In this week’s episode, I talk about “5 Types of People Who Can Ruin Your Life” by Bill Eddy, a lawyer and a therapist.

In the book he goes into detail about high-conflict personality (“HCP”) types that are the source of many of the most intense relationship conflicts experienced by attorneys.

If you think about the people you interact with (clients, judges, arbitrators, co-workers, supervisors, adversaries), you are probably in contact with someone is a HCP.

One of the biggest sources of stress when working with difficult people is our beliefs about their behavior.

We work with difficult people all the time and we have these beliefs that “people shouldn’t act this way” “people need to act professionally at all time” and “if people are rude to me, that is terrible and it means that people think they can walk all over me.”

These beliefs cause us to experience emotions of frustration, anger, stress, resentment & anxiety, which causes us to engage in arguments with them, which results in nothing getting accomplished.

We are lawyers, not doctors and there is no way we can diagnose a difficult person with a personality disorder. And quite frankly, it does not matter whether a difficult person has one or not.

The possibility that the person has one is enough to make you take a mindful step back from unreasonable behavior, recognize that the behavior has nothing to do with you, and respond in a productive way.

So, check out the episode, read the book and let me know your thoughts.