How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 149

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Can you recall the last time you had to deal with a negative or
difficult person? Or the last time someone said something with
the intention of hurting you? How did you handle it? What was
the result? What can you do in the future to get through these
situations with peace and grace?
No matter where we go, we will face people who are negative,
people who oppose our ideas, people who piss us off or people
who simply do not like us. There are 6.4 billion people out there
and conflict is a fact of life. This fact isn’t the cause of conflict but
it is the trigger to our emotions and our emotions are what drive
us back to our most basic survival instinct; react and attack back
to defend ourselves.
In these instinctual moments, we may lose track of our higher
selves and become the human animal with an urge to protect
ourselves when attacked. This too is natural. However, we are
the only animal blessed with intelligence and having the ability
to control our responses. So how can we do that?
I regularly get asked “How do you deal with the negative
comments about your articles? They are brutal. I don’t think I
could handle them.” My answer is simple, “I don’t let it bother me
to begin with.” It wasn’t always this simple, and took me some
time before overcoming this natural urgency to protect myself
and attack back.

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