How Do You Deal with A Difficult Situation?

When someone is faced with a difficult situation, this presents us with a critical moment.

If today someone begins to harass you, to get in your face, appearing immensely agitated and perhaps looking for a fight, how will you react?

Some of us will be inclined to get back in their face and yell or argue. Others will try to calm that person down and avoid making it worse. Others may avoid the situation, perhaps backing up and apologizing, and look to remove themselves from the environment. Some people, of course, may react with fear and feel frozen, especially if the person that begins to harass you is much bigger.

If you have never experienced such a thing where an angry person confronted you and they yelled and desired to intimidate you, then that is fantastic. But unfortunately, this is something that can and does happen among colleagues, spouses, friends, and even strangers.

I have learned that when we face any difficult situation, we must deal with the immediate situation. If your mind is somewhere else, or if you panic, you can easily make things worse rather than help to improve the situation.

Something we should consider in these difficult situations is this:

Will my response make things worse?

Most of us are not used to thinking of that because if you get into an ordinary argument with a friend or spouse, you already know based on prior squabbles what the results will probably be. Perhaps you will get angry, yell, then calm down and talk it over to try to find a solution. Since most life situations have some predictability, you may assume that they will unfold similarly to your past situations have unfolded when you are in a new situation.

However, the reality may be that you do not actually know your colleagues that well, or that you do not truly know some people as well as you think you do, or that you cannot possibly predict how a stranger will react to something you do.

When we realize we are in a new and difficult situation, we should have the proper mindset to figure out the situation efficiently. The right mindset may proceed like this:

1. Pause – take a breath or stop what you are doing for a moment to avoid having to react immediately to what is happening. For example, you do not need to feel angry, scared, or defensive – you can see with clear eyes what is happening because you do not need to immediately react (unless you are actually attacked, then you would need to react).

2. Ask yourself if you are about to do something that will only make things worse. Are you just being provoked into getting angry because this individual would like to fight you? Does it truly matter who is right or wrong right now when you are both just getting more agitated? This point is crucially important.

   I have observed that when people find themselves in a difficult situation, they often take actions that make the problem worse somehow or that present them with many new problems to deal with. Basically, when you find yourself in difficult situations, you can easily become your own biggest enemy. Do your best to avoid having this happen.

3. Can you do something to deescalate this situation? Is it an option to apologize or listen and try to understand rather than to react or contradict every statement the other person makes? If the other person is highly irritated and on the verge of wanting to fight, this may not be the best time to discuss things rationally. Perhaps that can wait for another time.

4. If attempts to deescalate are not working, can you try to get someone else (e.g., a colleague or friend) to help you gain control of the situation?

5. If you cannot deescalate nor get someone to help you, can you leave the situation?

6. If you cannot immediately leave the situation, can you defend yourself or present a distraction that will help you escape?

7. If you cannot defend yourself or prepare for an escape, can you brainstorm any further options? Prepare to think outside the box. (This is an important step because every situation will be different, and you may need to find unique solutions for your particular situation.)

Although we have explored this scenario where someone approaches you that is irritated, angry, and in your face, I would also like us to consider that there are actually infinite possible difficult scenarios that we can find ourselves in. Fortunately, the general mindset illustrated above can work for anything. I will rephrase it in a more general way that could be applied to virtually any scenario:

1. Pause - take a breath or stop what you are doing for a moment to avoid having to react immediately to what is happening

2. Ask yourself if you are about to do something that will only make things worse.

3. Can you do something to improve the situation?

4. If attempts to improve the situation are not working, can you get help?

5. If you cannot get help, is there a way to leave the situation?

6. If you cannot leave the situation immediately, can you manage or control it while you wait for help, or can you look for a way to leave the situation?

7. If not, can you brainstorm any further options? Prepare to think outside the box.

The next time you face a difficult situation, try to adopt the above mindset or series of thought processes out. Most of us do not have a general plan in place for dealing with difficult situations. But the reality is that we will all face key situations in our lives sooner or later.

Are you mentally ready for it?

The Winner’s Mindset - 8 Tools for Success

Introduction

Quite often, I see that people are not equipped with the right mindset to win, succeed, or resolve the problems in their lives. Of course, there is no magic solution. What I am going to present here may take a lifetime to master, but it will provide a pathway toward accomplishing more than many of us even would have thought possible.

Consider the importance of using all these tools together. If you only use a few of them, you will be limiting your potential.

1. Growth Mindset

Dr. Carol Dweck has studied the growth mindset – a mindset where you believe that you can grow in your abilities. This is important because if you attempt to do something and fail if you have a growth mindset, you will believe that you can always work on it and improve. If you have a fixed mindset, you will believe that your skills and abilities are fixed, and there is not much you can do to get any better.

With the growth mindset, you believe that the more you work and push yourself, the better you can get. And this belief turns out to be true. Likewise, for those who believe that they are limited, or those with the fixed mindset, their beliefs also turn out to be true for themselves because they limit their own potential with this mindset.

2. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

The growth mindset may actually be a form of the self-fulfilling prophecy. Note that people who think they can grow and improve can do so. Those who do not think they can grow and improve are unable to do so. This may be an oversimplification – but at least those who think they can are much more effective in accomplishing their goals.

With the self-fulfilling prophecy, whatever you expect to happen is quite likely to actually happen. There are limits to this, of course, but this concept is one of my favorite because it shows us just how powerful the human mind is.

As an example, if I take two forty-year-old men who look to be in average shape, and I ask them to do 40 push-ups for me, who is more likely to accomplish this? The one who doubts his own abilities, or the one who is sure he can do this? If they both had the same height, weight, health status, and muscular build, the one who was more sure of himself would have a better chance to accomplish the goal.

In my life, I have found that when I believe something is going to happen, I don’t spend any energy doubting or thinking about failure. That means I use more energy to accomplish what I want to do rather than on negative emotional energy. Therefore, I am much more likely to succeed at what I believed I would succeed at.

Often your belief will create reality. Be careful about what you expect, as it will probably happen. In this sense, it will pay off to be optimistic and expect things to go well.

3. Affirmations and Visualization

A“belief” with nothing to back it up can feel empty and meaningless for many of us. If I tell you to believe in yourself and believe that you will succeed, this sounds like empty motivational speak. It doesn’t feel real, and it seems unlikely to actually make a difference in your life. For that reason, you may wish to try creating affirmations and visualizations to make your beliefs more real in your mind.

Affirmations and visualization are tools you can use to create stronger positive beliefs in your mind, making it more likely that they will come true. This is an application of the self-fulfilling prophecy, where you train your mind to expect something to happen through affirmations. Affirmations are statements you make and say to yourself in effort to make them feel true and real. Once you have your affirmation, you can visualize that thing happening in vivid detail so that your mind feels it already has happened. Then there is nothing left to do but live out that which has already happened in your mind. Ultimately, your mind will feel comfort in simply living out that path which you have already created. This will feel like destiny, in a way. To do anything else outside of what your affirmation/visualizations indicate would feel like going against nature.

As an example of an affirmation, you may write down a statement such as:

I will live my life today without allowing negative emotions to guide my actions. Instead, I will be guided only by positive emotions, reason, and intuition.

With visualization, you would visualize yourself living out the above affirmation. You may envision someone verbally attacking you. But rather than allowing negative emotional energy to overcome you, you would respond calmly by suggesting that you continue this conversation when the other person has calmed down, or you could state that you have more important things you need to do at the moment. They should write their grievances in an email to you so that you can respond at a later time. If the person continues to be verbally aggressive, you may calmly walk away and say, “Have a nice day!” Notice that with this affirmation, the goal is not to extinguish negative emotion but rather to stop such emotions from guiding our everyday actions.

4. Ongoing Learning

Part of the way you win and do better than others is to learn more than them. In many fields, you must develop your expertise to perform well. Even if your field is not intellectual or informational, you could be surprised at the importance of continuing to learn. For example, someone who plays sports at a high level would want to study their opponents’ weaknesses to search for ways to gain a competitive advantage.

Our world changes and adapts rapidly, and so to keep up with this, you must continue to learn regularly. The prior principles focused on your beliefs and mindset. But if you have a positive mindset and you have not learned anything, then you may be an overconfident amateur.

5. Work Harder and Smarter

Working hard is a continuation of ongoing learning. You will need to learn and work harder than most people if you truly want to win. Generally, this can mean working more hours or training more rigorously. Then when you reach a level where everyone is working quite hard, you will need to work smarter to gain an advantage.

Working smarter could mean finding any critical weaknesses in your abilities and working to develop those. It could also mean finding your greatest strengths and fine-tuning those to become even better at what you do. Working smarter can also mean prioritizing what is truly important for you to work on. All work is not equal. You could work very hard and make very little progress if the work was not important or instrumental.

Working smarter can also mean finding the right leader, colleagues, or organization to work in. If you are highly skilled but in the wrong environment that can not properly use your skills, you will not accomplish much.

6. Make Your Own Luck

To increase your chances of winning or success, you should aim to make your own luck. This can mean increasing your chances for something good to happen. The way you approach this will be different depending on your field.

For example, if you have written something that you think everyone needs to read, you may pay to translate it into several languages. Even if no one in your native language is impacted by what you wrote, perhaps you will find people who truly believe in your ideas with another language.

Also, you may practice sending out an email to an author, political figure, or owner of a company regularly, depending on your goals. Be quick and to the point. Don’t ask for anything big such as for a job. You may start by recognizing their good work and how you are interested in what they do. Then you may ask if they have any suggestions to help you with a particular problem. Or perhaps they can suggest a resource that may help you. If you feel it is appropriate and you are especially interested in learning more from someone, you may offer to buy that person lunch so that you can have a quick conversation with them.

The general idea is that you will want to put yourself in positions where you will more likely accomplish your goals, whatever those goals may be. I recently heard that in high school, Bill Gates and his friends hacked into his high school’s computer databases so that he would get placed in classes with all females. The idea was that this would help increase Bill Gates’ chances of getting a date. Surely he must have had better chances of getting a date when he was surrounded by females.

To increase your luck and opportunities, ask yourself questions such as:

• Where can I position myself to increase the chances of meeting my goals? (This may even involve moving.)

• Who can I network with or contact to increase the chances of meeting my goals?

• What can I do to make more people notice my skills and talents (e.g., starting a blog, podcast, or volunteering to work for free for someone who is known for being the best in their field)

Notice that to increase your luck, you do not need particular goals. The general goal is to put yourself in situations or circumstances that will make it more likely for good things to happen. Of course, you probably should have some specific goals that you are working toward in your life at the same time.

7. Creative Problem-Solving

When you practice generating many solutions to your problems, you can get very good at this. If this becomes a daily practice for you, you will find that eventually, you can effortlessly come up with a variety of potential solutions to virtually any problem.

This creative skill is one of the greatest assets you can have because so many people are not used to thinking this way. In school and our work lives, many of us get used to searching for one solution to our problems. When that one solution does not work, we become frustrated and need to call the boss or Google it.

If we practice our creative idea generation abilities instead, we could become better and better. In time, we would feel confident that we could solve new problems on our own without always needing extra assistance.

As I already indicated, the world we live in is rapidly changing and demands that we adapt to it. Those who can look for creative solutions will be in the best position to succeed when difficult circumstances arise.

To practice this skill, the next time someone makes you aware of a problem, try to come up with five possible solutions to solve it. Also, of course, if you come across your own life problem, do the same thing. Do not settle for the first or even second obvious solution that you come. Work harder to train your mind to be more creative.

8. React Positively to the Overwhelming Likelihood of Failure

I often see that as soon as a problem becomes difficult, people are ready to give up on it. They will say that this is too difficult. Or, if the situation involves a game or competition, as soon as one team starts to lose, they will become discouraged and feel that there is no way to win.

However, the person with a true success mindset will never stop looking for possibilities to win or accomplish what they truly want to do. A problem that can develop in our mindsets is that when you look for reasons to give up, the next time you face a difficult problem, it becomes easier to give up. You can actually train yourself to become a failure. If you choose to give up every time things get difficult, you will train yourself to give up more easily and more quickly with each new problem you face. Eventually, just the slightest indication of trouble will cause you to throw in the towel. You will fail before you truly even get started.

Rather, we must train ourselves in the opposite direction. The harder things get, the more stubborn you should become, searching for pathways to accomplish your goals. Obviously, there is an actual point where it makes sense to give up, but it depends on the circumstance. If you do not look forward to succeeding at something, then you should probably give up. But more often than not, we give up too early on our goals or dreams.

My favorite way to train this mindset for not giving up is with games. It could be chess, Monopoly, or even video games. It doesn’t matter. I’ve learned that it is fun to win, but I also enjoy having fun when the odds are stacked against me. Even when you think all hope is lost, if you keep pushing forward and going for the win, sometimes you will get it. And it is gratifying to get that win when it seemed impossible. Games are a perfect vehicle to train your mindset because there is no real excuse to give up – you are usually not risking losing money or wasting anyone’s time.

When you can do so, practice continuing to go for the win even when others think it is a lost cause.

As an example, recently, I was playing a speed chess game. The other player was higher rated than me, and he outplayed me completely. Eventually, I got to the point where I realized I couldn't win the game if I played normally. I was down a lot of material (or points).

My solution was to make the worst possible move in the game.

The move was so bad only someone new to the game could make it. (My opponent and I were both in around the top 5% of chess players). I left my Queen vulnerable, which is the most valuable piece. In his mind, he never would have expected me to make this worst possible move, and so he didn’t realize how bad it truly was. He proceeded in the game, making a “normal” move. Then I stole his queen. I made the worst move possible in the game, but a side effect of this was that it would allow me to take his queen for free. Then I proceeded to win a game that should have been impossible for me to win at that point.

Notice that I used some creative thinking here - I don’t think most people consider making the worst possible move as a viable option when trying to win. Giving up assures you that you will lose, so sometimes, in difficult circumstances, it makes sense to try something “so crazy, it just might work.”

Train your mindset in small everyday ways like this. No game is too trivial. No situation is too minor. Take whatever opportunity you can to teach yourself to have a winner’s mindset. Keep going for that win even when the odds seem stacked against you. Trust me when I say that those wins feel the best.

If you liked this post, I also recommend reading my post on Oliver James’, as he is currently on the path to success despite dealing with functional illiteracy and mental health issues. It’s a truly inspirational story.

How Do You Respond to Challenging Questions?

Children can sometimes question endlessly, can’t they? They have been known to ask what something is, and then when you explain it, they may ask “Why?” over and over to try to learn more deeply.

As adults, we have often reached a point where we stopped questioning. This is unfortunate as I can see that this habit of not questioning has taken a toll on society.

On a routine basis in my interactions with experts, I will ask a question that could be challenging – for example, it could be unique or considering things from a different perspective. Usually, I feel that they should know the answer because I am asking an expert in their field. I feel that I am just asking them to think through problems in a slightly more complex way, rather than just giving me the solution they may find in their work manual or a Google search.

Often when I ask these questions, I am met with some of the following responses:

“I’m really not sure – maybe the reason is...”

When I hear this, usually they make something up, where often it is obvious to me that their answer is not correct. The problem with this approach is that they are more concerned with appearing to be helpful rather than actually being helpful. Sometimes, I also have the impression that they are worried about looking foolish or unknowledgeable – they want to hide the fact that they do not know certain things. With their approach, they are not learning anything new from my questions.

“I have no idea. That isn’t what we focus on here.”

Often, they will tell me this in an annoyed tone, as if I shouldn’t be asking questions. The problem here is that I have asked a question somehow related to their field. Yet, they are drawing clear lines as to what they will not think about. With that approach, their knowledge will forever remain limited as they refuse to learn new things. I understand that some things are outside of a person’s professional domain, but I still think people should be more curious about how different domains are related. Divisions between fields are often just imaginary lines or boundaries that we draw. In reality, everything is interrelated.

 “What’s important actually is that….”

After saying this, they focus on something else, more concerned with selling a product or guiding me to do what they want me to do rather than answer my question. In this case, they do not place value on questions. They view questions as a distraction from meeting their goal. This is a mistake because if they actually learned how to answer some questions, they could better help their clients and better meet their goals. In this case, they seem to be refusing to acknowledge that anything they don’t already know could be important.

The above responses are the most frequent ones that I get. The ones below are less common.

 “That is a good question. I don’t know the answer, but I will have to look it up and get back to you.”

Although they probably have good intentions, they usually never get back to me. Usually, this is someone who is interested in learning or in helping their clients. Still, they are very focused on meeting their immediate goals, and they will probably not invest time in looking up answers unless they think it is necessary. Although this is better than some of the above options, they are still failing to learn from new questions that they receive. And most of the time, they have still not actually answered the question I presented.

“I will look this up now,” or “I will ask my supervisor and get back to you in a moment.”

Usually, with this approach, they can give me a helpful response. Typically, even if they do not know the answer, they can help me understand why they do not know. Perhaps they will explain that there are several possible reasons that something has happened. Or they may need to run extra tests or perform extra services to answer some of my questions. The person who responds with the above phrase (in bold) will place value on new questions and seek to answer them. They will understand that questions present an opportunity for learning and growth. This response is fairly rare, and I am glad to see that some people (or the organizations they belong to) value answering potentially challenging questions.

“The answer is:” (and they proceed to give a good and reasonable answer.)

This is the part that saddens me. When I ask unique, thoughtful, or detailed questions, I don’t expect to receive good answers anymore. This is because of my experiences in having seen that most of the time, I will not receive useful answers to my questions. Usually, I am met with one of the top 4 phrases mentioned above – which results in me getting no answers.

The person who knows the answer to my question right away usually has a lot of experience is highly talented, or places a lot of value on learning new things and trying to answer new questions effectively. Someone who answers my question with reasonable solutions has probably thought through this question already. They have been asked similar questions in the past, but rather than avoid the question, they learned what they needed to answer it appropriately.

With this type of person, sometimes I will continue to ask more questions. My curiosity is endless, and I am fascinated by the opportunity to learn more about topics from people who are truly experts in their fields. Often, someone who can answer one challenging question is also quite capable of handling other challenging questions. After a few questions, I will often get to a point where we find a limit to their knowledge. But this type of person will always think about my questions more deeply and seek the answers for their own benefit.

It is frustrating to see that many people on a daily basis are on autopilot. They are going through certain motions. They do not expect any challenges in their day, nor do they want them. Any new question is assumed to be pointless or a distraction. For many of us, we see questions as child’s play. We think of the child who annoyed us with endless questions, or the person who makes a fool of himself asking questions with obvious answers, or we think of the teacher who scolded us for “wasting” classroom time with questions. Questions have a bad reputation for many of us, but we need to focus on bringing them back into our lives.

In my life, questions are the primary thinking tool I use for everything. The trick isn’t just to ask questions but to ask good ones. How do you ask good questions? By developing the habit of questioning so that you learn to ask better and better questions. What is a good question? The good question is that which helps you to accomplish your goals.

I want to be challenged with new, interesting, and even difficult questions. Actually, I think we should all want this.  

Do you really want to think the same thoughts every day, do the same things every day, and not be pushed into becoming anything better every day?

Is that what we are truly after? This seems quite meaningless to me, as I hope it does to you as well.

Today, I ask you to challenge me, to push me further.

Ask me any question, even if you are sure I will not know the answer.

You can do so in the comments section below.

I am the type of person who cannot let it go. When I am asked something, it will roll around in my mind until I find a solution. If I go to sleep concerned about something, I wake up with the solution in my mind.

I cannot guarantee that I will know the answer to your question, but I will try to figure it out and give you a helpful response.

In your life, seek to ask more questions and encourage people to ask you more questions. When you are asked new and challenging questions, search deeply for the answers. You will become more and more confident every day in your ability to solve problems if you do this.

Eventually, you may reach a point where you can craft the right questions for yourself, and you can seek your own answers to these questions.

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If you could use some example questions to help get you into the questioning mindset, consider reading the following (written with co-author Dave Edelstein):

Question Yourself: 365 Questions to Explore Your Inner Self & Reveal Your True Nature

“I am Better Than You”

The thought that “I am Better than You” may be one of the most harmful thoughts ever produced in all of society, yet it is often seen as quite benign or even as a good and healthy thought to have. For many people, they may view it as their right to think this thought every day.

I will admit that I have been guilty of thinking this thought at times. I am well educated, and I think education is highly important. So it is tempting if I meet someone who did not go to college to think that I am better.

Yet, in reality, I just happened to be born into a family where a college education was highly valued. Since I was 8 years old, I knew that I would go to college – it was never a question. Another 8-year-old in my neighborhood perhaps had never even heard the word “college,” as his parents may not have found higher education to be especially important. Another 8-year-old in a less fortunate country was perhaps working full time to help his family survive, and the idea of college would be completely foreign to him.

There is not a good reason to convince ourselves that we are better than others. Often, we just had different circumstances and different opportunities.

A humbling thought I sometimes have is that if I had been born exactly in someone else’s position, meaning to another mother and father, in the same context as someone else, then I would be that other person. We like to focus on our self-control and our ability to do what we want, but if you were born in an environment without proper nutrition, education, healthy mindsets, good role models, and so on, then why would you be the 1 in a million statistic that performs well in life?

Contrariwise, if everything in your life were moving you toward love, wisdom, and success, with good parents and good school systems, and positive nurturing family and friends, what type of person could fail to live a fruitful life in this case? If everything were aligning you toward being a good and successful person, then to fail horribly in life would perhaps make you quite the unusual statistic.

With this type of thinking, I see myself in every individual I cross paths with. I see that if things had been different, I would be them, or they would be me. In a sense, we’re all the same individual because if I had been born and raised in precisely your circumstances, I would be you, and if you had been born and raised precisely in my circumstances, you would be me. This is a powerful idea that has impacted my life.

There is nothing to feel too proud about. I should not feel that I am better than you. Or if you are in better circumstances than me, you should not feel that you are better than me, either.

This thinking helps me sympathize more and relate to people who are not in as fortunate circumstances. I think many of us fear interacting with someone who has less than us because I think deep down, we all know that we could just as easily have been in their shoes. But rather than empathize, we often choose to distance ourselves more and more from them. It’s easier to pretend they do not exist or to blame them for their shortcomings.

From a group or nation level, “I am better than you” is probably a persistent thought from people in many nations throughout the world. Nations tend to want their people to feel proud of their country – e.g., patriotism. Yet, there is a point where feeling that we are better than others can result in prejudices, racism, harassment, violence, etc.

When we think we are better, the mind easily shifts into a dark place, where we start to think it is okay to take control over someone else’s life, to use them for our purposes, to objectify or dehumanize them, or in the worst of cases, as a justification to exterminate people.

We should aim to support our thoughts with evidence. We shouldn’t have a thought and feel it is true just because it makes us feel good. And, we should aspire not to feel good just because a thought strokes our ego. We should aspire to get our self-esteem from good thoughts and good actions, not from belittling and looking down on others.

All I ask is that we take more caution with this widespread thought that we probably all have had at some point or another: “I am better than you.”