How to thrive in a toxic workplace culture

Do you know what it means to be low vibe?

Episode 61 of CRE Success: The Podcast will help you identify who low vibe people are and make sure you’re not negatively impacted by them.

It also covers how to deal with negative people in a positive way - so you don't become like them and you stay on the wavelength that will bring you closer to your goals.

A word of caution

Apart from setting a high vibe example, don’t waste your energy trying to change low vibe people in the workplace.

The only way that you will have any hope of changing them, or tackling a toxic workplace culture, is if you're the boss and you have the formal authority to do so.

If that’s not you, focus your energy elsewhere, on things like:

• just being positive yourself,
• not feeding into low vibe people’s negativity,
• finding the positive influences that will help you thrive – including aligning yourself with people who are high vibe, positive, and have great energy. 

Episode transcript:

Did you know that you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with?

So, my advice to you is, don't spend much time with low vibe people.

Hello, and welcome to episode 61 of the show. My name is Darren Krakowiak.

I equip commercial real estate professionals with proven client attraction and retention systems, so they can save time, earn more, and be top performers in their market.

It is wonderful to have your company for another episode. Thank you so much for being there.

Today's episode is brought to you by Re-Leased, a cloud based commercial property management platform which centralizes portfolio data, automates workflows and provides real time reporting for landlords and property managers.

Before we do get into today's topic, I would like to extend an invite for you to join the 'Path to success in commercial real estate.'

It's a new live and free virtual keynote that I'll be delivering in just a couple of weeks from now. And you can secure your free ticket by going to cresuccess.co/path

If you attend this event, I'm going to help you understand where you are on the path to success.

I'll give you some tools that will help you level up in the relevant skills that you should be mastering in order to advance to the next stage.

And I'll also give you a framework that will help you understand when you've arrived at your destination.

To join that live and free virtual keynote go to cresuccess.co/path

Now, as I mentioned at the top of the show, you do reflect the five people that you spend the most time with an average of them.

That's a quote from Jim Rohn, who's a motivational speaker. And it's one that I've used a lot as a leader in commercial real estate and also since launching CRE Success to help people understand the impact that other people can have on their performance.

But also, because having a positive attitude and positive thinking is such a big influence on one's ability to achieve great results in this industry and also in life in general.

And I believe that given that you do reflect the five people who you spend the most time with that it's incumbent on us to spend as little time as possible with low vibe people.

So, what is a low vibe person? I want to listen attributes now. And I don't want this to come across as me complaining about low vibe people.

I'm just listening these attributes to help you understand and identify if you might have some of these people in your life and maybe not realize it.

So low vibe people negative. They're pessimists, they like to complain, they like to put others down rather than lift other people up.

They're often selfish, they're not likely to help other people. They love drama. They're not especially good communicators. In fact, they love to keep secrets.

Sometimes they have a scarcity mindset, a victim mentality. And they often don't believe in the potential of positive change, and also the potential of learning and growth.

They're often stuck in the past and not usually focused on the future.

So, that's a litany of, you could almost call them grievances that one might have with low vibe people.

But what I want to put to you is, first of all, what I know about low vibe people is that it's not their fault necessarily, that that's where they're at.

Often their behaviors are reinforced by the people who are around them.

Sometimes in an organizational context, it can be because of poor leadership.

Sometimes they're facing difficulties in their life, which make it difficult for them to break free from that low vibe state that they're in.

And maybe they just don't know any better as well. So, I would recommend that you try and see why it is that they're like that.

Rather than to get angry at them or to dislike them or to resent them, try and empathize with their circumstances, because it's probably not by choice that they're like that.

If you had a choice to be low vibe, unhappy negative, or to be high vibe positive happy, I know, most people would probably choose to be positive happy high vibe unless there's something seriously wrong in their life, otherwise, they're going to be choosing, you know, to be that happy person.

Now, one thing to be aware of is that even though it's not a choice for people who are low vibe, often to be like that, often, some of these people really want to drag you down to be unhappy like they are.

And if they can't convert you, then sometimes circumstances can lead to nasty behavior.

Whether it's in a workplace context, it can start to be a toxic workplace environment, that's, you know, you can see things like bullying, malicious gossip, these sorts of things going on.

So, if you want to succeed in commercial real estate, but these things are going on around you, and you've made the conscious decision that you're not going to let others drag you down, then you also need to make the decision to get away from these people as often as you can, and to not be impacted by their negativity.

That is to disassociate yourself from their actions and kind of like to be water off a duck's back, I think that expression was really used to describes not being negatively impacted by low vibe people.

Some people who are really strong willed, I've observed people, very strong willed, who have been in these environments, and it gets them down.

So, I just want you to be aware that even if you're relentlessly positive, if you're very strong willed, that a toxic environment or low vibe people can have an impact on you and your ability to reach peak performance.

So, it's really important that you put a lot of intention behind disassociating yourself from negative people and not being drawn into and also not feeding the toxicity.

And the toxicity can be fed through your own reactions. And being relentlessly positive, and not feeding into those reactions is certainly one thing that you can do.

Another thing to do, which can be difficult, is to really try and find the good in low vibe negative people, and to focus on the elements in them, that are, "What is good about them."

And don't fall into the trap here to say, "Well, what I really like about them is when I'm not around them, because I really don't like being around them."

That's not a positive thing. But what we really want to do is try and identify something that is actually good and positive about the person.

And focus on that when we're dealing with them, when we're thinking about them, when we're around them rather than focus on all of the things that are negative, and, you know, low vibe about them.

One thing I would advise is not trying to change these people.

The only way that I would try to change these people would be through setting a better example.

I've entered organizations where I've seen some toxicity where I've been surrounded by some low vibe people.

And I believe that the only way that you will have any hope of changing low vibe people or overcoming or actually changing for the better, or toxic culture is if you're the boss, and you have the formal authority to make the change.

Now, if you're not in that position, rather than trying to change things, my advice would be to focus your energy elsewhere. And that your energy will be better focused on just being positive yourself.

And also making sure that not only these negative people don't get you down, but also that you find the positive influences that will help you thrive in spite of being in that environment.

So, in large organizations, just because you're surrounded by a couple of low vibe people, that doesn't mean that the whole organization is rotten.

Quite often there are plenty of great people in those organizations.

You just might be unlucky to find yourself in a situation where you're dealing with some of them in your day to day, go and align yourself with some people who are high vibe, who are positive, who have great energy.

We want to be around people who have a bias towards positivity, towards growth, towards openness, towards transparency.

We want to be around like-minded people and surround ourselves with them. Because then we can benefit from the rule that I mentioned at the top of the show, which is that you average the five people who you spend the most time with.

So, spend less time with negative low vibe people that will make you a less negative person and if you do have to spend time with these people just try and limit your exposure to them, don't buy into their negativity, don't feed it rise above it.

So, if you're wondering why am I spending this episode talking about this topic, which isn't usually something I would talk about, it's because positive thinking really matters.

And it matters towards your success in commercial real estate.

So, the tag of the show is to help you save time, earn more and be a top performer in your market.

In order to do those things, we need to be not letting ourselves be dragged down by negativity, and seeking out a community of people who will help draw out the best of you, and not the worst of you.

Hopefully, that makes sense. It is nearly time to wrap up. Before we do, just a reminder, the path to success in commercial real estate is happening in two weeks.

To reserve your spot, go to cresuccess.co/path

I really hope that you will join me for that. And I'll give you a little sneak peek mindset, it's actually one of the things that we'll be talking about in that session and how you can have a more positive mindset that opens you up to accepting more positive results in your luck.

I'll leave that open loop for you to join me for the path to success.

For now, thank you so much for being here and I will speak to you soon.