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Author: John Stewart Hill

The Ambassador of GOOD - Founder/CEO of The GOOD Contractors List | Inspirational Speaker focused on showing people how to REBOOT their lives in every area (Spirit, Mind, and Body), REBUILD their lives brick by brick, RELATE to others through their personal struggles, and become an agent of GOOD to the world around them. #BEtheGOOD

Categories
Best Practices Body Language Culture Health and Wellness

Ever Been Bullied? It Could Be Your Fault!

Wait, before you start sending hate mail, please hear me out.  As someone who was bullied for years, I learned to cope with the humiliation and despair, but always felt there was something “wrong” with me.  When other people wanted to make me feel better they would almost always say the same thing, “Oh honey, there is nothing wrong with you, those kids are just mean…it’s not your fault…they are jealous of you.”  I was a sweet and loving kid that would never do anything to hurt someone.  So, it was easy to understand that it wasn’t my fault, but it was much harder for me to believe there wasn’t something wrong with me.  Oh, and jealous?  Jealous of what??  Jealous of feeling less?  Jealous of feeling ugly and rejected?  Jealous of being laughed at by bystanders that watched and did nothing?  Jealous of being scared out of my wits to go on the playground every day?  That statement “they’re just jealous of you” was just a straight up lie!  Don’t ever say that to someone being bullied!

If you have ever been bullied, you understand what I am talking about right now.  You didn’t want to hear another rousing encouragement attempt, no matter how sweet it is that they tried.  You wanted to know what was wrong with you that would make people treat you that way!  Well, I am here to tell you that there was, and maybe IS, something wrong with you that is causing all the bullying, but it may not be what you think.

Look at your life and ask yourself if the same type of people keep showing up.  I am going to share some traits and see if this describes those people that seem to latch on to you.

  • Has no patience with “stupid” people and at times tries to make you feel stupid
  • May complain about a clumsy waitress and be rude when not waited upon properly
  • Always finds a way to bring the conversation back to themselves
  • Has a constant need to be admired and respected, almost demanding of it
  • They don’t seem to have any kind of empathy toward “weaker” people
  • Always must be right and has a very difficult time believing they are wrong
  • Must always be the center of attention and can be quite charming

Think through your life and imagine the people that bullied you.  Did they have any of these traits?  Can you identify anyone in your life that you are currently dealing with that meets more than a few of these traits?

Now I want to ask you about your own personal traits.  Do you have any of the following traits?

  • Get overwhelmed when there are a lot of people around you
  • If there is someone angry in the room, you feel like any minute it will be turned toward you
  • When talking with someone new, you feel like they are going to “figure you out?”, so you keep a wall up and feel awkward
  • When you are around sad people, you can feel yourself getting depressed yourself
  • It is difficult for you to watch someone doing something embarrassing and you can feel panicked for them

Now, I know that I can’t fix everyone’s issues with this article, but what I hope to do is send you on a journey of understanding.  I believe that if you can put all the pieces together, life could begin to make more sense to you.  Even if you have never been bullied before, what I am about to share could change your life!

Every single one of us, broken down to our smallest particle, is made of energy.  We learned it in science class as an elementary student.  Protons, neutrons, electrons, you remember those elements, don’t you?  You and I are made of these elements.  It has been proven scientifically that even our thoughts have energy.  It can be physically measured!  Now I am going to share a term that you may or may not have heard of that has gotten a lot of attention over the last ten years.  It is called The Law of Attraction and it was brought into the light by a cheesy movie called “The Secret”.  It was mainly focused on getting rich and learning to get everything you ever dreamed of by simply thinking of it and feeling strongly about it as you thought about it.  That is the simple message, but most people think it’s a bunch of bull and would never stick with it long enough to see anything come to pass as the movie would suggest.  If it was true that we could just think it and it will happen, then everyone would win the lottery, be driving Lamborghinis, and be on the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous!  Right?  Well, even though there are a lot of holes in the movie, the Law of Attraction has merit and is worth looking deeper into to gain understanding of the world around us.

So, back to bullying and how it could be your fault.  The traits we identified earlier are the traits of people on opposite ends of the energy spectrum.  The first guy, who always must be respected and admired and seems to have no empathy toward others, is considered a “narcissist” or someone with narcissistic tendencies.  The second guy, who is uncomfortable around lots of people or becomes panicked when someone else is being embarrassed or harassed is called an “Empath” or “highly sensitive”.  People can fall anywhere on the energy scale, but the two described above are the extremes on both ends.  If you are a Sci-Fi nerd like me, it can be looked at as “the dark side” or “the force”.  Those that are on the dark side can appear to be good, but the energy they draw from is extremely negative and self-serving.  Those who have the force has potential for great power for good in the world and have an almost magical sense of feeling the energies around them.  Unfortunately, like in Star Wars, people who once were driven by the force can turn to the dark side when they are overwhelmed by the negative energy.  They can become cynical, negative, and hateful, even though they hold the power to be extremely positive and lift up the people around them.  Once the force is understood and these empaths begin to control it, they can become the light in the room instead of feeling awkward.  They can instantly feel the pain the people around them are feeling and pull them out of the darkness!

So what does this have to do with bullying?  I believe that most children that are being bullied are those meant to bring good to the world.  They have a special gift that God gave them that is not only extremely special, but can be used to bring about amazing change to the world around them!  When told “it isn’t your fault”, they know intuitively that this response is not exactly true.  While they can reason that they haven’t done anything to bring it on, they know that something is wrong with them and it is happening because of them.  It took me years to put the pieces together and understand the power I have and the reasons why I was bullied as a child and felt so uncomfortable around people.  I didn’t understand that I was special or had any kind of power.  I somehow had the ability to allow the bullying to “pass through me” and still love the person doing the bullying, but it still played havoc on my mind.  I still didn’t understand why!  There were times growing up that I was confident and felt the power, but as soon as I felt like something good was happening, it would be squashed by someone attacking me and throwing negativity on me.  I felt many times like a wounded dog about to be torn apart by the pack.  So, I learned to become numb and allow people to treat me badly, but cope with it.  My power for doing good was kept within the walls of my identity as a person not allowed to become happy.

If you have ever been bullied, then you are probably identifying with me right now.  That is a good thing, because I am here to tell you that you have something very special that needs to be understood and cultivated.  You have an ability to do great good and the reason all of this has been happening to you is because you draw people from the opposite end of the spectrum into your life.  These narcissists lack empathy and it is true that opposites attract in this case.  They love to attach themselves to you in some way to literally draw the energy out of you!  They want to make you feel less, so they can feel superior!

Can you see it?  I don’t know where you are in your life right now, but I am imagining that the people reading this article will range from those who were never bullied that are angry at my title to those that were intrigued or maybe even excited that somebody finally said it.  You may have already been pulled over to the dark side and feel like you have already completely lost your mind.  To this person I want to say that it is not too late to stop being controlled by the negativity that bombarded you and continues to be drawn into your life.  The great thing about the Law of Attraction is that you can choose to end the negativity and start moving in the other direction.  You can learn to remove those thought patterns that keep drawing more junk into your life and start seeing a brighter future.  It won’t happen overnight as the movie might suggest, but if you build one block at a time and realize how special you are, then it can happen over time.  For some, it may happen very quickly and you will learn to walk freely in your newly found power!

If this article is resonating with you, then I would encourage you to study The Law of Attraction and the personalities on the energy spectrum.  Specifically study the “Empath” and the “Narcissist” and allow God to direct you back into what He intended for you.  Although you may not know what it is yet, I can tell you without question that you have a great purpose to change the world around you in a positive way.  Like Luke Skywalker, you will bring balance to the force and maybe even free a Darth Vader or two!

Categories
Best Practices Culture Growth Health and Wellness Industries

5 Ways Contractors Trick You Out of Your Money

We have all heard the horror stories about the Big Bad Contractor!  Contractors, in general, are viewed as dishonest and homeowners shake in their britches when something around the house breaks. It is unfortunate, because I have met a lot of contractors and most of them just want to do a good job for their clients and be able to sleep at night. They are normal people who picked a profession that has a lot of variables and it is a balancing act that is very difficult to maintain 24/7, 365, without issues.  

Imagine trying to juggle multiple objects of varying size, weight, and angles, while someone from the sidelines throws in more objects. That is what it is like to be a contractor! Joe fell off a ladder and delays the tile job, the plumber got stuck at an emergency and needs to schedule his part for another day, the homeowner had to reschedule last minute and yet demands the contractor gets done with the project by the end of the week or they will write a bad review.

The contractor’s job is volatile at best and the moment they lose control of the juggling act, they are labeled as bad and their reputation is threatened with the homeowner’s ability to review them or spread a warning about them across social media.

I always try my best to share things like this, because I think homeowners need to understand, going into any relationship with a contractor, that there needs to be a little bit of levity on their part.  With all these objects being juggled, it is likely that the contractor might forget to call them back or would be behind on getting them an estimate. When your hands are on fire, getting the fire put out as quickly as possible, with the least amount of pain as possible, becomes the contractors reaction to being overwhelmed.  In other words, they have to quickly focus on what causes the most pain for everyone.

Do they finish fixing an issue that has them trapped under a house in the mud, or stop everything and run back to their truck to call and say they are going to be an hour late?  The homeowner waiting for them to make the time window doesn’t care what the issue is, they have dinner at 6pm and this rotten, lying, so and so, didn’t even have the dignity to call and say they would be running late.  Is this person a bad contractor? Ask the homeowner that didn’t get the call.

Now, on the other side, let’s look at what people would usually view as a good contractor. The company has tons of resources, a fleet of trucks, can guarantee they can be on time, and when the technician arrives they are super friendly and look very professional. They must be good, because I see them on TV all the time and they offer financing and they are the official contractor to my favorite sports team. When you look on Google, they have hundreds of 5 star reviews!  THIS has to be a good contractor right? Let’s dig a little deeper. They are on TV all of the time, so their marketing expenses run into the millions. They have a fleet of decked out trucks and are fully stocked, so their daily cost for the fleet is running into the tens of thousands, they have SALES technicians that are trained to the hilt and earn a commission when they sell something. It is their job to get into that house on time, be friendly and helpful, and find anything that has a potential of ever breaking down in the lifetime of your home. Oh, and by the way, if we knock all of this out today, we can offer a huge discount and give you zero percent financing (for 18 months and then the interest kicks in).

If you give us a great review on Google, we will give you another $200 off or your choice of season passes to Six Flags!  Now THAT is a good contractor right? Well, not that they are bad at their job, but you now just paid up to 4 times what you needed to pay to fix the original issue and was sold a bill of goods that was nowhere near necessary.  By the way, even these guys could run into an issue and be an hour late, BUT a sweet representative from the office will call and let you know.

So the point of my rant is that it is very difficult to label a contractor as good or bad.  There needs to be a lot more thought that goes into it, than a missed phone call or whether or not they arrived on time.  I would wait all day long, and even be willing to reschedule, for the honest contractor that can fix my problem at a fair and honest rate and won’t try and take me for more than is necessary.

However, as I promised, these are the 5 ways a contractor can trick you out of your money and take advantage of you.

1. Misdiagnosis. You have seen the sting operations on TV. This is basically just a direct lie typically covered up by a bunch of technical jargon.  Don’t just take their word for it, make them show you and explain how they came to that conclusion.

2. Bait and Switch. There are two types of Bait and Switch

  • Couponing– these are the ones who advertise an extremely low price and then after getting to your home reveals what it will really cost to fix your “particular” problem.

  • The Product Switch – The contractor sells you the upgraded model of whatever and actually installs the lesser model since most of us do not know the difference.

3. Under Bidding. When a contractor knows they are competing against other contractors for your business they will sometimes give a lower bid and once they collect your upfront money they “find” an unexpected problem and has to add that to the bill.

4. Ding Dong Ditch. The contractor gets money upfront for materials and disappears off the face of the planet. Nowadays with the ability to get a disposable phone, it is incredibly easy to disappear.  Make sure you do your research and no how to physically get in front of the contractor with ease.

5. High Pressure / High Fear sales tactics. Many companies have changed their format to a commission based selling scenario for their technicians. Commission doesn’t rule someone out, but it obviously opens the door for a technician to use pressure or fear to get a bigger paycheck. It really all depends on how the owner trains their people, but if you combine high overhead with a commissioned sales technician, then it stands to reason that they need to get more money than necessary out of you.

Here at The Good Contractors List, we have worked with hundreds of contractors and there has been only one that I would consider bad and we exposed him AND ourselves on the Channel 11 News!  We messed up and we paid for it, but we did our best to warn anyone else about doing business with them. Click HERE for the story!

In conclusion, when looking for a contractor, I would do my research.  Do more than just read through their website. Go to the Better Business Bureau and see how long they have been in business. Google their name and the owner’s name to see if you can find anything derogatory.  Read through any reviews you find and see if there are any negative patterns that seem to be consistent. Look at the size of the company and aim for the ones who appear to be professional, but maybe not over the top in resources or marketing prowess. Even if you get a referral from a family member, do research on the referral and make sure they are reputable beyond your cousin’s one interaction with them.

Then, go into the relationship understanding that they are dealing with a lot of variables and there could be something that doesn’t go perfectly. It will mean a lot to them to have you rooting them on and working with them to give you what you need at a fair and honest rate.