Your power is in remaining calm
Some people are difficult to deal with. Unrealistic clients, aloof execs. I once had a boss who was super nice, but couldn’t say no to her peers and drove our entire team crazy.
Many of the people we work with just don’t recognize reality or conventions of mutual respect. Difficult people generally have limited self-awareness about what’s going on inside them emotionally.
Yet we have to deal with them.
How do we normally react to such people?
One of two ways: we go to either silence or violence.
We clam up and take it, letting others' behavior rot away at us from the inside; or we get triggered, and may lash out (sometimes poorly, with consequences), sometimes we complain about them behind their backs, sometimes we’re passive-aggressive with them.
Look at the most effective people in your organization. They know that there is a third way to engage with difficult people and still get what they need out of tough situations.
It starts with not losing your cool.
If you do, the difficult person has won. They have the power. Your power.
You just gave it away. For free.
Many “experts” will tell you to try a mental distraction. Or to ignore them. Or to tell them off and confront them.
These are just different versions of silence or violence, and won’t help you get what you need from them, create human connection, or advance your goals and life.
Confident Communicators, instead, have trained in the ability to know what’s going on, not only inside them, but inside the other person as well.
So that when they are faced with difficult people, they have awareness.
Awareness of what’s really happening (inside yourself and inside them) helps us stay cool, when faced with unhappy, negative, and obnoxious people.
It gives you a secure feeling of safety and protection, so there’s no getting triggered. No silence or violence.
Unfortunately, this ability to be self-aware and tune into others isn’t something you can get from a book or video. Like anything else in life, you have to prepare in advance, and the best way to do that is to practice.
Here’s one exercise you can do right now, to develop the skill of staying calm and centered in the moment.
Take five minutes to write about what happens when you lose your cool. Explore this safely, with just yourself. Uncover the situations and people that amp you up and bring out the worst in you. Go there. Don’t ask what is it about them that triggers you, but instead ask: what is happening inside me? It will most likely be an emotion or feeling in your body. Some people get a pit in their stomach. Some get hot headed. Everyone’s different. Describe the feeling in terms of location, hot/cold, even give it a color. Now give that reaction a name. Angry Alan. Jealous Jane.
The idea is to become so aware of your reactions that you can recognize them like the annoying kid who shows up at the worst times. Know them. Personify them. Then, over time, they’ll become less a part of you, and you can shoo them away like the annoying child that they are.
Over time, you’ll eventually be able to separate your reactions from the deeper you, the calm, stable you that remains in control.
You can’t learn karate from a book.
The same is true for keeping your cool in tough situations.
You have to practice it.
