How to Handle Negative People: 6 Strategies to Protect Your Peace

0:00Hey, it's your friend Mel. And today, you and I are talking about how to be a force for good. So get ready for a fun and energizing episode of the Mel Rob. Robbins podcast.

0:16Oh, I am so excited for today. I'm Mel Robbins. I'm a New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's leading experts on change and motivation and habits. And today, I am bringing it because we've got an important topic. I even put on a blazer and now I'm starting to overheat. And so I'm gonna get comfortable. You can hear me taking my blazer off because We're not going to be serious, but we are talking about a serious issue. Today, we are talking about how you can protect yourself from other people's bad moods, how you deal with annoying coworkers. And boy, oh boy, do we have a juicy question at the end of this from Celeste about gossip.

1:01And I'm so excited because, you know, we all have stories about dealing with people who are energy suckers. And I am bringing some stories today. But I want to make sure that you leave with some tools. And so one, you're going to learn how to put up an energetic force field. Two, we're going to talk about strategies for how you protect yourself from other people's baloney. And three, I'm going to teach you how to keep yourself in a positive mood. Because that means no matter what's going on around you, you can protect your own energy, even when people are testing your patience or trying to suck your energy dry.

1:36So let's jump right in with a question from a listener named Veronica. Hi, Mel. It's Veronica. In the workplace, and I'm sure in other spaces too, I find that there are some people who, whether they are conscious of it or not, project their panic and anger in emails and communications, which more often than not, turns my fine day into panic and anger as well. They are people who kind of bring the house down with them. How can you hear what they are saying and not be emotionally affected by it? Thank you. So Veronica, that example of the emails where you can hear the edge in somebody's voice and you're just like, why are you doing verbal diarrhea at me right now through this email?

2:22Because you would not speak to me this way. And I have this story. So I was in Los Angeles last week and we were checking in at the front desk. And this woman comes huffing and puffing from the elevators. OK, and she's she's doing that kind of walk where people are really hustling and shuffling on the floor and their elbows are really pointy, like they're trying to pump their arms to make them walk even faster and with more authority. And she had this high pony and it was swinging in the air and she had a really fancy piece of luggage she was dragging and a duffel bag. And then there was this woman behind her kind of huffing and puffing behind her, too.

2:57And they walk right up next to us at the front desk and she kind of slams her hands on the table as Chris and I are in the middle of talking to the woman who's checking us in. Now, keep in mind, the woman who's checking us in, it's probably 9.15 at night in Los Angeles. She looks like she's probably 24. And I assume, given that I have a 24-year-old and a 22-year-old daughter, that she is probably a recent college grad who has majored in hospitality. And now she is in a two-year program where she is working in a hotel in a city she doesn't live in. And she's got that kind of big blazer on that doesn't fit quite right.

3:43And you can tell that she's exhausted. And so I got this huffy, puffy, annoying woman next to me who is clearly entitled. And she's angry. What is she angry about? Oh, well, the doors to her balcony. they don't close all the way. I didn't even know there were balconies on the rooms in this hotel. I mean, I'm not in that kind of room. So she starts like venting at this woman, venting at this 24 year old woman in a hospitality program who does not have the authority to do anything, who is clearly exhausted and who, by the way, is not responsible for the door to your balcony not working. And so why are you vomiting on this poor gal?

4:32And you could see the life force just drain out of this woman who was standing at the front desk. And she apologized. She said she would get the manager who wasn't in and would be in in the morning. And then the woman huffed and she puffed. Well, what are you going to do about it now? I can't stand people like this. There is no reason not to be kind to other people. There is no reason not to ask for help in a polite manner. because the people that you're asking for help from almost never are responsible for the thing that's not working. And the person that's emailing you at work, who's all frustrated because of the Q4 numbers and the boo-boo-boo-boo-boo and the client this and the do-do-do-do-do, like you're not responsible for the stuff that's stressing them out.

5:33And so here's what I did in that moment because a couple things happened in that story. Number one, that woman's bitchy behavior and entitlement, it's like contagious. And when somebody's yelling at you, whether it's an email or you're separated by the front desk at the hotel that you're working at, it still gets all over you. I think about the visual almost like if you've ever walked your dog and they jump into like muddy water or they roll in the mud or heaven forbid you're walking on the beach and there's a big, nasty, rotting fish on the beach and your dog runs right up to it before you can get to the dog.

6:14And now your dog is rolling all in it and it's like, and then they run over to you. And what does a wet, dirty dog always do when that dog gets up to you? They shake. And when they shake, all of that negative, nasty, muddy fish, blah, blah, blah, blah, it just hits you. And when somebody is in a positive or a nasty mood, it's like a muddy dog shaking. And that energy gets all over you. And so it's critical in these moments that you protect your energy. And for me, I normally speak up when I see this kind of thing because normally I have really great energy. and I'm not going to let somebody get away with that.

6:55But the truth is I was really tired. I had just flown across country and we were in town to do something that was weighing on my mind and I just didn't want to get into a fight with somebody who clearly had an ax to grind with absolutely anybody. And I'm not going to change this person anyway. And so what I do in those moments when I start seeing that muddy dog shake or the high ponytail start flapping her mouth and being rude is number one, I take a deep breath. That's it. I just take a deep breath.

7:35And there's a breath technique that you can use called 4-7-8. I don't remember who came up with this. We'll put it in the show notes. But you breathe in for four seconds. Hold it for seven. then out for eight.

7:59And I read somewhere that the eight part is the most important because when you breathe out for longer than you breathed in, it sends a signal to your nervous system that it's okay to relax. And the four, seven, eight breathing technique will start the relaxation response in your body. And so if you get that all cap text from a friend or you get that really rude email from a colleague or you're standing somewhere in public and some jerk is annihilating the person and you just don't have the energy to go, hey, you know, you don't have to be rude about it. do the four seven eight breathing technique to signal the relaxation response in your body to protect your energy i have a second tactic that i love oh my gosh i love this here's the visual i use this all the time in fact i just used this in a different situation last night.

9:10I call it the snow globe. So have you ever had a snow globe as a kid? You know, it's this glass ball and in it is usually some sort of scene. So imagine a holiday tree, some reindeer, something like that. Or you could think about Cinderella's Palace at Disney. They probably have snow globes with Cinderella's Palace at Disney, right? What happens when you pick up a snow globe and you shake it. All of that crap in it starts flying around. You know what that crap is? It's like that wet dog mud. Think about a snow globe the next time you are around anybody who gives you attitude. Because when you picture the person like the chick with the high ponytail trapped in her own little snow globe, and there she is bitching and barking about something and spewing her negative energy.

10:04If you picture her having her tantrum in a snow globe, let me out of here. And all of that sparkly stuff is what gets shaken up and all the negative energy. If you visualize her inside the snow globe, you can laugh at her and it doesn't get on you. This is something I use all the time. In fact, I just used this a few days ago and I'll tell you how right after the

10:37Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins and we're talking about ways to protect yourself from negative energy. And I just shared one of my favorite strategies, the snow globe strategy. I use it all the time because it is so simple, it's effective, and you can pull it out the moment you need it. In fact, I used it just a few days ago. Here's what happened. I was at a coffee shop, again, at another airport. And we were standing in line and we ordered coffee and they were super, super busy. And it was taking a long time. We had 20 minutes before the flight was going to leave. And Chris was getting testy with me because he's the kind of person, my husband, that we have the opposite travel languages.

11:19My travel language is be the last person on the plane. Get to the gate as late as possible without missing the plane. Spend as little time in the airport as possible. Chris, on the other hand, he basically likes to stroll through an airport. He likes to sit at the gate for a while and get comfortable and read his book and enjoy his coffee. He loves getting there early. And so we have the exact opposite travel language. He has agreed to stand in this long line with me to get a cup of coffee. He's starting to get agitated, not quite snow globe agitated, but you know, you can tell he's getting nervous and his coffee comes out.

12:00And so I say, why don't you take it and go and hold the plane for me? I'll be right there. So he leaves and now it's taking a minute and another minute and another minute. And I start to realize, holy cow, I'm going to miss this plane. And so I go to the counter and I say to the woman who's, they are really busy. I mean, you can tell she's stressed. And I just lean forward and say, hey, is the drink for Mel about to be done? Because otherwise I'm going to just have to, you know, say, give it to somebody. And she, ah, like she had a tantrum. I'm doing the best of my hand. See, when somebody throws a tantrum, here's what I know.

12:36What I know is they're having trouble tolerating all the negative emotion that they're feeling. This woman behind the counter is feeling a ton of pressure. She's behind. She's frustrated. I'm sure other people have been rude to her. And my question to her, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. She just couldn't handle the negativity and the stress anymore in her body. And so she had a tantrum. She exploded at me. Whatever. She's allowed to have a tantrum. It's a stressful job. I get it. And because I can picture her inside her own little snow globe, having her own little tantrum, all the sparkly stuff flying all around her, that's her negative energy.

13:15It stays inside the snow globe. I said, no problem. Totally understand. And I left and went to my plane. And you know what? I didn't let it bother me. And that's the beauty of these strategies. See, there are always going to be people and situations in life that are triggering. The world is full of jerks and people who cannot tolerate their own emotional experience. And when you do the four, seven, eight breath to trigger a relaxation response inside yourself, you take control. When you visualize the colleagues sitting behind their desk and they're stomping on their keyboard, having their own little tantrum in their little cubicle, inside their little snow globe, you protect yourself.

14:01And that way, these emotional vampires that drain you and your energy, they don't impact you. And this is so important because when you look at the research around human connection, our brains are programmed to connect with other human beings. That's how we're wired. It's part of our biology, our physiology. We want meaningful bonds because when we do that, it not only feels good, but your brain releases oxytocin, which is a wonderful feel-good chemical in your brain. It rewards that kind of thing. And if we feel disconnected, we feel unsafe. In fact, if we're around somebody else who's stressful or weird or hostile like the chick with the ponytail, do you know what happens?

14:53Your brain releases yet another chemical, the stress hormone. And so you immediately not only sense that something's off with this person, but you also have this chemical physiological response. I think that's why we often, you know, label people's behavior as toxic or icky or gross, because it feels that way to you, just like a dog that is shaking and gets their mud all over you. And I think we know common sense wise that people's moods and energy are contagious, but there's a new study by scientists at Oxford and Birmingham universities that show that bad moods, they're not only contagious, they're more infectious than good moods.

15:36And on top of all of this, your brain has something called mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are amazing because what they do is in nanoseconds, they process and register any human being's facial expression, body language, tone of voice. It's absolutely unbelievable. Your mirror neurons make you start to mirror the same emotions as the people around you. This is why when you're watching a movie and that sort of sappy music comes on or somebody in the movie starts to cry. Your mirror neurons are what are triggering you to start welling up too. They also work for the positive. If you look at somebody eye to eye and you hold eye contact and you flash a huge toothy smile, it takes less than five seconds for the mirror neurons and the person who you are looking at and smiling at to kick in.

16:38And that person will not be able to help themselves but smile back. And this is important for you to know because it works both for the good, you can catch really good energy, and when it comes to bad energy, that's easier to catch. Now I want to go a layer deeper and dig into how to deal with this specifically at work with a question from a listener named Kay. Hi Mel, it's Kay. I want to become empowered to improve my work situation. So I want to ask you about unhealthy work environments and the side effects they manifest. Where should I start making changes? Well, one thing I want to acknowledge really quickly is that you do have the power to change this because positive energy is also very contagious.

17:25And if you protect your energy, you can take proactive steps to call people out on their behavior. That's what we're going to talk about now. And I want to bring a study into this because there was a new study by the Workforce Institute at UKG that found that 69 % of people say that their managers have the greatest impact on their mental health, that their managers had the same level of impact on their mental health as their partner or spouse at home. Now, this was more than the impact that their doctor or therapist had on their mental health. And this was a huge study. They looked at 3 ,400 people across 10 countries.

18:13And so you are right. Negative people at work, particularly a manager, really bad for your mental health because you can't fix them. So in these situations at work, you have a couple choices. Number one, we've already talked about the snow globe. This one works like a charm because it allows you to visualize the tantrum and it makes you feel a little bit better than the person, honestly. So that's one thing. A second thing that you can do is you are allowed to call people out on this behavior. In the first question that we got, you heard the example of somebody getting a really rude email. There's nothing wrong with picking up the phone or walking down the hall and saying, hey, is something going on with you?

19:03Because I don't know if you know how the tone of this email comes across, but it doesn't feel good. And most people, when you call them out on that and you kind of start off with, hey, is something going on with you? Because this isn't like you and the tone is really demeaning. And is there something you want to tell me or are you unaware that this is like how you're speaking to people? That is the way that you can call somebody out. And obviously, if you have somebody that is engaging in this consistently, document it. Go to HR because you shouldn't be under a barrage of that kind of abusive language or demeaning language or unnecessary pressure.

19:50That's not why you're in your job. And so you can go to HR, but you know, you can walk down the hall, you can pick up the phone and you can say, I'm more than happy to help you with these things, but only if you speak to me in a respectful manner. And this is not respectful. And I'm sorry you're having a bad day, but don't take it out on me. My son actually used to say that to me and so did my kids. They would literally go, I don't know what's going on at work, but don't take it out on me. I don't work with you. And so call the person out. And if you're not comfortable, start documenting it and then go to HR and get some help with it.

20:24Final thing I want you to know. For me, there are two types of jerks out there. And we've already started to kind of unpack this, but I really want to highlight this for you. There are the jerks that are just entitled, like I believe the woman at the hotel front desk was, that she just thinks she's better than everybody else. and they treat people like crap because they've always treated people like crap. You know, people like this, they're rude to waiters. They're short with other people. They're full of themselves. They have a tone to their voice. They're super pompous. We hate these kinds of people.

20:56The kind of people that are rude for no reason other than because this is how they are. And this is how they treat people. And I hate people like this. And you know what else I can't stand? I can't stand the fact that they tend to bully us, right? And we just give in. and it just perpetuates this. People get a better room because they're mean to the person at the front desk. The world should not work like this. It drains our energy. That's why we give in. And so there's that type of jerk. And then there's the second type, which is more like the person in that coffee shop that I was explaining, where they're just under pressure and they can't tolerate the discomfort that they feel.

21:38I call these kind of people emotionally immature. And I use the word immature because they throw tantrums. They're like a child who is so frustrated, so they throw themselves on the floor. And they're immature because they do not have a mature or responsible way of tolerating emotional stress. If you've just got somebody who's like grumpy or kind of standoffish, or you work in a place like an investment bank or a law firm or someplace that's crazy competitive, you want to know how you flip this? I'll tell you how right after the break.

22:31Welcome back. Today, we're talking all about protecting yourself from negative energy and how you can flip the energy when you're dealing with somebody who's grumpy or competitive in the workplace. So here's how you deal with a curmudgeon. You shower curmudgeons with compliments. That's what you do. And I have firsthand experience with this, and boy, does it work like a charm. It is just awesome. And the reason why this works is the law of reciprocity. The law of reciprocity is very simple. If you do something nice for me, I feel like I should do something nice for you. And this works with curmudgeons.

23:11I swear to goodness it does. Have you ever walked into a mall and somebody opens that first set of doors for you? What do you do with the second set? You don't even think about it. You basically trip over your own feet to try to get to that door so you can hold it open for them. You do nice for me, I'll do nice for you. And this works with curmudgeons at work. And I'm going to tell you a story. So a number of years ago, I had the honor of being recruited by CNN to become an on-air legal analyst. What does that mean? That means that when Anderson Cooper is hosting his show and he goes, all right, well, let's go to some commentary.

23:59And then there's a person sitting basically in a closet in the box on the screen. That was me. I was not a reporter. I was a paid legal commentator that was giving analysis on all the big cases. And it was a fascinating job. But I noticed something. I noticed that people were not that friendly. So you would be down at CNN in New York City in the Time Warner Center, which is where they were when I worked for them. And you're standing off the side of the set and you're going to go on to one of the shows and you're standing there with other legal commentators. These are your colleagues and everybody's on their phones and nobody's talking to each other.

24:37And if they're talking to each other, it's sort of like, oh, so, you know, are you on you're on New Day this morning? OK, and then are you going to be on Ashley's show? You can be. Oh, you're on. Oh, well, I'm on Don. Oh, well, I'm, and sort of like this like one-upping thing as you're talking about how busy you're going to be today and what shows have called you. It was this weird thing. I didn't like that. And so this is what I decided to do. I decided that I was just going to proactively reach out and compliment my fellow legal analysts. So Paul Callen is one of them. I call him the professor.

25:13He's one of my favorite human beings in the world. So here's how I would do it. We'd be walking off set and I'd be like, Paul, that was genius what you just said. And Paul's not a curmudgeon. But even he likes, oh, thank you. And when I would research a particular case that was breaking, you know what I did? I would forward the cases and the interesting articles I was finding to the other four paid commenters. Because there were only five of us on all of CNN that were on the payroll to do this. And we all had other jobs. This is like something we were all doing on the side. And so I started emailing them.

25:48And then when I would see them on television, I'd be sitting home with my kids and one of them would be on because I wasn't called in to do it. I would tweet at them and tag them. There's my friend Paul killing it. Great analysis. Can I tell you it took less than five days to melt the ice? And the five of us became such incredible friends. Joey Jackson, I miss you so much. Danny, I miss you. Paul Callen, I miss you. We had a blast. We always had each other's backs. We became great friends so much so that two years later, a woman reached out to me from CNN. She was responsible for building out the program for analysts.

26:33And she wanted to meet with me because she said everybody inside of CNN talked about the camaraderie and the vibe between the five of us who didn't even live in the same city. And she wanted to know how we did it. And I said, we just started cheering for one another. And so if you can stomach complimenting somebody on their work or on their nails, or don't be creepy about it, but if you can find something, hey, you did a really good job with that client, even a curmudgeon takes notice. And over time, you know what they do? The law of reciprocity kicks back in and they start complimenting you back.

27:15You see, at the end of the day, whether people grew up with parents who were jerks, and so they model behavior of being jerks and being pompous and better than other people, or they're just emotionally immature and they can't tolerate their own emotions, and that's why they throw tantrums. At the end of the day, everybody wants the same thing. We just want to know that we matter. We want to know that we're doing a good job. We want to know that somebody appreciates that we're there. We want somebody to understand that we're doing our best and we're stressed out and we're trying to get the coffee out as fast as we can.

27:57We want somebody to have a little bit of compassion for the fact that I'm 24 and I'm wearing a big blazer and I'm going to do my best to try to help you and I'd want to help you even more if you weren't such an asshole to me right now. That's what we want. A little bit of respect, a little bit of kindness. And when you start to dial that up and you give it out with radical generosity, it comes back to you in incredible ways. And so that's what you can do. You can certainly call it out. And when you call it out, not in an antagonizing way, but hey, what's going on with you? Because you're not normally like this.