you that it’s not that big of a deal and you should see what they have been dealing with. Do you know this person? Do you know the kind of person that might even take your situation and make it about them that all of a sudden they’re the problem?
Like they’re struggling and look at how bad things are for them. This would be the taker and the taker is somebody who is always looking… like the drama Queen, right? This is somebody who’s looking to gain or not lose worth by switching a situation and making it about them and it’s not even just about switching situations. It may be that they’re coming to you to see what you can do for them. I’ve had to help highs D’s see that they can be takers because the moment they realized that a high s will be incredibly loyal and that can drive right over the top of them with a steamroller. I’ve had to help them see, hey, this is not good decision-making. You know, you’re taking from this person and once they see it, then you know, obviously it’s a, “Oh, I gotta stop doing that,” but there are folks who are really doing this because of worth based on their worth and they take and take and take from other people and the focus is always on them.
It’s not on the other person and they tend to be a victim in the process. Look at what I’m going through. Look at how bad this situation is. What can you do for me to help me? I used to have to help a lot of my high S’s by saying, hey, listen, when somebody comes to you and says, “Hey, I’ve got this need,” well, how does the High S respond? Oh, it’s a need. Let me drop everything in my life and take care of you. You know, you’re the only person who can help me with this. Oh, come on, knock it off. Sometimes you have to watch this and you have to see that somebody is taking from you. It also happens. It happens in love. It happens in all different types of ways in your life. You can see it in family members.
You can see it in friendships. If you’ve got that really dominant friend who’s always taking from you, you’re always the first person they call when they struggle with something, but the one time you have a problem, you turn to them and all of a sudden they just are too busy or telling you just to get over it. It’s interesting. Well, why would they do that? Because they actually don’t like it. They hate the things in themselves that they hate in others, right? And so if they see you being somebody who needs in that moment while you just need to get over it, you just need to get over it. Oh, well how about the last 17 times when I’ve helped you to try and get over something, right? So again, you have to recognize what the person’s intentions are if they are not loving if they’re not trying to put you before themselves.
And I don’t mean that in a submissive, I’m going to get run over type of way, but in a healthy, I can put you before myself and sometimes putting you before me means that I do not enable you actually, you know, give you a little knock upside the head with a two by four. Sometimes that’s important, right? So the taker is another person that can constantly cause you to be giving of yourself and emptying of yourself. If you’re not strong enough to understand this, then you will drain yourself. And there won’t be a whole lot left. All right? This is going on so much longer than we had scheduled for this. So we’re going to break this up right now. We’re going to continue with the other eight negative people next week. So in the meantime, here’s what I want you to understand. We all have people in our lives that are negative.
Many of us are that negative person. If you have related with any of the first four of the eight negative people, then listen. You need to get in here for Next-Level Life. If you are any of the four that we’ve already discussed so far, then guess what? I can just about guarantee you don’t know why you do what you do. You hate it. You hate being that person and you don’t know how to deal with it. You don’t know what to do. Get your butt into Next-Level Life. We will help you. We’ll help you to discover why you’re making those decisions. There are reasons why folks come through and see that they are that negative influence. It absolutely changes their lives because we show them why they are. We show them how they got there and that is the part that allows them all the freedom and the peace to not be that person.
So if you are one of the first four or the next four that you learned about next week, get your butt into the next level of life. If you are somebody being affected by any of these negative people, get your button and Next-Level Life.
I hope this has helped you today. As always, take this information, change your leadership, Change Your Business, change your life, and join us on the next episode for the other four negative people.
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8 Negative People You Should Avoid Part 2
Boundaries (Excellent book!)
10 Warning Signs of Toxic People
