Negatvity

I’m sure all of you who know me are very aware that I am a very positive and uplifting person, or at least try to be. Striving to always be a positive person is a personal mantra that I live by. It is almost impossible to catch me having a bad day. There are several reasons for this…


Years ago, believe it or not, I was quite negative. Thankfully one of my teachers and mentor recognized my shortcomings and helped me to change a way of life that would have surely led to a lifetime of self-imposed misery. There are a few things he taught me that forever changed the way I approach life.

The first thing he instilled I me, and I’m sure many of you have heard this before, is that having a positive or negative attitude is a choice. No matter how bad things get we always have a choice. We can succumb to negativity or embrace everything else around us that is positive.

My mentor also gave me an analogy that has served me very well over the year. He likened negativity to poison. In fact he told me it was a poison of the worst kind. The thing about poison is that a single drop can ruin an entire well. If we look at our lives as our well we soon realize that by allowing ourselves to be surrounded by negative people we greatly diminish our happiness and quality of life. A single negative person can ruin the mood of a hundred people in an instant. We all know these people. They are the ones who cause tension in a room the second they enter. They always have a complaint, always have a problem and always have at least one person they are mad at.

If we want to live happy and successful lives we must surround ourselves with positive influences. Unfortunately in our lives there are certain people we simply cannot avoid. Fortunately there are those we can. It’s not always easy but we must remain diligent in removing as many negative influences from our lives as we possibly can.

I am one of the luckiest people I know! I have been able to turn my passion into a way of life and into a way of making a humble living. I have never been one to need a lot of things to be happy. I have a very modest home, a wonderful wife and a loving family. I also have the Kung Fu school, an incredible staff that I consider to be family and lots of amazing students and families that bring joy to our school each and every day.

Some of you already know, but for those of you that don’t, I am at the school for ten to twelve hours just about every day. I lived upstairs for eight years and even though I now have a house I still feel like the school is my home. As such I have to always be diligent in making sure that the school is a place of positivity, nurturing and growth. I can never allow negative attitudes and influences work their way into the culture here. To do so would be to a disservice to the students, families, staff and myself.

It is fortunate that I have recognized, but unfortunate that l have noticed several patches of negativity begin to spring up lately. I ask all of you, if you are stressed out or having a bad day, please take a deep breath, smile and leave it at the door. If you need someone to talk to, let me know. I pride myself on being a great listener. If you are unhappy with something here, talk to us and let us know what we can do to make it right. Please do not bring negative conversations or gossip into the school. They are destructive and go against everything we try so hard to teach. They cannot be tolerated.

If any of you feel that you may be a negative person and want to change, I have helped many people turn their lives around. Let me know and I will do everything I can to help you. Speaking from experience, once you are able to unshackle the chains of negativity your life will be forever changed.