Positive People Are Like Radiators
By: Iain Smith
Tags: Radiators, Wellbeing, Drains, Positivity, Positive People

Positively Radiant!

We all know certain positive people who improve any room they enter, bringing warmth and comfort to all they meet.

Let’s call these types of people Radiators.



At the same time, we all know people who have the exact opposite effect. They might not mean to be negative, but they are. Spend any time with them and you feel completely drained.



Let’s call these types of people Drains.

Two Types

Radiators are positive people. They constantly emit warmth and help you feel safe, energised and secure.

They encourage kindness, positivity and promote a proactive attitude. Radiators empower you and lift you to a place beyond your natural reach.



Drains, on the other hand, share their troubles and double them. People like this focus on the negative and suck all the energy out of a situation.

They notice what’s bad about a situation and focus on it, enlarging, exaggerating and prolonging the negativity.

The type of people who expend more energy complaining about a problem than it takes to quietly sort it out. They puncture the atmosphere, acting as mood hoovers.

Positive People Audit

Make a mental audit of the people in your life. It’s a simple process.

Write down the names of all the people you know. Put all the positive people in a column titled Radiators. Put all the negative people in a column titled Drains. Wherever possible make it your active choice to associate with Radiators. Search them out. Engage and share their energy.

Feeling Drained?

When you’re surrounded by Drains, take care not to be drawn down with them. It can easily happen.

Keep engagement to a minimum. Stay in the shallows of conversation and escape the downward swirl as soon as you can!

Avoid Drains!

Dividing people into Radiators and Drains is very simplistic. Of course people are much more complex than I’m making out. They come in so many more types than just these two.

But thinking of positive people as radiators and negative people as drains is a very useful rule of thumb. Stick with it and you won’t go far wrong.

And You?

It’s easy to label other people but how would you label yourself?

Are you a radiator? One of the positive people in life?



Do you make a conscious effort to warm the company you keep? To lift them up, compliment them and praise their efforts?

Or are you a drain, unwittingly draining the life out of others by over sharing your problems and forgetting to acknowledge and draw attention to the good things you have in life?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou



It’s easy to drift into that negative moaning pattern at times. We all do it!



Listen to your own patterns of speaking to other people. Who do you give to and who do you take from?



Take five minutes to check in and consciously ensure you have your radiator settings turned up to highest level!

Iain helps busy people get more done, in less time and with less stress. He delivers inspiring training courses across the UK and internationally. You can contact him here.

Iain also writes a weekly top tips newsletter that you can sign up for on this very page, or by visiting his website.