People Can't Drive You Crazy Without Your Consent

A woman stood up in a Tongue Fu!? workshop and said, "What can you do if someone is getting on your last nerve? I have to work with someone who complains about everything. She finds fault with everything and everyone... but herself. It's driving me crazy."

I suggested, "You might want to adapt Eleanor Roosevelt's quote, 'No one can make us feel inferior without our consent' into "People can't drive us crazy without our consent."

A gruff construction boss stood up in the back of the ballroom and said, “Sam, you’re pulling a Pollyanna on this one. I deal with some jerks.?Do you mean if someone’s YELLING in my face, that’s not supposed to get under my skin and make me mad?”

A woman stood up and said, “I agree with Sam because I’ve learned this lesson.?I’m a surgical nurse.?I work with a neurosurgeon who’s the most verbally abusive individual I’ve ever met.?He’s a brilliant physician, but he has terrible people skills.?

Last year, I was a fraction of a second late handing him an instrument in surgery. He berated me in front of my peers and humiliated me by calling me every name in the book. It took all my professionalism just to continue with the operation and not walk out.

On the drive home, I couldn't stop thinking about what he had done.?When I got home, I sat down at the dinner table and told my husband what happened. I said, ‘That doctor drives me crazy. He makes me so MAD.’

My husband had heard this before.?He said, ‘Judy, what time is it?’

I looked at my watch, ‘7 o’clock.’

‘What time did this happen?’

‘9 o’clock this morning.’

He said, ‘Judy, is it the doctor who’s driving you crazy? Is he really the one who's making you mad?’?

And with that, he got up and left the table.

I sat there and thought about it.?I realized, it wasn’t the doctor who was making me mad. The doctor wasn’t even in the room. I was the one who had given him a ride home in my car.?I was the one who had set him a place at my dinner table.

I decided that evening that never again was that doctor welcome in my home or in my head.?From then on, I was leaving him at the hospital and never again was I going to give him the power to ruin my personal life, to poison my precious time at home with my family.”

Who do YOU take home with you?

Who do you give a ride to in your car?

Who do you set a place for at your dinner table?

Can you decide, right now, that person is no longer welcome in your home or in your head??

Can you choose to leave that toxic person at work and never again give him or her the power to ruin your personal life, to poison your precious time with friends and family?

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not suggesting you ignore people who mistreat you. The good news is, there are plenty of ways to proactively deal with bullies, complainers and controllers.

It's just that, in the final analysis, we choose who gets under our skin.

As Victor Frankl said in his classic book Man's Search for Meaning, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's?attitude?in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

Even if we're unfortunate enough to deal with a toxic person, we can choose to NOT let them run and ruin our life.

We can choose to focus on all the people we know who are kind and who treat us and others with the respect and civility we all want, need and deserve.

When all is said and done, our quality of life is in our mental hands.

As Jose Ortega y Gasset said, "Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are."

From now on, choose to give your attention to people who elevate you, not denigrate you.

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Sam Horn, CEO of the Tongue Fu! Training Institute, is on a mission to help people treat each other with the respect we all want, need and deserve. Discover why her keynotes receive raves from Intel, Cisco, NASA, Accenture, Capital On; why her?books have?been featured in NY Times and on NPR, and endorsed by Dan Pink, Tony Robbins, John Gray.