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How To Deal With People Who Don't See Things Your Way

9/6/2016

You can either grab the person by the hair and bulldoze your righteous opinions all over them or you can try the following method.

In my line of work, I deal with people with varying degree of risk appetite and level of acceptance. Often times it can be frustrating to deal with them when "the situation is so simple". Not everyone is blessed to see things as simple as you or me. What's simple to us could be a life threatening ordeal for another.

How do we handle someone who can't see it our way?

Here are a few things you DON'T do to aggravate the matter.

Don't tell the person he/she is wrong for feeling that way. It's not a right or wrong situation. It's all in the mind. The person is as right as you are.
Don't belittle the person's concern. It's a legit concern. Nobody likes to be worried if they can help it. So don't talk down to them.
Don't offer them advise on how to handle their emotions. You don't know how they feel and think. Don't assume to solve their problems for them.

This is what you can do:

Reassure them. Be a leader and take charge of the situation. Let them know that you will handle it. You just need them to manage their thoughts as you go about managing the situation.
Give them space to work with. I learned that there's a term for it - It's called Holding Space. Be supportive without being oppressive.
Empathize with them. Get off your high horse and walk in their shoes. Maybe you can get a sense of a deeper problem that they may not even be aware of.

Well, that's today's Alpha Mind tip on how to be a better leader/boss/friend/co-worker. You can also join me on my Alpha Mind 30-Day Challenge here or check out my other thoughts on life and living here on my Facebook page.

Leave me a comment and let me know if this tip worked out for you.

Update: (This one is for Natalie Trog who left me a comment on Facebook asking about dealing with impossible in-laws)

So you have tried the more diplomatic approach, you have tried the Alpha Mind approach, and everything seem to just fall flat with the person you're dealing with. In fact, said person is abrasive and antagonistic, and every time you have to deal with them, you get shot through with a bolt of blue. The person is effing impossible to deal with.

You cannot win every fight, and not every mother's son and daughter are open to compromise. In fact, they may see your soft approach as a weakness and capitalise on it. For people like that, I say fuck-it and walk away. Some fights are not worth it.

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The Secret to Happiness: Empathy

8/6/2016

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Read an article somewhere a long time back about the secret of happiness. It stated that the way to being happy is to have empathy. In my ego centric younger days I couldn't fully appreciate the wisdom in that. In my 30s now, and less hot headed, I find myself listening more and placing less emphasis on my own opinions on what is "right".

Recently I learned that instead of hammering my opinions into other people's mind-set, I'm able to remove myself from my own ego and see things from their perspective. And I mean really see it from their eyes, walk in their shoes, experience their pain and their joy.

Empathy.

It turns out, people generally aren't the assholes we made them out to be. And when you can appreciate that and see that the world isn't out to piss you off all the time, you start to see the shades instead of solid colours. You begin to feel that the world has so much depth and definition you have yet to experience. And sometimes you're fortunate not to have had to experience them.

There is a strange sense of serenity; and also a very awkward sense of humility. It made me feel young again. Like when I was in my teens and hungry to learn what society and life has to offer: the joy of discovering new emotions and sensations. All of a sudden a great burden of anguish is removed from my soul. It made me a little light headed. At peace. And I think at the end of it all, when a man finds peace, he finds happiness.

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Three Ways To Overcome Fear of Failure

7/6/2016

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On a conscious level, we all know that the fear of failure is the barrier to success. When we aren’t the one standing on the precipice facing judgement, we have all the nerves to recite motivational quotes to get the person to take the leap of faith. Why is it that we ourselves aren’t able to practice what we preach?

That's because fear is an autonomic response; it shuts you down, takes over the reins and offers you only two options: fight or flight. Most people take flight. Fear is a prick and If it was a person, I would stab him in the face with a blunt spoon. F#%@ you, fear.

Here's my Alpha Mind philosophy of getting over fear in the most fun way possible. (Yipee!) They have been tried and tested by both teenagers and adults and the feedback I got was very encouraging. Well, let's get you started.

Bad Past Experiences | "The last time I tried, I crashed and burned."
If you failed at the attempt once, it's only natural to get cold feet the next time a similar situation comes up, but do you know what's the solution to this? More failures! It's true. Remember that Smart Alec who joked that if you aim to fail, you will always succeed? Well it turns out there is some truth to that.

Try this: Turn Your Failure Into a Game
The more you experience failure and rejection, the more resilient you will get. So the natural thing to do is to aim to fail, BUT there's a rule to this game. You can't fail the same way twice. You need to innovate. Try a new method to fail each time you try. You will find that failing is not that easy after all.

#TrueStory: Writer Ryan Ong turned his fear of rejection around by starting a hobby of collecting rejection slips from publishers. Each time he got rejected, he wrote his cover letter a little differently, attempted a different style of pitching. By the time he got his lucky break, he had amassed over 300 rejection slips.
Can't Handle Judgement | "But I'm afraid that they will laugh at me."
You're absolutely right. People are going to laugh at you because we are all sick, twisted bastards and we entertain ourselves at the expense of others. But you know what? If you are able to laugh at yourself too, it immediately nullifies any embarrassment. The truth is, people aren't laughing at you - they don't even know you - they are laughing at the situation.

Try this: Learn to Detach Yourself from Your Task
When you are able to remove self from task, you will begin to see that people's judgement is not a personal attack. Recognise that when things don't go right, it is not you that they condemn, It's the task and the outcome that they are laughing at. It's not you.

#TrueStory: Intern Andy Lieow was a quivering, stuttering wreck on his first day of work. I sat him down and told him that as an intern, he can do no wrong. Every mistake is a learning curve. If he did something wrong, he should stand beside me and look at the situation together. He took to that mindset like fish to water and milked it for all it's worth. I remember one time he laughed so hard at his own mistake he fell off the chair. Everyone in office laughed at the sight and he laughed too. Staff from the other department came by to check out the commotion and they started laughing too. When Andy left the company three months later, he was a changed man. He learned so much in the time he was here because he did not let fear of failure hold him back.
Self Doubt | "But I'm not good enough."
No one is ever good enough. No one. All we can do is get better with each try, hopefully. The way I handle self-doubt is to compete with the only variable I have control over - and that's me. I gain confidence from outdoing myself. Well, if this method seems too abstract for you, I've this other method that just might work.

Try this: Role-Play a Different Persona
If you think you suck and cannot make it in life, then create a persona of someone you think can make it. Walk in the shoes of that person and try to think how he/she thinks. When placed in a situation that you can't handle, imagine yourself to be the other person and react accordingly. Set up a different persona for different occasions. Be creative, explore body language, tonality and style.

#TrueStory: I bumped into an old friend the other day and met his beautiful wife. She was a 9.5 on the hot scale and he was everything she's not. What was his secret I asked. This was what he said: "When I first picked her up at the convention, I imagined how Aaron would have done it. He's always shameless like that. When I needed to talk to her, I imagined how you would have done it, and I just started talking and talking non-stop. I imagined that if she rejected me, she was rejecting you instead, and you suck, not me."

If you tried these techniques and they work for you or if you have any other wacky ideas you would like the share, please post it in the comments field below.

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How To Deal With People Who Don't See Things Your Way

The Secret to Happiness: Empathy

Three Ways To Overcome Fear of Failure

Pilgrim's Path

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