Maybe this never happens to you. Maybe it happened today already.
Some professional advice on what to say when someone insults you.
i'm going to give these to you in the order
of how much i like them or what i find to be the best responses.
We'll give them in that order okay? So, the number one response
what to say when people insult you. Write this down.
Nothing. Yeah. Say nothing. This is hard to do because
sometimes you get a little triggered when somebody says something that's
insulting or insensitive or disrespectful.
And that's going to happen all the time. My
favorite response is to say absolutely nothing. I
call this the strategic non-response. And there's some power to this
psychologically. First of all, if we get insulted or attacked in some
way verbally or otherwise, our natural response is to defend
ourselves. This makes sense right? When you're being
attacked what do you want to do? You want to get your shield up right?
And then next you draw your sword so that you can go to battle.
Defensiveness validates accusation. Write that down too. Defensiveness
validates accusation. As soon as you become defensive
it's almost like you're saying, "Hey! That thing that you just insulted me about
yeah that has some validity so i'm going to actually
grace it with a response. The strategic non-response when you don't even
give them the luxury of a response. Kind of takes the wind out of the sails
in a lot of ways. And for most instances, it's a really
appropriate way to respond to an insult. Now, we have to be careful about
this because if we do the strategic non-response but
then we start to let it fester and boil inside of us.
Now, we're still giving it a little more power than we probably want to.
So, be careful about what you do with it in your mind but in terms of what you
say it could be nothing. Consider it. Second favorite response,
"Okay." You might change the tone. "Okay, okay."
However you say, simply say, "Okay." What does that
mean? It does not mean that you agree. It might mean, "I heard you,
I acknowledge you, I'm going to do something appropriate with what you just
shared with me but I don't need further input from you."
Now, that's a lot of meaning that comes in one little word,
okay. I think this empowers you. If saying nothing at all doesn't quite
fly for you, try saying simply, "Okay."
It's an acknowledgment, it's not an acceptance.
And then you still get to work out what you're going to do with that in your own
mind, It's strategic. The next one on the list
is, "Thank you."
I know some of these seem counter-intuitive but what i'm trying to
do with these suggestions is to put you back in power.
When someone insults you, that's their bad. Do not let that pull you
out of integrity and turn you into a ranting raving lunatic,
which you're not. Let's keep you in control
so that we shift the power. And I think that's what "Thank you" does.
It doesn't mean, "Hey, I love being insulted,
thank you." No, we're going to interpret this one differently too. When you say,
"Thank you." It means one of two things let's try them both on.
Thank you for your opinion, for your input, for your feedback on this
situation, I'll look. You're not acknowledging that
what they said was true. You're not validating what they just
told you that was insulting. You're simply saying,
"Well, thank you for your opinion, for that feedback, for that
interesting take on things. I'll look, I'll take the responsibility to
test that out, see if it fits, see if it holds any water.
But again kind of like when we said, "Okay." I don't need any more input from you.
Thank you, we're done here. So, that's one of the things that it might mean.
And you don't have to explain all of that to the person who offended you.
The person who gave the insult probably isn't interested in your opinion right
now. So, you simply say thank you and now
you're going to do something appropriate with it.
Here's the other thing that, "Thank you" might mean. It might mean,
"Thank you for revealing something about you that could be useful
for me." Here's an example. On YouTube,
there's a lot of comments that come out on the channel and thank you to those of
you who are providing feedback and input to me. Some of those
comments are loving and I appreciate those.
I put enough work into this channel that I just love it when it makes a positive
difference for you in your life. Thank you for giving me that feedback, I
really appreciate it. Some of those comments are hate comments,
telling me things that are hateful or distasteful or that people don't like
about me and the work that i'm doing here on the channel.
What do i do with those? I thank you for those. By the way if you're one of
the haters you're not still watching this video so
you're part of my tribe and and you're the ones that i appreciate. But the
haters, the ones who come and they leave those
hateful comments. I still say, "Thank you for giving me information
about you that could be useful to me." You just
shared with me that you're not in my tribe, you're not in my family,
you're not part of part of Live On Purpose.
Thank you because that's useful to me. I don't have to spend any marketing
dollars on you, I don't have to think about what you
want to hear when i'm putting together videos.
Thank you, you have just saved me so much work. Can you see how "Thank you," as long
as it means what you decide it means can be a great way
to deal with those insults. It's something you can say
when you've been insulted. I've saved this one to last, not because it's my
least favorite but because it's a different category.
Sometimes the people who insult you or hurt you
are people that you actually want to stay in a relationship with.
I just shared with you some of the haters for example here on YouTube. If
they hate me, "Thank you for self-identifying
as not being in my tribe." That's useful information to me. But
there are other people who you love and you want to stay in a
relationship with and they hurt you. Vicki and I hurt each
other all the time. And it's because we are in
a close relationship. Now, you've seen here on the channel we've got a really
good interaction. I have the best marriage I know of. And
yet there are still times when we slip and we insult or we
offend or we hurt each other, okay? So, I'm talking about that category now when
you're wanting to maintain a relationship with
that person, We probably need to do something a
little different. Now, the tools I already gave you, you can use if it's appropriate
to say "nothing," say "nothing," if it's appropriate to say "okay," say "okay,"
if it's appropriate to say "thank you," say "thank you." Here's the other thing that
you can do, this came from my friend and colleague
Pamela Jett. Pamela you're brilliant, thank you for
the good work that you're doing. As a communication specialist she
suggested a three-part process that we can use
when we get hurt. We called this on the interview, I did it Live On Purpose Radio.
We called it "How to handle a sniper?" You know, somebody
who takes a little pot shot at you. And if it's somebody that you love and
want to stay in a relationship with. Let's use
this approach, identify, verify and accept. Identify, verify
accept. Really quickly, identify is where you simply state what happened.
When this happened, I felt...
whatever, okay? Fill in the blanks. When a happened i felt b, when x happened
i felt y. You're not blaming, you're not accusing,
you're simply stating it kind of like the news, when
x happened, I felt y, that's identified. Here's verify. Is that what you intended?
Ask it sincerely, genuinely, you are not putting them in a position where you're
accusing them of anything. You're simply giving them an opportunity to
"verify"
what just happened, okay? When x happened I felt y,
is that what you intended? Was that your purpose? Is that what you were going for?
Pick some version of that and then we move to step number three.
They're going to give a response in between
and 95% of the time, this is where people backtrack.
Because if they love you or if you love them they didn't want to insult you,
they're just really good at it for some reason. So, they're probably going to
backtrack, "No, no, no, that's not what I intended to do." Or
"Oh my gosh, you're so sensitive. what's wrong with you?" Or whatever.
Whatever their response you go to step three,
accept. And I've already given you that one. You simply say,
"Okay." This is powerful for a lot of psychological reasons that I won't get
into on this particular video. It puts them on notice that how they
treat you matters. And that you've noticed and
you're willing to call them out on it or to give them a
chance to verify it or to deny it, either way you're going to
accept it okay. And it's a powerful way to change that
dynamic moving forward. I love that you are here
and that you're taking your personal development seriously enough to spend
some time on videos like this. We've got a lot of other videos on the
channel and there are resources you're probably not
even aware of at Live on Purpose Central. This is a place where I've pulled
together courses and trainings and live events and even
office hours where you can check in with me directly and ask questions.
It's at Live on Purpose Central, there's a link in the description
go.liveonpurposecentral.com. I'll see you inside.