How Can Negative People Help You Realize Your Dream

How can mixing with negative people get you closer to your dream, faster?

Have you noticed that there is no shortage of people in the world prepared to help you by telling you why your projects will not work? As I was growing up, I received my fair share of cold water on ideas I was passionate about.

Do you know people who do this? It's as if - no matter what you want to do - these people will delight in telling you why it will fail. Most sources Ive read say the solution is to avoid negative people. This is what most motivational speakers say is the solution too. See for yourself on YouTube. I have a fundamental belief that negative people are critical in your life.

Negative people help you achieve your goals. By being around them (with the attitude I'm talking about in this article) you will realize your dreams more quickly than had you avoided them. But only if you apply the following mindset change.

Before I mention what this change is, here are just some of the negative things I was told as I was growing up and as I was growing my first company.

1. Employment: On leaving my job to set up my own company: Youll never earn as much again

2. Relationship: On confiding in a friend that I was too controlling in my last relationship, and wanted to sort this out before I had another relationship You should just get a person who as controlling as you to be your partner so then youll be on the same page.

3. Dreams: On talking about a dream I had of owning my own business Theres no point going into business because someone has always thought of the idea first

4. Creativity: On my first tentative steps to sing You dont have a good voice

5. Personal development: A well-meaning therapist You have to understand that your early experiences in life have damaged your ability to communicate and youll truly overcome this 10 years later I run a communication training company.

6. Career: Maybe you could go into presales one day, but I cant ever see you doing sales Today

I train other people how to reproduce the results I have got in sales. 7. Business Youll never get investment at the valuation you are seeking, and Youll never get investment in less than 3 months

8. Stepping out: My first ever attempt to do a standup comedy performance Make it short because the person coming up after you is funny

Now lets look at what happened as a result of that feedback

1. After 5 months I was earning more than I had in my job, doing what I loved

2. I found a way to manage my controlling tendancies, and attracted a woman who I have a loving relationship with, based on trust not control.

3. I started a technology business which became a multi-million dollar company

4. Years later, I sung in a 17 years later I sung lead in a foreign language in front of 300 people and people came up afterwards with tears in their eyes.

5. I started a successful communication training company

6. I was offered 3 jobs in sales in one week, and overachieved on all my sales targets

7. We got investment at the valuation we were asking, and then got second-round funding at a 40% premium in 15 days.

8. I performed a solo show which was reviewed as moving and hilarious.

So what made the difference? The difference was that each time a person delivered their perspective I felt grateful. I thought to myself Thank you for providing me with the incentive, and the motivation to proof you wrong! It wasnt that I wanted to go back to that person afterwards and tell them they were wrong. It was more that I knew they did not understand the infinite human potential.

Each negative comment served as a beacon which focussed me on making sure that the opposite of each prediction occurred. On the days where I might otherwise have given up on a goal, I remembered the negative prediction of each person and the joy of proving to myself that their prediction was wrong motivated me more than ever to get up and make my dream happen.

Each time you prove a negative person wrong, you change your world, their world, and the whole world. You have also helped them to see that something they once thought impossible is possible. You are also re-affirming not just to yourself, but to the whole world, that each one of us is capable of much more than we imagine possible.

Hang out with negative people, and feel grateful for the inspiration they provide!

PS: I truly believe that when all said and done, there is no such thing as a "negative person" just a person who has some wrong knowledge.