Hi, I'm Dr. Paul Jenkins and I have five quick tips for you on how to deal with difficult people.
Now, these five quick tips that i've put together for you, the upside is you don't need
any cooperation or input from those difficult people. These are things you can do completely
on your own. Here's tip number one, assume positive intent. Now, this can be difficult with difficult
people because sometimes our thinking gets along the lines of, "Oh, they're just trying to
make life so difficult", well, usually, they're not. In fact, most of the people that I've interviewed
and asked directly want better things for everyone around them. That sounds like pretty positive
intent. Even if you're wrong you're in a better position because it changes how
you show up and what you think matters. If you think that that person is evil you're going to
feel some things that have you showing up differently in the interaction. So, work on this
a little bit and you can do it on purpose. You can simply tell yourself, "Oh, they mean well", and even if
you have a hard time believing that you're better off choosing that position even if you're wrong
because of how it changes you. So, that's number one, assume positive intent. Tip number two has
to do with your choice about what your experience is going to be and I'm going to phrase it this way.
Choose to be entertained or to enjoy them. Choose to be entertained or to enjoy them this goes back
in my experience two years ago. I remember there was this person who lived in our neighborhood
who most people found to be kind of difficult or annoying. I chose to enjoy this person and
I remember conversation with my wife at the time. She said, "How can you even stand him?", and I said,
"He entertains me", she hadn't even thought about that as a possibility but as we had that conversation
we decided that every interaction that we saw him have with other people we could predict certain
maladaptive things that would come up in that interaction and that became kind of amusing, kind
of entertaining, kind of enjoyable. But it took a specific determination or choice to enjoy or to
be entertained. Here's a little supportive tip, I got this strategy from Jeanne Robertson. She just
passed away last year what a phenomenal funny lady she was. You can still find her videos on Youtube
Jeanne Robertson. I was in a training with her on humor and the productive use of humor in public
speaking when she said this, "Find the funny", find the funny how simple is that? But what a powerful
tip. If you go into an interaction looking for what's annoying or problematic or difficult you're
going to find it. What if you go into the same interaction to find the funny? Find what's humorous
or entertaining or enjoyable about this. That's one way you can support this strategy which is
choose to enjoy or be entertained. Tip number three, seek to understand. I'm reminded of a quotation
that's attributed to President Abraham Lincoln way back in the day when he was commenting about one
of these difficult people that we're talking about. He said, "I don't really like that man very much,
I must get to know him better", I love that. Because it implies that there are things about every
individual, every person, out there that are rich and abundant and if we were to take the time to
understand them better we'd probably like them a whole lot more. So, that's my challenge to you
seek to understand. This will also give you an opportunity to practice your communication
skills. Because seeking to understand is one of the first things that we teach in communication
training. Just as a little bonus, I would love to give you the communication cheat sheet that
I've put together for you. This is a freebie. Go to the URL on the screen right now
drpauljenkins.com/ communication. I'll put that in your inbox, it's just a little cheat sheet
that has a few tips and pointers on it about what we can do to improve our communication.
Seeking to understand is something that you can specifically do to deal with these difficult
people. I've got those two more tips as promised. Before I give those to you take just a moment to
click the subscribe button if you're still here and you are because I can see you right there.
Go click that subscribe button. I promise, I'll be bringing you new videos every week to support
you in doing the kinds of things that we're talking about right here. So, go click it right now.
Tip number four comes from Ron Zeller who is a world-class leadership trainer
through the landmark forum. I knew Ron well before he passed away just a few years ago
and he shared this idea with me it has to do with naming. When we name something and we do it all the
time. We come up with names for our kids our pets but also everything in our world around us. What we
name something determines how we act toward that thing. The example that he shared was with a pet
for example, we give our pet a name that we can adore and have fun with and interact with and
Ron pointed out. This is a little on the morbid side but he says, "We don't name our pets
lunch", okay, lunch is a very different name. What do you do with lunch? You eat it and it's your name
for it, that determines your behavior toward it. So, everything that we name lunch we're eating and
everything that we name some adorable pet name we treat as an adorable pet. So, notice that that
name that you choose matters. Now, let's go back to what we're working on. How to deal with difficult
people? I put that in air quotes because we just named them difficult people and that changes how
we show up for them, notice that. Is there a different name that you could pick? That's the tip.
Choose a different name that allows you to get away from difficult. What could you name
them instead? You might name them interesting. You might name them enjoyable and it doesn't
have to be a one-word name. It could be that the name that you picked for them is something like
hmm, I'm really curious about that person. That's a weird name. But if that's the name that you pick
you're going to show up differently than if you're naming them difficult. Now, here's your final tip
and I think this is the most powerful of all find some way to serve them. When your mind is geared
towards service and creating value, you think about that person very differently. Your experience with
them is very different and the outcomes tend to be vastly different as well. If someone is annoying
or difficult or painful or frustrating. Notice that that's a name first of all. But find some
way to serve that person and I guarantee you're going to have a whole different outcome. There's
a lot of psychological reasons behind that that I'm not going to share on this video today. But
understand that that is a psychologically sound tip that's going to really help you to interact
with those difficult people. As you can see this is all about our own thinking and our personal
development. Queue up that next video, how you can reprogram your mind to stay strong and positive
no matter what. You're going to want to see that one.