Deidre Combs - Worst Enemy, Best Teacher: How to Survive and Thrive with Opponents, Competitors, and the People Who Drive You Crazy

Praise for Worst Enemy, Best Teacher

For years I have heard (and taught) that our greatest challenges are our greatest teachers. Finally, Worst Enemy, Best Teacher is the book that gives one the skills to make that happen. With specific stories and tools, Dr. Combs provides the reader with a unique resource for turning the worst that can come our way into possibly the best.

Deidre Combs offers readers specific, easy-to-use strategies for becoming effective leaders in the face of conflict and confrontation. She challenges us to recognize opponents and transform our relationships with them, allowing us to move toward a greater sense of wholeness, equilibrium, and peace.

Written with remarkable insight and candor, Worst Enemy, Best Teacher offers us the courage and the tools to confront some of lifes most daunting challenges. Combs deals frankly and optimistically with the issues that send most of us running for cover, convincingly making the argument that it is precisely those people who drive us crazy, our most intractable opponents, who will be our best teachers if we are prepared to engage them. I finished this book inspired and ready to take up the battle with optimism and a heart open to change.

With diverse references, inspiring real-life examples, and practical, easy-to-employ exercises, Deidre Combss powerful book Worst Enemy, Best Teacher offers a wealth of important resources for living in our pluralistic world. With compassion and insight, Combs invites her readers to see interpersonal conflicts as opportunities holding great gifts of wisdom and understanding a philosophy that will bring healing not only to individual lives but to our world as well.

HOW TO SURVIVE AND THRIVE WITH
OPPONENTS, COMPETITORS, AND
THE PEOPLE WHO DRIVE YOU CRAZY

DEIDRE COMBS

Copyright 2005 by Deidre Combs

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Except for friends and family, names, characteristics, and story details have been changed to protect the identities of those who inspired this book.

The Guest House, The Chickpea to the Cook, and Theres Nothing Ahead, by Rumi from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, copyright by Coleman Barks, reprinted with kind permission of the translator.

Interior design by Tona Pearce Myers

First printing, November 2005
ISBN-10: 1-57731-482-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-57731-482-x

Printed in Canada on 100 percent postconsumer waste recycled paper

A proud member of the Green Press Initiative

Distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Cameron, Cody, and Senya

One must think like a hero
to behave like a merely decent human being.

MAY SARTON

T heres no getting around it: there will be people in our lives who simply drive us crazy. Call them what you will enemy, competitor, or in-law they can get under your skin and make your life miserable. They stick in your craw, as my Western neighbors like to say.

There is the everything about you makes me see red category: the coworker who is always sucking up to the boss, the politician whose policies you find repugnant, the parent who turns Thanksgiving dinners into episodes of the political TV talk show Hardball, or the celebrity-turned-activist on the morning news program.

And then there is the if only you didnt have that one annoying quirk group: the assistant who snaps his gum, the sibling who says inappropriate things in movie theatres, the friend who requires daily pep talks, or the spouse who plays lets talk about disturbing items from todays news just before you go to sleep (a real-life example).

For the most part, we try to grin and bear it and work around these people and their annoyances as a part of life, much like disease, aging, and embarrassing skin blemishes. But that doesnt stop us from periodically pausing to stroke our chins, gaze upward, and fantasize: Hmmmm, wouldnt life be grand if Joe just wasnt a part of it?

But unlike that ratty couch from your college days, or that plaid skirt that has fallen out of fashion, you cant just donate these people to Goodwill. Nor is simply ignoring them an option: his smiling mug frequents the front page of the daily newspaper, or her office is just across the hall. Sure, you might be able to fire or run away from a particular pesky troublemaker, but another just like him will inevitably take his place. Most bothersome of all, sometimes these folks are our relatives! With each visit or phone call, they will remind us of the misery they can bestow and the control they can have on our lives.

In order to have an enemy, one must be somebody. One must be a force before he can be resisted by another force. A malicious enemy is better than a clumsy friend.

ANNE SOPHIE SWETCHINE

Short of living as a hermit, is there a way to deal with these crazy-makers? Is there a way to not only cope with these folks but view them as a means to self-knowledge and improvement? To not just tolerate them but learn to actually appreciate them?

The answer is yes! And you are about to learn how. We do not have to like our foes, and we may justly fear them, but we can improve through their presence. Enemies can bring new insight and opportunities. We can respond smartly to our adversaries and move beyond the annoyances and threats. Conflict can actually expand our awareness and clarify our priorities so that we emerge from its chaos wiser, better prepared, and in a much happier state of mind.