Mark Goulston - Talking to crazy : how to deal with the irrational and impossible people in your life

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TALKING TO CRAZY

talking to crazy

How to Deal with the
Irrational and Impossible
People in Your Life

MARK GOULSTON

To the loving memory of Warren Bennis, whose greatest gift to me was making it clear within five minutes of meeting him that I could trust him to never hurt mea quality I do my best to admire and emulate.

Writing a book is a crazy-making process, and I want to thank the people who kept me sane while I put my ideas on the page. Im especially grateful to my editor at AMACOM, Ellen Kadin, who juggles the dual roles of good friend and tough critic with immense skill and grace. I also appreciate the contributions of Erika Spelman and Louis Greenstein, who helped me shape a rough work into the book youre reading. And many, many thanks to Bill Gladstone and Margot Maley Hutchison at Waterside Productions, both agents extraordinaire.

Many other people deserve a thank-you for supporting me throughout the writing process and contributing ideas and suggestions that made the book better. They include Irene Majuk, Rosemary Carlough, Susan Zeidman, Nancy Roberson, Alison Blake, Kama Timbrell, Keith Ferrazzi, Seth Godin, Colonel Tom Tyrrell, General Marty Steele, Xavier Amador, Pete Linnett, Mimi Grant, Bob Kelley, David Feinberg, Jim Mazzo, Bill Liao, David Wurth, Ken Rutkowski, and Jason Dean.

Special thanks to Sandra Vogel, CLO of the Goulston Group, and Kingsley Smith, president of the Goulston Group. They inspired much of the content in this book, and they continue to inspire me every day.

Above all, I thank my wife, Lisa; my children Billy, Emily, and Lauren; and my brothers, Noel Goulston and Robert Goulston, for their constant love and supportthrough all the sane and the crazy.

To reach irrational people, you need to know why theyre irrational.

Whats more, you need to know why arguing or reasoning with crazy doesnt work, while leaning into the crazy does.

After Decades as a psychiatrist, I know crazyand that includes some serious crazy.

How serious? One of my patients stalked Britney Spears, and another jumped off a fifth-story balcony because he thought he could fly. Still another called me from a jail in the Dominican Republic, saying he was there to start a revolution.

In addition, Ive worked with 80-pound anorexics, strung-out heroin addicts, and hallucinating schizophrenics. Ive taught hostage negotiators how to get homicidal criminals to surrender. And these days, I show CEOs and managers how to deal with out-of-control people who threaten their companies bottom lines.

In short, crazy and I are pretty much on a first-name basis. However, a while ago, something occurred to me: I expect to deal with crazy every day, because its my job. But I suddenly realized how often you have to face down crazynot the jump-off-a-balcony, stalk-Britney-Spears kind of crazy, but what I call everyday crazy.

My aha moment occurred when I went to a meeting for estate planners who needed advice about helping families in crisis. I expected the event to be a little dry, but instead, I was mesmerized. I found out that just like me, these people have to talk to crazy every day. In fact, nearly every issue they discussed involved clients acting completely nuts.

These lawyers had no trouble writing wills and creating trusts. But what they didnt know, and desperately needed to know, was what to do when they cant stop their clients from acting crazy.

Thats when it dawned on me that everyoneincluding youhas this problem. Im betting that nearly every day, you deal with at least one irrational person. Maybe its a boss who wants the impossible. Maybe its a demanding parent or a hostile teen or a manipulative coworker or a neighbor whos always in your face. Maybe its a tearful lover or an unreasonable client.

And thats what this book is all about: talking to crazy.

Now, a word about the word crazy: I know it sounds inflammatory and totally un-PC. But when I use this word, I dont mean mentally ill (although mental illnesswhich Ill address separately in certainly causes crazy behavior). And I dont use the word crazy to stigmatize one group of people either. Thats because all of us, at some points in time, are crazy.

What I mean by crazy is irrational. There are four ways in which the people you deal with can be irrational:

They cant see the world clearly.

They say or think things that make no sense.

They make decisions and take actions that arent in their best interest.

They become downright impossible when you try to guide them back to the side of reason.

In this book, Ill share my best tricks for breaking through to people who are irrational in these ways. Ive used these techniques to do everything from settling office feuds to rescuing marriages, and you can use them just as effectively to handle the irrational people in your life.

The tools Ill give you in this book take some courage to implement. Thats because you arent going to make crazy go away by ignoring it, trying to reason with it, or arguing with it. Instead, youre going to lean into the crazy.

Years ago, someone gave me the following advice about how to react if a dog sinks its teeth into your hand: If you give in to your instincts and try to pull your hand out, the dog will stick its teeth in deeper. But if you counterintuitively push your hand deeper into the dogs mouth, the dog will release it. Why? Because, in order to do what it wants to do nextswallowit has to release its jaw. And thats when you can pull your hand out.

This exact same rule applies to talking to irrational people. If you treat them as if theyre nuts and youre not, theyll bite down deeper on their crazy thinking. But if you lean into their crazy, youll radically change the dynamic. Heres an example.

After a horrific dayone of the most frustrating in my lifeI was wrapped up in my woes while driving home from work on autopilot. Unfortunately, thats incredibly dangerous in California rush-hour traffic.

Just as I was entering the San Fernando Valley going south on Sepulveda Boulevard, I accidentally cut off a large man and his wife in a pickup truck. He honked angrily at me, and I waved to gesture I was sorry. Then, a half a mile lateridioticallyI proceeded to do it again.

At that point, the man caught up to me and pulled his truck to an abrupt stop in front of me, forcing me off the road. As I stopped, I could see the mans wife gesturing frantically to him not to get out of the truck.

But he didnt listen to her, and in a few moments, he did get outall six and a half feet and 300 pounds of him. He stormed over to my car and banged wildly on my side window, screaming obscenities at me.