We’ve all been there. You’re at work, in class, at a bar, a wedding. You’re trying to have a conversation with someone, and things just aren’t going the way you think they should. They are being rude to you, making sly comments and attacking your character and who you are (whether they know it or not.)
So, what do you do? It is very easy to go on the offensive and try and tear them down. It’s preached everywhere these days by society. This idea that “everything is about me” “it’s my way or the highway” “I’m not going to let him get one over on me! I’m going to give her a piece of my mind!”
The anger that you are feeling in that situation is valid. No one enjoys being treated poorly. I know I don’t.
Although your feelings are valid, they aren’t necessarily what you need to be feeding into to make the most of this situation. It’s time to slow down to speed up. Let’s examine how to make this situation more ideal.
That’s where you get to a very important question: “Why?” Why is this person treating me poorly? Well, there are many possibilities, but I am going to tell you the likely causes. There is a high likelihood that this person is feeling insecure about themselves. It’s your classic bully case: they are struggling finding value in their career, they think certain negative things are what defines them, they don’t like you because whether you mean to or not you are exposing insecurities within them by just being who you are, and so that person thinks that their end all be all is to seek and destroy. One thing you will notice about people if you slow down to think about it is that most people create ultimatums and assume they can only do one thing or the other. The book “Crucial Conversations” talks about this concept. It’s either “I make myself look bad to make them feel better, or I shoot them down to make myself look good.”
This is very far from the truth. When you are in these situations the first thing you must realize is that you can have the best outcome. You can keep your self-image high and make them feel amazing about themself and make the frustrating conversation you are currently having irrelevant all-together. How?
By doing the opposite of what your feelings say. It will be hard, but in that moment instead of thinking about what you can say to destroy the person, ask yourself what you genuinely like about the person. In the book “How to have confidence and power in dealing with people” Les Giblin talks about this mirror effect concept. People are like mirrors, whoever is the most certain in a conversation is the one that influences the conversation. You can be more certain in the conversation by knowing who you are, to where nothing someone says can hurt you because you have a great self-image and love yourself. Also being certain about the other person, you are certain that there is good in this person, that they have value to add and that there is plenty of positive traits about them. Remind yourself of what you like about that person. They will feel it. In his book “Be a people person” John Maxwell talks about how you can’t fake anything, people can feel you and know if you’re lying to them.
This concept of peace that passes all understanding is something that the bible talks about, and people will feel that. If you aren’t a believer, that peace is knowing who you are and being confident that you want to do yourself and the person you’re talking to good.
You then proceed to flip the conversation onto its head. You’re complimenting the person that just insulted you, smiling when they are trying to put you down. In this dog-eat-dog world, people don’t realize that you don’t have to put others down to get ahead. It’s the contrary. Lift others up. You will be shocked by the reaction you’re getting from the what was “hostile human” you’re talking to. They will open up and actually start COMPLIMENTING YOU. By the end of the conversation that person will feel really good about having talked to you, even if you would rather never talk to them again……..
What’s the sense of having an enemy walking around if you don’t need to? Why feed into the drama and anger anymore? In his book “How to win friends and influence people” Dale Carnegie quotes a famous writer saying, “Insults are like homing pigeons, they always return to sender.” So don’t send any out. Refuse to treat others poorly, as the great Abraham Lincoln once said, “they are just what we would be under similar circumstances.”
Sources:
Carnegie, D. (1936). How to win friends and influence people. Vermilion.
Giblin, L. T. (1985). How to Have Confidence and Power in Dealing with People. Penguin.
Maxwell, J. C. (2001). Be a People Person
Patterson, K., Grenny, J., Mcmillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2011). Crucial conversations : tools for talking when stakes are high. New York Mcgraw-Hill Professional.