A few weeks ago I heard a wonderful expression to describe people that are always negative. The speaker at a seminar I attended was comparing those negative people in Australia to those crossing borders whilst fleeing war torn countries and yet remained hopeful and positive.
The speaker is Colin James (watch one of his Youtube performances – you won’t be disappointed). He is one of the best speakers I’ve heard for many a year.
The expression is my headline this week. You know the type of people. When it’s forty degrees outside and they have the aircon on inside so cold that they complain it’s too cold (worse, they put a jumper on). These flesh coloured pus bags (“FCPBs”) are people that read the papers and feed off the negativity. They don’t stop to think for themselves. They then share the views they read in the paper with the rest of the workplace and spread the negativity.
Sadly, these people, who used to be the exception, are now quite a raucous and large minority. So much so that many politicians around the world (Farage, Trump, Hanson and others) are pandering to them. These people are driven by pure raw negative emotion (or hate). Facts are something to be massaged to fit in with their agenda. From a financial perspective these FCPBs are quite fun to deal with. When we meet with them they start by complaining about banks, then interest rates, then they slide into some mad political mumbo jumbo that doesn’t even make sense to them.
Their slip starts to show when you ask them what interest rate they’re currently paying for their home loans. This is usually what we turned up to discuss. Their response: “umm I don’t know”. Hang on, you don’t know? You just wasted forty minutes piling into our weak pollies and our corrupt financial system and the one fact that you based your entire argument on is a mystery to you doesn’t even register when you utter the words “umm I don’t know”. That’s right about 100% of these FCPBs who start by ranting and raving about how much banks are ripping them off haven’t got a clue as to how much they’re being ripped off.
My message to them (the FCPBs) is this: stop whining about things that you don’t know anything about. Do the numbers before you start to share your odious views with others. If you don’t know how to do the numbers get someone to do them for you. For God’s sake, at least look at your bank statement before meeting with a bank or a mortgage broker so that your argument at least has a semblance of lucidity.
Fortunately, in our business we have to be positive. Oh, it helps if you are naturally positive but we take the view that there is no one we can’t help. Yes, even FCPBs. You cannot be a service provider if you turn up to meet with potential clients and all you have to offer is negativity. You have to have a solution. That’s exactly how many extremist pollies operate – they offer a perceived solution to a perceived problem (often though that solution might be to build a wall or exit the EU or stop immigration of a certain race or religion…) and play right into the fears of their followers.
We try and be a bit more factual and our solutions are less grandiose and offensive (and, I might add, restricted by ASIC to providing general advice on lending). Finally, I’m going to feed the fear of the FCPBs. If you haven’t looked at your mortgage for a while, then chances are you will find a better rate but that’s not the bank’s fault. It’s yours. If you haven’t figured out why then you haven’t been paying attention to this article. You’ve been seething. You need help. Call us now.