A short coaching video by Brian Tracy offering practical techniques for handling difficult people: stay calm, pause/smile and remain silent when appropriate, and use questions to regain control and defuse conflict. The speaker emphasizes patience, emotional control, curiosity, and strategic questioning as tools to manage angry or hostile individuals.
Your ability to deal with people is going to have more of an influence on your success and happiness than any other skill you can develop. Now. It's easy to deal with pleasant, positive, cheerful people. It's when you have to deal with difficult people that you really demonstrate the quality of your personality and your ability to function well in a competitive society. So how do you deal with difficult people? People who have problems, people who are angry, people who are frustrated, people who attack you. Worst of all, people who do not mean you any good and want to take advantage of you. The starting point is very simple. Take a deep breath and be patient. Calm down, go slow. Don't let other people's negativity or anger or frustration affect you. Step back in your own mind mentally and just smile. You know, there's an old saying, if you can't say something nice, don't talk at all is my advice. Sometimes the very best thing you can do in dealing with difficult people is just to be dead silent. Don't feed the fire by arguing or getting involved. When you're dealing with a difficult person, just stop the clock like a timeout. Just smile and don't say anything. And then when you do say something, remember one of the great communication tools is is the person who asks questions has control. The way that you can take control of any negative situation is not trying to win, but simply by asking questions. Say, you know, why do you say that? Or why do you feel that way? Or that's an interesting point of view. How did you come to that point of view? Or how would we know that what you say is true? I mean, is there any proof or validity? Instead of attacking, simply ask questions. And it's sort of like the matador backs away from the bull. As you keep backing away from the bull, you cape the difficult person by simply asking questions and being genuinely captured, curious about what he or she is thinking and feeling and why they are behaving the way they are. Sometimes you may find that they have a good reason. Sometimes you may find that they misunderstand something. Maybe you will find that they have a difficult problem in their lives. But in any case, be calm, be patient, be controlled, and ask questions. And it will make you the master of the situation. If you like this video, please leave a comment below. And don't forget to subscribe to get new videos like this in the future.
