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DEALING WITH INSULTS: LESSONS FROM THE JACKIE ROBINSON STORY

Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today, to get us to think more deeply about dealing with insults, let’s discuss for few minutes what Jackie Robinson went through when he became the first black major leaguer. Just before Mr. Robinson began to play in the majors for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Dodgers’ general manager, Branch Rickey, made it clear to him that he would face criticism…

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THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “B”

In my last blog post, THE ABCs OF POWER: THE LETTER “A” I presented some ideas about the nature of power.  The key points are: 1. power consists of our skills to achieve our desires 2. when we feel confident that we can achieve our desires, generally speaking, we feel less defensive when someone throws insults at us 3. to better handle name calling, insults…

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The ABCs of Power: The Letter “A”

Power, in one sense, is the ability to achieve your desires.  In another sense, it is the feeling you get when you have mastered a skill that increases the probability that some desire of yours will be fulfilled.  And in yet another sense, it is the feeling that you get when you come to believe that you have the ability to master any skill that…

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IMPLIED CRITICISM: ADVANCED LESSON

In last week’s post I began to discuss some forms of implied criticism. In this Dilbert comic that we first looked at in last week’s post, we see that complimenting someone in front of another person can lead to an experience that feels like a subtle form of negative criticism.  Learning to recognize not only the most obvious types of negative criticism, but the more…

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DIRECT AND IMPLIED NEGATIVE CRITICISM

One major situation in which people end up feeling insulted is when someone provides negative criticism. Rather than to feel insulted, it is possible to learn to welcome criticism in a warm, friendly and helpful manner. An important step toward mastering this skill is to learn to clearly recognize when criticism is occurring.  If you can’t identify when a red light is flashing, you won’t…

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ABRAHAM LINCOLN AND CONFLICT

When we describe a conflict it is useful to avoid insults and relate it to something that will occur in the future. Old Abe Lincoln was a master at this. Before illustrating this with Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, let’s take a few moments to review this idea with one of our favorite comics. Bumstead Gets Into Trouble Please consider the following comic. Now, let’s pretend we…

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DEALING WITH CRITICISM: LESSONS FROM DENNIS THE MENACE

In a recent post (Dealing with Criticism by Digging Deeper) I discussed some difficult situations that may occur when we deal with criticism.  There, I mentioned that in these types of situations, it can be helpful to do our best to describe what the criticizer’s most obvious desire is for providing the criticism and then to look to see if there are any other desires…

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DEALING WITH CRITICISM BY DIGGING DEEPER

“I’ve been reading your blog posts, Dr. Rubin,” Judy says sounding annoyed. “You are making everything sound way too complicated.” “I’m pleased that you’ve been checking it out,” I reply.  “I’d love to hear more about your reactions.” “Well, yesterday I went over to pick up my friend, Sue, to go to a party.  She was wearing an outfit that was almost identical to mine. So I…

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CONFLICTS WITH OURSELVES: LESSONS FROM CHARLIE BROWN

Lately, we have been focusing largely on conflicts that deal with one person having a conflict with another person.  We call these interpersonal conflicts. Today we begin to turn our attention to intrapersonal conflicts.  This type of conflict occurs when a person has a conflict with himself or herself. We can see both of these types of conflicts occurring in the following Peanuts comic.  If…

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INSULTS: LESSONS FROM THE CASE OF THE MAN SENTENCE TO JAIL FOR MOCKING DISABLED GIRL

A while back I saw a YouTube video dealing with insults that made someone cry went viral.  It is called, Bus Stop Ignorance. In the video we see 43-year-old William Bailey taunting Hope Knight, a ten-year old girl with cerebral palsy.  Hope uses crutches and Mr. Bailey, in the video, mocks the way she walks.  He also gets his son to join him in the…

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