As a voice of influence, I’m sure you’ve experienced your fair share of negative people or trolls. They often seem angry for no reason, don’t respond to logic, and only hoping to bring others down.

In this episode, I’m offering an explanation for a reason as to why they seem so irrationally angry and a few ways that you can respond to this situation that will be beneficial to both of you.

Take a listen to the episode below!

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Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast!

Think of a time that somebody was really rude to you, mean, or whatever.  You’re in the moment and somebody is just cutting you down, or perhaps it’s happened online.  A lot of times, people call them trolls.  Perhaps they’re attacking your business or they’re attacking your world view or that sort of thing.

What is your response? How do you handle negativity? What do you do with those kinds of issues that come up?  That’s a question that somebody else’s asked me a few times.  So I wanted to address this on the podcast because I have a very specific point of view on this.

When somebody is really upset and they take it out on you and you just feel like they are being irrational or unreasonable or just ______ mean, maybe they don’t even realize that you’re a human being.

If you’re a business owner or you’re in a position of leadership, which I’m guessing you are of some kind, you’re in some kind of position of leadership, a lot of times people look at leaders as though they are not human.  Almost like a person who is in leadership or who has power of some kind is to be feared, is to be thwarted.  It’s just like they’re the enemy not the helper, not the influencer that you want to be.

You want to be seen as an influencer who’s making a difference and gently _____ helping people to think through your problems so they can come to good solutions, you know, things like this.  But a lot of times, when you’re in a position of leadership, that’s not how you view it. A lot of times people are intimidated by you or just generally feel like it’s not fair that you have what you have.

That’s just really frustrating especially when you worked really hard for it.  When you know the blood, sweat, and tears has gone into the point of you getting to where you are today.  And that’s really hard to deal with somebody who comes to you an acts like that.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I want to just yell right back or get into a debate.  A lot of times this can happen on Twitter or Facebook, you know, people are commenting about something or another and they just start into this Facebook shouting at or this Twitter shouting at.  It’s understandable, I get it.  But at the same time, it’s not particularly effective.

I think it’s really important that we think about what’s effective and what’s not.  I think it’s also really important to realize that there’s so much more going on in people when they are having that kind of reaction to you.

So from this counseling, this ministry background that I have, I’m going to bring that to the table here, this discussion about what to do with the trolls.

So online, it’s interesting but if you engage online in conversation with somebody who is spiteful or who is trying to kind of get at you and they’re upset and they want you upset. To interact on that platform is not a wise option.

There are times when we can invite them into a conversation or talk on the phone especially if it has to do with a business or somebody being really upset with illegitimate concern that maybe they’re not handling it the right way but you really do want to know what you can do to make things better, then I would really encourage you to conversation as soon as you can.

So when you’re online and somebody is attacking you, you do want to address that you can either just totally ignore it and not pay attention and not feed that, or you can address it and you can say, you know, I really do want to address this, I’m going to take it to conversation as quickly as possible.

So what that that means getting on the phone with somebody or getting into instant messenger whatever it might mean but bring that to conversation where it’s one-on-one and taking it out of the public view is so important.  Because a lot of times a lot get lost in translation and I’m sure you probably experience that yourself.

So take it to the conversation as soon as possible.  If this happens in person, if you’re in a group that sort of thing, pull that person aside, bring it out of the public view and bring it into a conversation as soon as possible.

Now, what do we do with it when that happens?  When we do have somebody in conversation with us, what can we do next?

I want to tell you a little story and this happened, gosh, it’s been almost 10 years ago now, but not quite, maybe eight years ago and my daughter was 3 years old.  I remember she was just a cute little thing like everybody would just say, “Oh my goodness, she’s so cute.  She’s so articulate.”  You know all these things, she’s just the cutest little thing, cutest little button, but she has a little temper of her own.

So this one particular day, I asked my daughter to go brush her teeth.  And literally that is all I asked.  I told her it was time to get ready for bath and brush her teeth.  She looked at me and she got so upset, like she started yelling and you could see the escalation in her energy and in her voice.

This had happened before so I had previously been studying and trying to figure out what in the world, why a simple request or command evoked such a response from here?  This is just out of control, I just didn’t like that.

I was a teacher.  I was a mom; I knew how to handle this.  I thought that I just couldn’t get it under control where I wasn’t also escalating.  Or it was just getting to the point where she would get in big trouble after a simple command and that just seems silly.

In this moment, she was really escalating.  And it came to a point when I thought to myself, “Now is the time to try out what you’ve just been studying, what you know about yourself, what you know, Andrea. This is it.  This is the time.”  So here she is kind of starting to throw this fit.

And instead of getting angry at her and putting my foot down and telling her to get her tail to the bathroom and brush those teeth otherwise this, this, or that; I knelt down on the floor and I opened my arms and invited her in.  It was the craziest thing but my daughter saw me do that and as I did that she came to me gently with tears in her eyes and then she started crying in my arms.

I didn’t know what she was upset about and I’m not sure I’d still know why she was so sad.  But I do know that that moment in time solidified this belief that I have that sad is under angry.

So whenever you see somebody who is angry and they’re coming at you, if you want to address that anger and escalate the situation, you can.  But most likely that’s exactly what will happen the situation when we escalate. However, if you start to address the sadness that’s underneath the anger and get curious about it, “What is going on that this person is so angry?  They’re so sad.”

So when you see somebody yelling or just really complaining with all their hearts, you can look at them and say to yourself, this is sadness.  I see all this anger and that’s what I see, I see sadness.  So why are they sad?  So that’s where you’re going to start.

If you really believe that sad is under angry, I invite you to try it out and just experiment it a few times because you’re going to be shocked.  If you believe that sad is under angry then what you do is instead of letting that conversation escalate, you get down on your knees and open your arms and invite them in.

Now, how do you do this with somebody who’s not a 3-year-old daughter?  Well, you stay curious.  So instead of getting defensive and letting yourself feel attacked, instead of feeling like you have to hit back or prove them wrong, what you do is you realize that that’s one level of the conversation.  And you’re going to take it to totally different level, deeper level.

So that means that you’re going to let that stuff go.  Everything that they just said on the top, you’re going to let that go.  You’re not going to address that right now.  Maybe you will when you come back to it but not right now.  So you let that go and then you get really curious and you say, “Tell me more about that. I wanna understand.  Explain to me what’s going on.”  Or “This reaction I can tell that this is really, really hard for you.”

When you just say something like that, this is something that allows the other person to open up because when they hear that they really care and that you recognize what they’re experiencing, they’re very likely to open up to you if you’re sincere.

So you to start to hear more and you stay curious, you stay there and you keep asking those questions or giving those responses like “Look, wow, I didn’t realize that was so hard for you.”  Or “I didn’t realize that this was going on.”  And give them those opportunities to just keep talking until they got it out.

Once, they have it out then you have the opportunity to respond with grace.  So you then can say “Wow!  OK so what I’m hearing is that you really would like this but this is what happened and so you’re upset,” or “Whatever it might be, it’s really hard to help you through that conversation right here in this moment.”

But in general, the rule is to stay curious and remember that sad is under angry.  So look for the sadness and address the sadness and get clear on that because it’s not because you’re trying to manipulate somebody, it’s not because you’re just trying what you want, but this is a chance for you as an influencer to really show love and leadership.

You do that by not responding in kind.  You do that by realizing that you have a vision that sees beyond the surface level anger that’s out of control, and that you’re willing to go there and to take the time to be without somebody as they are expressing their frustration.  And then you come back with your response, then you come back with some logic.

But if you don’t address that hurt first, they’re not going to hear any of your logic.  It’s just doesn’t matter.  No reasoning makes sense to somebody that is upset.  It doesn’t matter because they’re brain is in that place where it’s in that fight or flight or it’s in that positioning so that limbic system has really taken over and it’s saying “I have to figure this out. I have to express this or I have to deal this in this way.”  That is not the rational brains.  You have to calm that down first.  You have to help them to calm that down and that’s something that not a lot of people realized they need to do.

So as a voice of influence, realize that sad is under angry.  Whenever you’re dealing with the trolls per se, whenever you’re dealing with those folks who are maybe irrationally upset, they’re rude, you’re dealing with this just kind of out of the ordinary sad kind of situation with this, remember that sad is under angry.

Remember this image of a mom leaning down and getting on her knees and opening up her arms because that’s exactly what you can do in a conversation with I don’t care who it is. Every single person has the same brain. We all need to be able to calm down before we can truly address the issues at hand.

So as you move forward, remember that sad is under angry.  Treat others with compassion, treat the trolls with compassion and you’re going to be astounded at the kind of impact that you can have.

So get down on your knees, open those arms, and make your voice matter more!