Dealing with difficult people

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion.”-Dale Carnegie

One of the repeated questions asked during  management development programmes is that how to deal with difficult people in a professional environment. The difficult people can be  bosses,colleagues or even subordinates.

My  perspectives would be as follows

      First of all, there is no category of people as” difficult people”. We have not yet learnt the art of dealing with those people. Accept this fact. By accepting this fact  you are taking personal responsibility to deal with them. This mindset will enable you to learn the skill of managing people.

      Second, do not try to confront those people as you spend your energy on dealing with them, which is a low probability of success. Instead, spend your energy on doing your work.Your result and behavior will make others to turn back to you. Gaining the respect is your responsibility.

       Third, enjoy this experience as you are learning new dimension of dealing with people.

       Fourth, accept the situation and be patient. Time is a powerful change manager  and it  will bring  changes in the environment  or in the person or yourself.Even you  may become the master of dealing any “ difficult” person!

       Ultimately, your peace is important and you cannot  compromise for the people who comes and goes on your life path.

Appreciation

“Unless you have bad times, you cannot appreciate the good times”. Joe Torre

      One of the habit of highly successful people is noticing even small accomplishments of others and timely appreciating.Some of us have developed the reluctance ourselves to appreciate others, even  they deserve for the same. It is applicable for both on family relationship as well as in the professional / business environment.

The psychological reasons  of this reluctance to appreciate  others are

• Fear of losing control
• More of self centered as if no time
• Taking granted
• Poor self-esteem or low confidence

      The study shows that the person who is appreciating others needs to be in a positive frame of mind. If one  is not in a positive state, he / she  cannot able to appreciate others. Hence, appreciation is not for only motivating others, it is a measure of our wellness of mental strength. Also, It is important to appreciate others on time and no point in appreciating others  when they  left us  or in customary farewell ritual.

Relook  your habit of appreciation of others and frequency, especially the people in your family and the people are working for you. It reflects your mental health. Start appreciating  others and you attract the abundance in your life!      

Emotional Maturity

“Caring  about people, about things, about life - is an act of maturity.” Tracy McMillan

        In a family or professional environment, if something goes wrong, we immediately tend to lose our coolness or fix someone to blame. In this process, we are missing the relationship aspects and the need for supporting the victims.

        There are few people who demonstrate a high level of emotional maturity. Just an incident happened a few months back to one of my friends.

         One day my  friend  along with his wife went to a marriage function  and returned home . He advised her wife to keep the jewels safely in  locker and left  to office .His  wife did not keep the jewels in the locker   and  went for shopping. When  she  back to  home, she shocked to see that the house door  was broken ,the things inside the house were in a mess  and the jewels were  missing .It was clear attempt by outsiders for money . The wife disturbed with mixed feeling  of loss and guilty of not keeping the jewels safe despite his husband’s advise . Also, she worried about his husband ‘s reaction to her negligence. The  husband returned back to home. While everyone was expecting the furious reaction, he gently touched his wife and said: “ Good thing in bad time,you were not inside the house when rob took place, you are safe,i can earn whatever we lost, nothing to worry “. He demonstrated empathy and maintain his cool temperament in a situation where he could not do anything. At that moment, he  did what was required for his wife.. Where did he learn this art of looking the life differently?

If everyone can look at life with this kind of perspective, there would be less problems in the relationship. This kind of maturity is difficult to attain, but possible with awareness of self and situation.

Conquering self

“It is not the mountain we conquer, it is ourselves”- Sir Edmund Hillary

          Sir Edmund Hillary was New Zeeland based mountain climber. From childhood, he was interested in adventures, climbed several mountains. He desired to climb mountain Everest, as it was the highest mountain in the world with steep height 29000 feet. During 1950’s, he had  undertaken to climb    and broke due to several causes. Even though it was perceived as bold effort, he regarded himself as a loser. He looked up at Mount Everest and screamed “I will come again and conquer you because, as a mountain you cannot grow. But as a human, I can “

         Eventually, in 1953, he scaled up the Everest and achieved the fame as the first person to climb mountain Everest and many followed thereafter. He expressed his achievement as “It is not the mountain we conquer, it is ourselves. “ How true it all is.

         When we come across obstacles, failure, disappointments in any of our endeavors in business or in personal life, the immediate inclination is to break up or get into frustrations. The real success is in managing negative emotions and coming up from failures. There may be a chance to work around the failures by  repeating the attempts as time, effort, process, the environment and energy are very different from earlier efforts.

Actual achievement is not on the external demonstration; it is about conquering our internal concerns, doubts, negative emotions, and frustrations.

         Conquer your internal dilemma in any endeavors and you attract good things in life!

Emotional Setback

“If you so choose, even the unexpected setbacks can bring new and positive possibilities. If you so choose, you can find value and fulfillment in every circumstance. -Ralph Marston

          A life changing events at any age affects us in many ways. Many people get upset  and take a long time to recover. Few people who are strong willed  and able to console themselves, they even become stronger  than ever before. Sometimes emotional setbacks bring  new hope and possibilities.

       For example, no one would forget the tsunami 2004 and its effect  on the east coast areas of south India. One of the victims of the tsunami  is Parameswaran, an engineer at ONGC  and his wife Choodamani. The tsunami turned their family upside down as it killed their three children and seven relatives. The couple  broke down and  even  thought of committing suicide. But something sparked their thought process and  they realized that there must be greater  cause for which they were alive.  They began to provide  shelter and food   for the children  who lost their parents in the tsunami  and  eventually  started a trust Nambikkai (meaning HOPE). Today (after 10 years), they look after  37 children and they found the purpose of their life. 

Key insights from the example:

a) Accept the setbacks, the flow of life  as such, as we may not know the purpose behind it..

b) In any adversity, there may be some positiveness..

c) Sometimes emotional setbacks turn into new possibilities as we do not know the big picture of life!!

Make your resolutions work

“Desire, burning desire, is basic to achieving anything beyond the ordinary.”Joseph Wirthlin

         Most of us have the habit of setting goals  on the new year's eve. One of the survey says that only 8 %  of the people follow through the actions and finally achieve the goal. Why new year resolution or  even generally goal setting  could not be carried forward? One of the  reasons could be the resolutions or goals are mere wish and this alone will not bring the result. The goal lacks “ burning desire”, that mean  compulsion or a strong need to achieve the goal.

         There are two approaches through  which we can have  a burning desire. One is thinking  how the goal will bring pleasure or happiness to you if you achieve the goal. The second is thinking  the pain you will have or continue to have if you are not achieving the goal. This will drive you to take necessary actions.

         For example, you are setting  a goal to improve your communication skill or relationship quality  significantly this year. You intensely realize that  if you improve the communication skill or relationship quality, you can win any battles in life. Also realize that if you are not improving the skills, you cannot even be successful in job  interviews and lifelong you will have struggles.Associate this pleasure and pain with your goal of improving the skill and  this will drive you to take all actions to achieve the  goal.

         Today's action is to associate the burning desire to your goal and start taking action. You will attract Good things in your Life!.

Being generous-an attitude towards happiness

“Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you will not have to hunt for happiness.”--William Gladstone

          One of the way of being happy is to be always in generous mindset. By definition, generous can be understood as “freely giving or sharing money, time, knowledge or any valuable resources of yours to others”.

          Being in generous mindset brings not only happiness to self; it improves the quality of relationship with others and to the world. In today’s liberalized economy, most of us are leading a better life than our parents, even then, the mind is filled with POVERTY mentality only. Due to this mindset, life is looked upon with  insecure and fearful. In a family, the split happens between blood relationship over family assets  is mainly due to lack of abundance mentality or lack of generous attitude.

          But by nature, more you give yourself to others, you get more energy  or resources to take care of yourself. With  generous attitude, life will be perceived as opportunities. When does  one behave as  generous? Only when he feels  that he has sufficient  enough  to give it others or  when feels that he has the capability to acquire more when required. This abundance feeling brings generous attitude.

          You can experiment this yourself. For example, if you use to give  Rs x  as tips to waiter  at restaurants, next time you experiment  by giving Rs 2X;  experience the feeling you are undergoing  and look the reality of wealth erosion fear. Similarly  experiment  by spending  2X time with your family members than usual; experience the feeling you are undergoing and look the reality of work productivity fear.

          Be generous in giving your resources to others and you will attract good things in life!

Chinese Bamboo Tree

“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”-Napoleon Hill 

        Have you heard about the Chinese bamboo tree ?. This is different from other trees  as it does not grow in the usual fashion.. While most of the trees start growing steadily over a period of time, this Chinese bamboo tree does not even  break through the ground for the first four years.. Then on the fifth year, this tree starts to grow at an amazing growth rate.. It is said that within four to five weeks time, it even grows to 90 feet height. Actually, during the first four years, growth is not visible externally, but the tree has internally grown and making the roots strong.

       This nature’s creation reflects about our life. Sometimes, our life works   this way. You may be  working  hard  for your business growth  or professional growth or improving a relationship  for  weeks, months or even years and you may not even see  much significant progress. All of a sudden, you realize a significant transformation or growth in your business results and quality of relationship.Here the key point  is your patience to go through the process or faith on the positive outcome or perseverance  in your effort makes you realize the result.

       Any new initiative or effort  in business or even people development or relationship building takes time.. All it requires patience and faith in the outcome..

      Be patience in all your endeavors, keep making your effort and  you attract the good things in life!!

Your most valuable Gift to Your Child – Develop Self Esteem

         “If you don't see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.”- Zig Ziglar

           As a parent, most of us dedicate our lives to creating wealth, providing education and comfort life of our Child. Those are all important, but the most valuable gift is to ensure our child is brought up with high self esteem till he becomes an adult. The adult who is brought up with high self esteem will achieve big success in life and happy compared to an adult with Low self esteem. Because self esteem helps to foster better relationship with others when the child becomes an adult.

         Even though education, friends, teachers are influencing the child‘s self esteem, as a parent, we can do our part to inculcate self esteem  by following simple  practices  on day to day interactions.

Do not criticize for failures:

              Failure is also part of life. When a child fails  in any action, let  us not criticize the mistake instead appreciate the effort.

Appreciate good behaviors 

            Frequently let us remind their’s good qualities and appreciate.It will reinforce confidence level.

Do not compare with others 

            Let us never compare our child against their friends. It will suppress natural talent.

Involve in decision making 

           For small domestic related issues, ask their opinion. It will make them feel important.

Make responsible for small tasks 

           Let us give them small tasks at home and ensure they are completed. It makes them feel responsible.

           Let us bring up our next generation with high self esteem and they will do wonders in life!

It is time for reflection

“Dates that come around every year help us measure progress in our lives. One annual event, New Year's Day, is a time of reflection and resolution.”—Joseph Wirthlin

                As you are aware that personal growth begins within through self-awareness and realization.This awareness and realization happen through various forms  like reading books, observing others, discourses, learning  from others  etc..But the most effective way of becoming  aware of self is through reflection of self.

           Self-reflection will bring enormous awareness of about yourselves.The more you do self introspection, better you are aware of yourself.But, in reality, it is very difficult for most of  us  to spend time for doing self-analysis. For those people, one of the right  time  is this new year beginning as it psychologically provides refresh mindset.

           This is the time, you can spend time for yourselves, think about the last year progress on family relationship, business growth, health, financial aspects and personal spiritual growth aspects etc. It is time to reflect what went right and what could have been done better, what can be done in the new year  on all aspects of life..

          The reflection of self will bring enormous insight about yourself and you attract good things in life…