Do Negative People Make You Dumb? Maybe...

We all know negative people, right?  I'm guessing someone just popped into your mind; maybe a neighbor, friend, coworker or family member?  I remember early in my career hearing a manager say "I'm cutting all negative people out of my life!" and my thoughts ranged from wanting to help negative people have a better mindset to realizing that I may have to move to the North Pole to accomplish that goal.  I think every leader has the responsibility to encourage negative people (there could be underlying issues that need to be addressed), but there is the responsibility to guard against being dragged into the negative tornado.  There are situations where I walk away in an effort to avoid the negative people in work or social settings, and come back to the conversation when it changes.  If the conversation is always who someone dislikes in an election, why we can't get something done in a project, how other people always make mistakes, etc., it's just not worth my time.  Smart positive people know why they vote for people, how we can solve problems in projects, find people that are doing things the right way and praise them/learn from them.  I recently saw a clip on the national news on how spending time with consistently negative people can make you dumber, which immediately made sense.  I know that feeling!  At the end of my thoughts, I'm not saying we should cut people out of our lives, but we should be on guard against the negative impact of negative people.