A few days ago, my son’s high school wrestling team had a meet here at home against another local team.

It was a very close competition, our guys losing by ONE match, at the very end. One of the things I noticed was that during the closest matches, the other team was up and cheering their guys on along the outer edges of the wrestling mat. They were screaming for each other to win supporting one another and supplying each competitor with energy and passion.

I saw how energized these guys were, but when I looked over to our team’s bench, the guys were stoic. Lying back on their chairs, not saying a word. It was almost as if each of them had already checked out of the match long before it was even over, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d think something was seriously wrong with them.

I know almost all the kids on this team and they are a great group of boys, so I figured something must be wrong.

I mentioned this to a few of the parents, to see what their take on things was, and one of the comments I heard was that the coaches don’t let the boys cheer each other on. I was astonished at the utter absurdity of what I was hearing — this couldn’t be true, right? — so at the end of the night I asked one of the coaches, in a non-confrontational way, what the deal was about this.

He told me that since it’s hard for the kids to hear him coaching them during the match and since they “don’t listen anyway”, he tries to keep it quiet on the sidelines. Now I don’t pretend to be an athletic genius, but I do know a little bit about competition and success, and something is VERY wrong here.

For starters, when you’re out there wrestling, you can’t hear your coach or anyone else for that matter. You’re in the heat of the moment, focused on your match. All you can hear is a global “yelling” from the stands.

But suppressing the emotional excitement of your athletes and performers — especially when they’re kids — is like dousing the roaring flames of your fireplace with cold water. You wind up wasting loads of energy that can ordinarily be put to good use.

Seems silly to me.

But lo and behold, at the end of the New England Patriots playoff game last night, a penalty was issued against them for “taking their helmets off and jumping up and down in celebration.”

So it seems like this “being happy” stuff, is going by the wayside.

Yes, sports are about winning, the same way business is about making money. But if the thrill of victory, or at least the energy that goes into creating the thrill of victory, isn’t celebrated and is instead suppressed, we’re headed towards a society that’s not only stunted, but dangerous.

The LAST thing you ever want to do is suppress emotions, especially in our kids. This is why our prisons are filled to the brim with socially and emotionally immature adults.

Your passion is the foundation of ALL your relationships, business and personal. Why snuff that out?

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Don’t worry, there are NO suppressed emotions in my OFFLINE Seductive Selling Newsletter, and you especially do NOT want to miss the article on page one, called… “Deal Me In, Hotshot!” So check it out right now, by taking a fre.e test-drive here: http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl
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Now go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. THIS JUST IN! My Mentoring and Mastermind Group, is meeting here in Tampa this Thursday and Friday. You are too late to get in this quarter, but you can still apply to this group and change your business (and therefore your personal) life.

Here’s a VERY satisfying e-mail I received from one of the group’s new members, Robert Brown: “I’ve got a new client coming to my house tomorrow afternoon and is paying $1,797. So you see I really do listen to the things you tell me. What a revelation.” A few months ago, Robert was chasing clients down, schlepping all over town to meet them, and NOT charging fees for his services. So, Robert’s made more in one transaction than it costs to belong to my group this month. How much will this be worth to him over the next year?

How about the next 5 years? How about over his lifetime?

And how much is my advice worth to you? Or an even better question is… how much are you losing each moment that passes by, from NOT having access to me?

Check out http://www.kingofcopy.com/maverickmarketer and find out for yourself. It really is up to you how far you go.

Or, how far you don’t.