The Tutor Podcast

#032 Mood Hoovers and Time Vampires


Listen Later

In today’s edition, your host Neil Cowmeadow discusses how to manage mood hoovers and time vampires in your life and in your business. Mood hoovers are the people who suck the life of positivity out of you, while the time vampires are like mood hoovers. They suck the time out of your life. Neil shares his own experience and tips on how to manage these types of people in your life and as a result, you will have more time for the important things that will help you and your business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Mood Hoovers. These are the type of people who suck the optimism out of you.  They have so little enthusiasm, energy and life in them. You either eliminate them or manage your interactions with them.
  • People who make negative comments about successful people. They’re not going to be entrepreneurial. They usually will be unsuccessful and they will often have low expectations and aspirations in life. They make for some generally quite unhappy people. They’re always up for a pity party, and they will always try rubbing it in when are things going badly for them by inviting you to compete in the game of "Oh, you think that's bad? Guess what happened to me."
  • Mood hoovers go on a holiday to escape their reality. Never try to drag a mood hoover with you. They'll be very resistant to change because they are not based on hard evidence, this makes them immune to logic and not susceptible to reasonable argument. So just don't even try. You can point them to where they need to go but never drag them with you because they’ll just keep on complaining and moaning, etc.
  • Time Vampires. Like mood hoovers, they suck the time out of you. They are the type of people who come to your house unannounced and unprepared and just blabber away with things and events that you don’t even have an interest in or have influence over. We have to keep these sorts of things at bay so we can focus on the things that produce results for us.
  • You need to develop a few strategies and tactics to handle the mood hoovers and the time vampires. And these techniques tend to work for both of them.
  • Hint one: Turn the bloody phone off. If turning the phone off is unthinkable, at least consider putting the phone in a different part of the house. You have to limit the hours on your phone, keep everything work-related during working hours.
  • If you accidentally answer your phone, first thing is to tell the person calling you that you have a few minutes on the phone and stick to it. Or inform them that you will call them back if it is really difficult to manage.
  • Hint two: Discourage people from visiting without warning. If they come and visit you, keep them at your doorstep because it is very hard to keep them away once they are inside your house. If they are there about business, ask them if they have managed to research the background and if they already have the planning on the subject matter, they usually don’t, it is a waste of time to talk about something that they have not researched about yet.
  • Hint three: Hide your car, in the cul-de-sac. It will give the visitors an idea that you are not inside the house. If all fails, turn off the doorbell.
  • Define boundaries within which you interact with other people. You have to train them. So they know what's acceptable to us. Because if we don't train them, then nothing will change, and that problem person will continue to hoover at your positivity, stealing chunks of your time, and leave you feeling deflated and defeated.

BEST MOMENTS

  • "You get the people you wanna settle for in life and in your business. You may have to eliminate a few folks if you can't manage your interactions with them."
  • “We have to be particularly aware of spending time with anyone around us who makes negative comments about successful people because you can bet your bottom dollar that what they say about successful people now is what they'll say about you when you become successful.”
  • “When people tell you, you can't and it's not gonna work, it just means that they don't know how to do it.”
  • “The very most important thing of all is to quarantine yourself away from the mood hoovers and time vampires and making yourself hard to reach. This means screen the calls but only if you absolutely positively cannot turn the phone completely off.”

VALUABLE RESOURCES

www.Neilcowmeadow.com 

ABOUT THE HOST

Neil Cowmeadow is a maverick peripatetic guitar teacher from Telford with over 19 years experience in the business of helping people. Learn how to start, grow and love your business with Neil’s invaluable advice and tips without the buzzwords and BS! 

CONTACT METHOD

[email protected]

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The Tutor PodcastBy Neil Cowmeadow

  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5
  • 4.5

4.5

10 ratings


More shows like The Tutor Podcast

View all
Upgrade Your Education Business by Sumantha McMahon

Upgrade Your Education Business

2 Listeners

Marketing Systems for Success by Helen Dickman

Marketing Systems for Success

3 Listeners