How Do I Deal With A Bully

How Do I Deal With A Bully

Bully: a blustering, quarrelsome, overbearing person who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people.

When we think of a bully we usually think of a young person bullying another young person. However, there are more adult people that use bullying tactics to get what they want - can you spell Donald Trump.

Bullies usually become the way they are by being bullied by their family members. Bullies are usually insecure, unhappy, don't feel good enough and believe the only way they can get what they want is by blustering, being quarrelsome, intimidating and badgering others.

Bullies come in all flavors. Husbands, wives, friends, family members, bosses and leaders (not true leaders - read my book "A True Leader Has Presence"). I would guess that everyone reading my blogs has dealt with a bully in their life.

The fact is we should feel sad, sympathetic and empathetic toward the unhappy bully. The more we hate the bully the more the bully will bully. The more we fear the bully the more the bully will bully. The more we cave in to the bully the more the bully will bully.

The most hurtful tactic the bully uses is finding your weakness and pressing your weakness buttons. The bully pushes you to respond which you usually do by defending yourself. Many times we just give in to the bully because we can't handle the stress. The more we resist the more the bully will insist. 

Losing an argument is a crushing blow to the insecure bully. Not getting what the bully wants makes them angry, frustrated and sometimes physically aggressive. Sooo, How Do We Deal With A Bully?

The obvious answer is to get rid of your buttons (see my blog called “Buttons, Buttons Please Stop Pressing My Buttons”). That’s very hard to do, but should you ever reach that level of self-love, you will never be bullied again. If you haven't reached that stage, I have the following suggestions:

Don't Respond

Don't React

Never Defend

When getting bullied hold back a response, take a deep breath and think before you react and never, yes never, defend yourself. If you become defensive the bully will become more defensive. If you try to defend yourself the bully will find every way possible to disavow your defense. No good will come from this ta to ta with the bully.

During that deep breath you have to consider the consequences of not giving the bully what he wants. Feeling badly, feeling stressed, feeling insecure, feeling overpowered are NOT consequences you should consider.

Knowing (not feeling) you WILL get fired might be a good reason to give the bully what he wants. However, even then, it's your decision to give in which enables you to feel you're in power of the situation. Ninety percent of the time the consequences are so minor you need to find better language to respond to the bully. Here are some of my suggestions:

"I understand where you're coming from"

"Let me think about that"

"I'm sorry you feel that way"

"Can I get back to you on that"

"Can we stay friends and just agree to disagree"

"I understand your point and will seriously take that into consideration"

You might say: "it's just not worth dealing with a bully." I say: 

"You'll never be happy, you'll never feel good enough and you'll never get rid of the bully if you don't deal with him."