chapter 1
Understanding Crazy
AFTER DECADES as a psychiatrist, I know crazyâand that includes some serious crazy.
How serious? One of my patients stalked Britney Spears, and another jumped off a fifth-story balcony because he thought he could fly. Still another called me from a jail in the Dominican Republic, saying he was there to start a revolution.
In addition, Iâve worked with 80-pound anorexics, strung-out heroin addicts, and hallucinating schizophrenics. Iâve taught hostage negotiators how to get homicidal criminals to surrender. And these days, I show CEOs and managers how to deal with out-of-control people who threaten their companiesâ bottom lines.
In short, crazy and I are pretty much on a first-name basis.
However, a while ago, something occurred to me: I expect to deal with crazy every day, because itâs my job. But I suddenly realized how often you have to face down crazyânot the jump-off-a-balcony, stalk-Britney-Spears kind of crazy, but what I call everyday crazy.
My âahaâ moment occurred when I went to a meeting for estate planners who needed advice about helping families in crisis. I expected the event to be a little dry, but instead, I was mesmerized. I found out that just like me, these people have to âtalk to crazyâ every day. In fact, nearly every issue they discussed involved clients acting completely nuts.
These lawyers had no trouble writing wills and creating trusts. But what they didnât know, and desperately needed to know, was what to do when they canât stop their clients from acting crazy.
Thatâs when it dawned on me that everyoneâincluding youâhas this problem. Iâm betting that nearly every day, you deal with at least one irrational person. Maybe itâs a boss who wants the impossible. Maybe itâs a demanding parent or a hostile teen or a manipulative coworker or a neighbor whoâs always in your face. Maybe itâs a tearful lover or an unreasonable client.
And thatâs what this book is all about: talking to âcrazy.â
Now, a word about the word crazy: I know it sounds inflammatory and totally un-PC. But when I use this word, I donât mean mentally ill (although mental illnessâwhich Iâll address separately in Section 5âcertainly causes crazy behavior). And I donât use the word crazy to stigmatize one group of people either. Thatâs because all of us, at some points in time, are crazy.
What I mean by crazy is irrational. There are four ways in which the people you deal with can be irrational:
⢠They canât see the world clearly.
⢠They say or think things that make no sense.
⢠They make decisions and take actions that arenât in their best interest.
⢠They become downright impossible when you try to guide them back to the side of reason.
In this book, Iâll share my best tricks for breaking through to people who are irrational in these ways. Iâve used these techniques to do everything from settling office feuds to rescuing marriages, and you can use them just as effectively to handle the irrational people in your life.
The Key: Leaning into the Crazy
The tools Iâll give you in this book take some courage to implement. Thatâs because you arenât going to make crazy go away by ignoring it, trying to reason with it, or arguing with it. Instead, youâre going to lean into the crazy.
Years ago, someone gave me the following advice about how to react if a dog sinks its teeth into your hand: If you give in to your instincts and try to pull your hand out, the dog will stick its teeth in deeper. But if you counterintuitively push your hand deeper into the dogâs mouth, the dog will release it. Why? Because, in order to do what it wants to do nextâswallowâit has to release its jaw. And thatâs when you can pull your hand out.
This exact same rule applies to talking to irrational people. If you treat them as if theyâre nuts and youâre not, theyâll bite down deeper on their crazy thinking. But if you lean into their crazy, youâll radically change the dynamic. Hereâs an example.
Up to that point, Iâd been incredibly stupid. But in that instant, I did something brilliant. Somehow, in the midst of my brain fog, I said exactly the right thing.
I didnât try to reason with this terrifying man, who probably would have responded by dragging me out of my car and smashing his fist into my face. And I didnât fight back. Instead, I leaned into his crazy and threw it right back at him.
Now, Iâm not proud of this episode. Clearly, the guy in the pickup truck wasnât the only irrational person on the road that day.
But hereâs my point. That guy could have punched my lights out. And he probably would have if Iâd tried to use reason or to argue with him. Instead, I met him in his reality, in which I was the bad guy and he had every right to hurt me. By instinctively using a technique I call assertive submission (which Iâll talk about in Chapter 8), I turned him from an assailant into an ally in less than a minute.
Luckily, my response came naturally, even on that really bad day. Thatâs because Iâve been leaning into peopleâs crazy for years as a psychiatrist. Iâve done it thousands of times, in different ways, and I know that it works.
Moreover, I know that it can work for you. Leaning into crazy is a strategy you can use with any irrational person. For instance, you can use this strategy to talk with:
⢠A partner who screams at youâor refuses to speak to you
⢠A child who says, âI hate youâ or âI hate myselfâ
⢠An aging parent who says, âYou donât care about meâ
⢠An employee who constantly melts down on the job
⢠A manager whoâs a bully
No matter what kind of everyday crazy youâre dealing with, leaning into that crazy can empower you to break free from communication strategies that fail every time and break through to the people you need to reach. As a result, youâll be able to walk into just about any emotional situationâanywhereâand feel confident, in control, and unafraid.
Replacing Fight-or-Flight with the Sanity Cycle
One thing to understand is that leaning into the crazy doesnât come instinctively. Thatâs because itâs what your body doesnât want you to do.
When youâre dealing with an irrational person, your body sends you danger signals. Pay attention, and youâll notice that your throat tightens, your pulse speeds up, you get a sick feelin...