14. Dealing with Difficult People

0:00 Hey, what’s up everybody? It’s Jennie, the LDS mission coach and you are listening to the LDS mission Podcast, episode number 14, dealing with difficult people. I’m Jennie, the LDS mission coach, and whether you are preparing to serve a mission, currently serving a returned missionary or a missionary mama like me, I created this podcast just for you. Are you searching for epic confidence? Ready to love yourself and to learn the how of doing hard things? Then let’s go. I will help you step powerfully into your potential and never question your purpose. Again. It’s time to embrace yourself. Embrace your mission, embrace your life, and embrace what’s next. Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast today. Thanks for hanging out. And joining me. I was on a strategy session this morning, I talked to a girl who had been out on the mission for a pretty short amount of time and now is home and is hoping to go back out. For those of you who don’t know what a strategy session is, I actually offer a free strategy session to anybody that wants to hop on and talk to me, the way that I can help you the best is for you to hop on that call. And we can apply all of these tools to what specifically going on for you. I have worked with many missionaries who have come home for a short time and they go back out, I have worked with many, many missionaries who are returned missionaries. And maybe they’ve been home for quite some time. I’ve worked with many missionaries who came home before they kind of wanted to or before they were expecting to and I am here for all of you, I am here to help you. I’m here to help you successfully navigate the mission and all aspects of it. And I’m deeply passionate about helping you guys Thrive out there succeed, create epic, unwavering confidence, no matter what’s going on around you. Now back to this strategy session that I had this morning. What I noticed with her is that she was not feeling super confident about herself because when she got out to the mission, she had a couple companions that she was with that said that she should probably go home. Now imagine this is you as a new missionary, and your companion, or your companions or your zone leader or someone else has some opinions about what they think about you, and what they think about what you’re supposed to be doing there. I’ve also heard this many times with companions who tell other companions that they’re not doing a good enough job, or that their work is not acceptable before God, I’ve heard all kinds of things. But this particular girl heard these words, maybe you shouldn’t be on a mission. And she went into full on confusion about maybe I’m not supposed to be out here, maybe these girls know better than me. And what I want to offer to just telling you the story, and I was able to give her some really good help. Some really good things to think about some ways to really move forward from here. But one thing I want to say is that if you’re thinking about going on a mission, it’s rough out there. And I have a program for preparing missionaries called mental mission prep, where I teach you to hear words like you should probably go home or your service is not acceptable before God. I teach you how to have enough self confidence that that doesn’t affect you.

4:27 I teach you how to have your own back, how to keep your worth intact, regardless of what people say, regardless of how other people behave. And if we can just get more tools out like this to more of you before you leave. It will make your mission experience so much better. You don’t have to but let me tell you it is rough out there. You will run into some difficult people. You will run And to people who have opinions about you, and about the type of missionary that you are, do you want to go out there and be at the mercy of all of these other people and their thoughts? Or do you want to be in control of your thoughts, and your emotions. This is why I created mental mission prep. It’s an incredible program. If you’re interested at all, in showing up powerfully as the missionary you want to be, I highly encourage you to sign up for a strategy session with me. And I can give you some tools to just get you started on the right path to being an empowered missionary that can serve the people with love and compassion and not get caught up in all of the mental drama. Super powerful, I highly recommend it. So you can go to my website, Jennie dildine.com, you can go to my Instagram page at Jennie dot, the LDS mission coach and sign up for that free strategy session, and I will start getting you some mental tools for the mission, mental mission prep, it’s more important than ever. Because what’s true is in our lives, we deal with difficult people. They’re all around us, as I’ve explained in the story already, it can be our companions, it can be our trainer on the mission, it can be if we’re home from the mission and can be a co worker. It can be other students in our classroom, it can be roommates, it can be in the home MTC or zone leaders. I was working with one of my clients last week about some of the other students at her cosmetology school, who can make things really challenging. So here’s where I want to start. If you’ve listened to this podcast at all, and you might have to go back and listen to a few of the episodes. But what I teach here, and what I teach my clients is that the way people behave, when they say words to you, even words like maybe you should go home, or in the instance of my client, these other girls that the cosmetology said, like, maybe you should think twice about eating that. When people say words, those things actually don’t affect us. In between the thing that happens in our lives, and the way that we feel, there’s always a sentence in there. And many times when someone offers us a thought, like maybe you should go home, or maybe you should think twice about eating that, we pick that thought up and make it our own. I have an analogy that I like to use of a baggage claim. So all of the baggage comes out. And when people offer me thoughts that they think about me when that baggage comes by on the baggage claim, and it’s going around and around, I have a choice of whether I pick up that bag, and believe the thought that they’re offering me or if I just leave that bag on the baggage claim and let it keep going around and around and around. I might even notice it that I have that thought but I don’t have to pick it up and make it my thought. We get to choose what we think. And this is really powerful. So many people tell me, it’s just really hard when people say the words that they say, or when people think the way that they do or when people treat me in a way that they treat me. But what’s true is we make it 10 times harder on ourselves with how we choose to think about other people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviors. We actually have our full agency and full ability that when someone says to us, maybe you should go home that we have the ability to say guess what, you’re wrong.

9:27 I don’t believe that thought I think something different. I think I’m gonna be an amazing missionary and you’re allowed to think what you want about me, but you’re just wrong. And when someone gives us a thought like maybe you should think twice before eating that. We have the ability and the agency to think something different like they’ve totally got this wrong. In fact, they’re the ones missing out like hey, you want to try this? It’s delicious. I’m so sorry. You don’t want to eat This, but I’m gonna really enjoy it. See what I mean? We get to think however we want, we don’t have to pick up other people’s suitcases or backs. And in fact, usually when other people offer us thoughts that they think it usually has to do with their baggage usually have to do with their past. So don’t pick them up, unless you like them. Unless you like the thoughts like, you’re gonna be an amazing missionary, I’m so glad that we are both going to cosmetology school at the same time, or whatever it is. Whatever other people’s thoughts are, that you like, go ahead and pick those up. The ones that you don’t like, don’t, what’s true about life, is we’re going to always come up against these difficult people, they’re all around us. And what our brains kind of tell us is, they don’t have a right to say that to me. Our brains tell us that other people don’t have a right to behave in a certain way. In fact, my client just this week, the one that’s in the cosmetology school, she told me, she said, she doesn’t have a right to say those things to me. But last time I checked my friends, we all have the agency to think and say, what ever we want to really even difficult people, they have the right to be difficult if they choose to that’s on them. We don’t have to make it mean anything about us. But they really do have the right. And here’s what’s true. If you believe that your thoughts cause your feelings, and I would like to submit to you that that is true, then their thoughts don’t affect us. Their thoughts really don’t affect us. Until we choose to believe it until we choose to pick up that suitcase. And many times we’re in resistance to other people’s thoughts. Like I was coaching another girl, about her boyfriend. And one of her thoughts was, he just might be annoyed with me. And so our brain likes to do is just like be like, know, for sure he can’t be annoyed with me, he loves me. Right. But if there’s a tiny part of that, that our brain believes might be true that actually I might be a little bit annoying, then that is when it starts to affect us. That is when we start to feel badly. Either we pick up the thought for ourselves, or we believe the thought just even a little tiny bit. Here’s the other thing you need to know about our brains is that they want to make everything about us. They want to make what other people do and how they behave. Our brains want to make it about us. So when someone doesn’t send you a text, what do we automatically do? Or if someone goes to you? What do we automatically do we automatically make it about us? And if our girlfriend dumps us, what do we automatically do our brains like? Oh, well, there must be something wrong with me. But what’s actually true? Is that their thoughts, their behavior, tell us about them about their baggage about what’s going on for them. I see this in the dating seen so much especially right? We go on these dates, and every single nuance of behavior or language or word that people say we make it mean so much about us. If someone I was coaching returned missionary this week, and the girl said to him, Well, I would love to get together again in a group setting. And he made it mean something about him.

14:26 He made it mean, oh, I’m not good enough for her. Instead of making it about her like the reason she said that is because maybe she doesn’t want to commit. Maybe she doesn’t want a boyfriend right now. I mean, who knows all of the reasons why. But just remind your brain when people say things, it’s not about you. It’s about them and their past and their experience and their baggage. Our brains gonna want to look for all those clues on a date like examining every single little innuendo. But what really matters, guys, way more than what other people think about you is what you think about yourself. Go listen to my other podcast episode three parts to a relationship that will totally fill you in on all of that. But what matters is what you really think about yourself. When it comes to dealing with difficult people, and all forms, these people who say stuff, I’d love to give you some strategies for what to do. And what I mean by what to do is a means for more specifically, what to feel. I teach that feelings drive actions are like gas in a car. And so what is the feeling that we want, driving the things that we do? So when someone comes at me, there’s three levels of feeling that I like to strive for. For instance, one time I had someone kind of come at me on Facebook with one of my Facebook ads, I run ads, I have one free thing that you can get where you get a free guide to help your missionary when they come home, I also have a free video series that you can watch if you’re a returned missionary yourself. So I highly recommend that you go check those out. But someone commented on these two things that I really spent a lot of time on hidden, really a lot of like heart and soul on and said, this girl is just out to get your money. So that person was coming at me, accusing me of something. And then of course, my default reaction to that was to be hurt, or frustrated, or annoyed with this difficult person. That was what my brain wanted to do. But instead, I like to see if I can get myself to one of these three levels of feeling. These three levels of feeling will hopefully feel a lot better than hurt, frustration or annoyance. It’ll hopefully feel a lot better than thinking that you’re at the mercy of other people’s thoughts and behaviors. So the first emotion that I try to strive for that’s kind of at the base level is curiosity. The deeper level or the more intense level, the one that feels even better is compassion. And then the third level that I try to get to is love, even with difficult people, and this can be kind of challenging to do sometimes. And I’m not suggesting that. We don’t want to be annoyed with people sometimes we we certainly will. And and that’s totally fine. Know that it’s just caused by your thoughts. But when you’re ready to be done being hurt by someone or being frustrated by someone, again, it’s just your thoughts. But when you’re done feeling hurt, or frustrated or annoyed, you can first try to get to just curiosity. And the sentence I like to say to myself is I wonder what’s going on for them. Instead of making it about me, like my brain automatically wants to do, I instead put it back on them. And this woman who made the comment about my Facebook ad and saying that I was just trying to steal everyone’s money. I just said, Hmm, that’s super interesting. I wonder what’s going on for her. And maybe I don’t even have to understand it. But I just like to open myself up to curiosity because it feels so much better than hurt or frustration or annoyance. I just get curious. I was coaching a girl last week who said that she’d gone into her place of work. And all of the employees were just there on their phones, just hanging out. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, all of the things just hanging out when there was so much work to be done.

19:21 And her first feeling or first reaction was like, What is wrong with them? They should be working. They’re doing this all wrong. And then when she thought they should be working, they’re doing it completely wrong. Then she felt hurt. Then she felt annoyed with them. But instead I invited her to just be curious. I asked her what actually might be going on with those other employees. What actually might be going on here and what we decided is that it kind of made sense that they wanted to be on their phones, that our brains kind of like to be lazy sometimes, and it’s fine. And we just got really curious, maybe it had already been super stressful and busy, and they were just taking a break. So it was just this little baby step going from annoyance to curiosity. So that’s the first level. The second level I like to get to, is compassion. And this isn’t just curiosity, where maybe we don’t understand we’re just curious, even though we don’t get where they’re coming from compassion helps us understand where they’re coming from. It sounds a little bit like, I get it, I have a human brain too. Sometimes I want to veg out on my phone, the sentence that I like to use to get to this second level, this level of compassion, is I put just like me, on the end of every sentence that my brain is offering, it sounds a little bit like this. Okay, my co workers like to take breaks. Just like me. My co workers sometimes make mistakes and takes breaks when they shouldn’t, just like me. Sometimes the people at the cosmetology school, say things that are not nice, I get it, I do this, sometimes, too. They’re just like me. We’re kind of the same, that person and I, they’re just like me, because they have a human brain too. And I do too. When I use this sentence, just like me, it brings compassion for the other person, we move from just being curious, to being compassionate, and possibly even understanding where they’re coming from. The third and final level, that I like to get to, if I can, is unconditional love. And the sentence that I use here, this thought that I like to think is I love you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. See how we go from us not understanding to us maybe understanding where they’re coming from. And then this level is like, we accept people where whoever they are, we even allow people to think whatever they want about us. It doesn’t affect us. It’s not that we don’t care. But because we genuinely don’t want to change people. We love them where they are, we accept their opinions. And we know that they don’t have to be the same as ours. And we understand that their thoughts, create their feelings, my thoughts create my feelings. It sounds a little bit like, I get it, you don’t even have to like me, but I love you, you don’t even have to agree with me, you’re gonna have opinions about what I should be eating, you can have opinions about whether I should be on the mission or not. And if they’re not the same as mine, that’s okay. I still love you. The one little thing I want to give you here is just a little heads up that when we’re feeling frustrated, when we’re feeling annoyed with someone, most of the time, what my clients say is, well, I just want to not care. I just want to feel apathetic, that so and so said what they said or so and so did what they did, whether it’s the co workers or the Companions, or the fellow students in the cosmetology school, they just say, I say, Well, how do you want to feel about this? And they say, I just want to not care. But I would like to offer to you that most of the time, not caring doesn’t work, because what’s true is your brain does care. Your brains always going to care about what other people think. We just have to care more about what we think, than what other people think. Again, the three levels when you’re feeling frustration, annoyance, and you’re dealing with difficult people. Number one, try to get to curiosity with this sentence. I wonder what’s going on for them.

24:21 Second level, compassion. And you can get to compassion by putting the little sentence just like me at the end of whatever your thoughts are about them. And the third is unconditional love. Can you get to unconditional love for someone? And this is a sentence that sounds like I love you. You can think what you want, you can do what you want and I love you. There’s nothing you can do about it. So I want to just wrap up with a little story that I have about my son. My son is a junior in high school right now and a couple of years ago when he was a Out 14, my family and acquire that we belong to have the opportunity to go sing at Carnegie Hall. Isn’t that cool? That’s what I’m going to always use when I play two truths. And a lie, is guess what I sing in Carnegie Hall, that’s actually a truth. Anyway, before our concert, and in the days leading up to our concert, we were walking around, sightseeing, and this was before COVID. And so the streets were very, very crowded. And my son who was 14, growing into his body, trying to figure out life was clumsily kind of walking along and he bumped into a guy. And this guy came at him and started chewing him out, cussing him out, using all manner of foul language, telling my son What a loser he was telling him that he didn’t deserve to be alive, basically. Just basically, really let him have it because Ryan wasn’t aware of his surroundings and bumped into this guy. Now, I kind of found Ryan afterwards, and Ryan came up to me afterwards, I hadn’t really known what happened. And he told me what happened. He told me some of the things that he said, and he looked really discouraged and disappointed. And so I said to him, I said, Ryan, what does that man’s behavior tell us about him? And he said, Well, I don’t know. Maybe it tells us that he doesn’t have a lot of friends. Maybe it tells us that he has a difficult life. Maybe it tells us that he’s down on his luck. Maybe it tells us that he doesn’t have a family that cares about him. And I said, You’re right. We can’t know for sure. But that might be some of the things that his behavior tells us about him. And then I said, Ryan, what does that man’s behavior tell us about you? And he said, I don’t know, Mom, what does it tells us about me? And I said, Ryan, that man’s behavior tells us nothing about you. Absolutely nothing. That man’s behavior tells us about him. And that is it. Listen, friends, your brains are gonna want to make everything about you. They really do. But it’s not about you ever. When people think, feel or behave the way that they do, it’s about them. And sometimes you’re gonna bump into some difficult people because a lot of people in this world and especially right now have baggage. But we don’t have to pick up that baggage ourselves. We can try as much as we can. To get to different levels of feeling that feel better than feeling hurt, or frustrated or annoyed. We can strive to get to curiosity. We can strive to get to compassion. And when we’re ready, we can even strive for that unconditional love. It really does feel so amazing. So if you want to go ahead and give it a try, I hope that these three levels curiosity, to compassion, to unconditional love really help you. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. If you want to learn more about what I do, you can go to Jennie dildine.com. Or just come hang out with me on Instagram at Jennie dot the LDS mission coach and Jennie is spelled with an IE. Remember, no matter which part of the mission experience that you’re involved in, just know that Jennie the LDS mission coach is thinking about you every single day