Owen (13:36)
It was in Psychology Today. Leanne Ten Brink was talking about this. And I suppose it adds something in the sense of, what if you can't just cut someone out of your life? I do think that's probably the best solution in almost all cases, and I try to do that myself. I probably have more flexibility than some people, though, because, like, I work for this big consulting firm, and I've worked for big consulting firms most of my career, and that's where you kind of float around between teams. You don't have to stay with the same people all the time. So you can have different bosses and different co workers every time and every project. And so I, I definitely have had a policy of if someone's toxic, I'm just not going to work with them again. And I'll make sure that that happens. And, you know, but if you're the low person on the totem pole, you might be not be able to do that. If you're in a different type of job where you have a toxic boss, you know, you might just be stuck for a while, at least until you get another job. But what the three pieces of advice that, that this person offers is, number one, to set clear boundaries that they mentioned. People who are normal might not need clear boundaries because they kind of know not to violate, you know, your boundaries, but someone with these toxic traits might not, might need more clear and explicit boundaries. And it's basically advising you to kind of train the person, like, say, these are my boundaries. You can't do this and then enforce it. And if you can set those boundaries and enforce them, you might have a little bit better time dealing with that person. As long as they explicitly know, you know, this is a, this is a violation and you call them out on it every time. I think that's probably consistent somewhat with what a lot of companies do with sexual harassment and things like that, where if someone's telling an offensive joke or whatever it might be, if you just say that's inappropriate, that offended me, you know, I don't. Please stop doing that. Then. Oftentimes that can make that person change. Right? Where they might not think they did anything wrong, but if they know that they're offending you, and if they know that it's going to be called out every time, then they're much less likely to do it. The second thing is to try to empathize with them. And you know, he's referring to, like dark personality traits, which might sound weird, but I think it's just trying to see things from their perspective. So, like, if you try to appeal someone unfairness or kindness or something, that might work with most people, it might not work with a narcissist, for example. And. But if you can start a conversation, this is an example they give with your egotistical uncle about talking about your shared alma mater, you might reduce the chances that he'll lash out at you later when you suggest that he's failing to fulfill his family duties or something. So if you can find something in common with the person, you might be able to sort of get on their good side. And again, I'm not saying this is perfect. It might not work with everybody, but at least it might work. And then the third thing is it says to communicate carefully. And more specifically, they're saying you might want to just move all your communications to things like text or email so that you actually have documented what you said and what was agreed to. Because if someone is this toxic person, one form of that might be that they lie or they gaslight or they say, you know, no, I never said that or I never did that. And if you keep things in text or email, then you have a record of it and you can just put that right back in front of them and say, here it is, here's the record, you know, and it's indisputable. So anyway, those are just some additional techniques. And I would certainly say if you can cut the person out of your life, that's probably the best solution. If you can't, then these are some
