Difficult People

On the radio show I Iisten to every morning, they have a “Brain Strain”. It’s a question that listeners call in to guess the answer to. Recently they had a question for single men about why they left the last girl they were dating. The resounding answer, over 50%, said “too much baggage.”
 

It’s that time of year again – the time when I get the “reviews” from my students on how I have performed as their teacher. Reading the comments is a fascinating experience for me. One student says, “This teacher is the best one in this school,” while another one says, “This teacher has no personality and is difficult to understand.” How can the best teacher in the school have no personality? Some students claim this is a life-changing course, and others claim it is boring and useless.
 

 It feels good, doesn’t it? When someone says to you, “You were right.” We like to have our expertise, our opinion, and our perspective validated. Sometimes we feel almost prescient – “I just knew he was going to be a creep!” Or “I thought something funny was going on at work; now I know the business is in trouble.”
 

This week I read about a cute new book that’s out for children. It’s called “I’m Like You, You’re Like Me”, by Cindy Gainer. I’ve not read it, but apparently it’s to help children understand and value the ways in which they are the same and also different. Reading the title brought me around to the work I do in behavioral and values (motivators). The truth is that we aren’t like one another, at least from the outward appearances of what we convey and how we talk about what is important to us.

 One of the women I coach at one of my client firms was telling me a story earlier this month about another individual in her office. She was sharing some “odd” behaviors that this person was displaying, and then explaining to me her view on what was going on with that individual. The person was lashing out at people in meetings and generally being disruptive and difficult. My client told me that it was because the person was fed up with the craziness in their work environment and was finally losing their cool because of how dysfunctional it all was.
 

 One of the most upbeat songs I remember from my youth was “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing,” sung by Leo Sayer. The tune was peppy, the words were great, and I used to love to sing along at the top of my lungs as it played on the radio. The idea that someone in my life could make me feel so thrilled and exuberant was, as a child, always such a hopeful idea.