Yesterday I presented “Coping with Difficult People” at a conference. I was thinking about how many times I am requested to present this topic. It tends to be a very popular and everyone always has tons of stories to share about difficult people.

They say that only 2% - 3% of the population is difficult but they take up about 50% of our time. That is a lot of our time wasted on negative people. Why waste so much time dealing with difficult people?

Isn’t true we allow people to treat us the way they do? What if we took a stance and stopped allowing difficult people in our lives or work situations. Would we send a message to difficult people that being negative or difficult doesn’t get you results?

I even thought that maybe I need to stop teaching Coping with Difficult People and teach a course called, “You are a Difficult Person”. Maybe then I would be able to help people see how their behaviors affect others and most of all, themselves.