It’s important in life to surround yourself with mentors who could help you, while at the same time, offer assistance and guidance to those that seem to need it. It’s about give and take in life.

It’s equally important to not spend so much time with those that are negative and have no ambition in life, or people that just don’t want to talk to you, because these folks just suck the positive energy out of you.

There’s an acquaintance that I have who recently told me that she wished we could talk more regularly like we had in the past. I think what happened was I found that we had very little in common in terms of interests and hobbies, and we gradually stopped talking. However, she wanted to continue talking again. No problem. I’m always willing to make friends and help those who could learn from my experiences, so I have been doing my part recently. Just the other day, I asked this particular individual through a communication app what her goals were for 2015, hoping to have a meaningful and relevant conversation.

Now, you may not understand Chinese, so let me recap what happened in the conversation. I asked what her goals were for 2015, and her response was a very cryptic “Don’t have” or “No.” Being someone who likes to encourage people, I offered the following response: “Really?” with an emoticon. I mean, it’s possible that it was a question that was too personal, but nonetheless, I didn’t feel like it was an inappropriate question.

After more than 10 minutes without another response from her, I added a smiley face and then a sarcastic comment that read, “Oh, [her name] has goals but does not wish to share them with me. Okay.” I mean, again, it was meant to elicit a response. If she was busy and couldn’t reply, she could have just stated that. After all, she had wanted to resume communicating regularly again, so I was trying to do my part.

Her follow-up response was again a short answer, which read, “No goals.” Now, at this point, the average person might be put off by the lazy, short answers. If not, surely one might be put off by the fact that she seemed unenthusiastic about the new year and really has no goals. I mean, that’s kind of a major turn-off if you think about it. Either she does not want to communicate and put no effort into typing, or she has no ambitions in life (!!!!!) even though many people are excited about New Year’s, or both.

Now, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I casually replied, “Oh. It seems you don’t like to write much these days. Okay, then no problem.”

Then this was what happened:

This time, she replied right away, with a much longer sentence, but not a friendly one. The response was, “If that’s what you want to say, so be it.”

Wow. What a response. Clearly, she was having a bad day (?!) or she was being hostile for some reason. Whatever the case, I decided to drop it, and wrote, “Okay. [Her name] does not wish to say anything further. All right. I will not bother you now.”

That was the end of the conversation, and she did not write anything further.

Now, a few things:

1. Yes, I am more fluent in English and I prefer conversing in this language. However, this acquaintance is more comfortable using Chinese, which I have no problem with because I can read Chinese as well and type it too. So, it’s not an issue with language. If she could not express her goals or thoughts in English, she could have typed in Chinese and I would have understood her. Since we’d talked many times before, she knew about my fluency in Chinese.

2. If she didn’t have time to chat with me at that time, she could have said so instead of typing those short answers, which, to be perfectly honest, shows how lazy a person is – or worse, that person does not want to make the effort to properly communicate with you. Short answers like that, like “No” or “No goals” without any other details, are just huge turn-offs.

3. If that question about goals for 2015 was inappropriate and the person genuinely wants to talk to me as she’d indicated previously, then she should have suggested discussing a different topic.

4. Really, the way that the person wrote her responses…it just makes her look rude and uneducated. If she was having a bad day and did not wish to chat at that moment, she could have just said so. If there was any issue, then just talk about it so we could work through them, or if there was anything I could do to help, just say so. But being rude is not acceptable.

There are no excuses for this person’s behaviour. Having to deal with this on a consistent basis is simply meaningless. Here I am, trying to encourage this individual by getting her excited about the new year and positive goals, and her answers just suck the energy out of you. It’s like this person really has no goals or enthusiasm. No sense to spend that much time talking to such people. People that give attitude without any reason are simply not worth the time, because in life you want to strive to improve all the time and talking to someone who has no interest in that only serves to drag you down and onto their level.

Avoid these types of people – cut them out of your life if possible – and focus on communicating with those who are more positive and have more to contribute to a meaningful discussion.

(Originally posted on Quora)

I learned today that if I wake up early in the morning, I can get more things done [1]. I can be more productive that way if I get up two-and-a-half hours earlier than normal instead of sleeping in.

The time difference might not sound significant, but it actually is. Let’s say that I woke up today right after 9:00 as opposed to 6:30-ish. That’s nearly three hours of wasted time that I can never get back – and in that time I could be doing a lot of things.

For instance, early this morning I was able to accomplish the following:

• communicated with a couple of important people from two different publishing companies,
• worked out a deal with a contact in Vancouver regarding some cross-promoting stuff that benefits both parties,
• planted the seeds for some research on a book I’m writing,
• replied back to seven important emails,
• sent an email to a friend in Asia,
• checked some information on my bank account,
• updated my budget for July,
• sent a copy of my e-book to a contact in Michigan by email,
• responded to a time-sensitive email from an eBay seller regarding an item that a family member had ordered through my account, and
• updated my Quora profile and a couple of things on my websites.

I’m sure there were some other things that I’ve probably left out.

I did all of these things after I had arrived at the office a half-hour early. And yes, I ate breakfast and took a shower before leaving the house, and did everything listed above in the half hour before starting my work shift. After all of that, then I began my shift right on time.

So, what I learned today is I can be productive by not sleeping in – even if 9:00 isn’t really considered “late” in North America. If I didn’t get up early, who knows when I would have had the time to get those things accomplished?

[1] Recently, I have been working 12 noon shifts which means I normally wake up at 9 am. Today, I’m working an 8 am shift so I got up at 6:30.