You Have Permission to Remove Negativity from Your Life

This week’s Joy Drop is gonna be a short one. Because it’s about negative, toxic people. And honestly … they just don’t deserve any more of my time than they’ve already taken!

In addition to being a happiness coach, I’m also an education consultant. Educators rarely receive the compensation or appreciation they deserve. So for Teacher Appreciation Week this year, I bought a Starbucks card and emailed it to our teacher list. I just wanted to show them there are people who are thankful for the work they do.

The idea seemed simple enough. The single gift card was for everyone to use until the balance hit zero—with the understanding that first come were first served. I also urged teachers to add to the card to “pay it forward” and keep the gift of kindness and appreciation going as long as possible.

Unfortunately, one recipient added the entire card to their personal Starbucks account. So no one else was able to use it!

Most of the emails I received in response to the gift card expressed gratitude for our gesture. But then there were the nasty responses. Ones like this:

“This made it look like everyone who received the email got a gift card, but instead it was just for the first person who used it. Disappointing and it doesn’t seem like that was well communicated initially as you had to read very carefully to see that it was first come first serve.”

First of all, I have more than 20,000 people on my email list. I love my teacher peeps, but I can’t afford an individual gift card for each and everyone of them!

Second of all: Don’t be an ass!

In that spirit, I responded to the person with this message:

“We tried to do a good deed, and we explained it in the context of the email. Unfortunately, we had one teacher who added the entire card to their account and now no one else benefits from it. Please remove yourself from our email list if you are unhappy about our act of kindness.”

When you have negative, toxic people in your circle or sphere, on your email list, as a client, or anywhere else … get them out of your energy field permanently. They are not allowed to take up space in your forum.

Use your voice. Speak up. Put them in their place. Or simply get rid of them. Toxic people operate with low-level energy, and you don’t need that anywhere near you.

By the way … the teacher who sent that nasty email? There was no need for her to unsubscribe from our mailing list; I already took her out of our system. Bye, Felicia!