Alicia didn’t think her boyfriend was someone with a controlling personality – two years later she is still confused about her boyfriend’s behavior. She tells her friends that Randy controls what she does and how she feels, but they say it’s typical for men to behave that way. She has gone to a counselor, but everyone says to work on her relationship more. Alicia sometimes also thinks if she loves Randy more, he will change, which is a complete myth.

Few people know the signs of a controlling personality. You could even be unaware you’re a controlling person. By the time such behaviors are evident, years of misery pass in the relationship and sometimes verbal and physical abuse surfaces. The sooner you can identify the signs of controlling men and women and how to deal with these people or yourself with the advice I’ll give you in this article, the better you’ll protect yourself from a dangerous man or woman who can potentially create an abusive relationship.

How a Controlling Personality Develops

How we perceive and judge information is the secret to understand controlling behavior. Psychologist Carl Jung discovered that people have four psychological functions:

1. Sensing (“It smells nice”, “I need to touch it first”, “Let me see it”)
2. Intuiting (“I have a feeling something bad will happen”, “I bet today is going to go wonderfully”, “I sense there’s something special about you”)
3. Thinking (“Lets look at the problem logically”, “It doesn’t match the set criteria”, “That happened before”)
4. Feeling (“I feel pain”, “I love the energy in this room”, “It feels right”)

The sensate and intuit functions gather and perceive information. The thought and feeling functions evaluate and judge the information. You can see the four psychological functions and their relationships represented in the below diagram.

You might know these functions through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). All four functions serve an important part of the healthy human personality. The MBTI states that we have predominate functions and rely on other functions to a lesser degree. You rely on the sensate function by trusting your five senses (“I love the taste of this new recipe”), but at the same time you still receive messages from your intuition (“Customers are going to enjoy this new recipe”).

While the healthy person is connected to these four functions, the controlling person is unaware of one or more functions and unaware of one’s dictating behavior. Patricia Evans, author of Controlling People, says a controlling personality begins when one of the four functions are blocked, which leads to poor self-understanding and a blindness to one’s behavior. Once the person loses a connection with oneself that forms his or her reality, control is pursued in the exterior world.

Men typically control others when their feeling function is blocked. Males have been told: “don’t feel pain”, “real men don’t cry”, “you’re too sensitive”, “men must stay strong”, and “if you get emotional, you lose”. A young boy cuts his knee and cries, for example, to which the father responds, “That doesn’t hurt so stop crying.” Gradually the boy disconnects from himself and ignores his feeling function. The boy’s inner reality is negated by others who tell him his feelings are wrong.

Disconnection is natural, yet ongoing disconnection is dangerous. It is necessary for soldiers to block their feeling function to get through the blood and brutality of war, but if the temporary blockage becomes permanent, the person loses awareness of the feeling function. The soldier “forgets” how to feel pain and joy and struggles to empathize with someone in distress. Trauma, culture, and parents are the primary reasons people disconnect.

The four functions are necessary for survival. Without attention to bad-tasting food, a vibe that warns you of a dangerous location, obscure rationale, and another’s feelings, one’s safety is jeopardized. A soldier deeply connected to pain in battle will struggle to persist in survival.

When a person permanently disconnects, however, an identity problem arises. The person’s psyche has been violated. Once a person cannot believe his or her own senses, intuition, thoughts, or feelings, what consistency can be established to form the person’s identity? Identity and control must be established in the only other possible way: by controlling others.

Evan’s terms this a “backwards connection”. If people are not self-aware of inner experiences, they form their identity from the outside-in instead of the inside-out. While healthy people construct their identity from experiences via the four functions, soon-to-be controllers construct themselves by a desired self-image or what others think one should be like. Intergenerational behavior leads them to treat their partners or children the same way they were treated. Controllers begin to define another person’s reality.

Ignorance of Authenticity

Healthy, authentic persons realize authenticity in others. Controllers on the other hand, hate authenticity. Their experiences are unknown so they circumvent others from their experiences.

The controller molds his or her partner or child into the desired person and connects to that fake person. A controlling husband can say he loves his wife, but he really loves the perfect wife constructed in his mind. Victims are so blinded by this pretend love, thinking the person who defines and controls him or her is truly in love.

Controlling and abusive relationships are common in marriages because one spouse does not fit “Prince Charming” or “Princess”. It is impossible anyway for these personas to be realized.

In our example, Randy creates a backwards connection by connecting to the fake Alicia. She has senses, intuition, thoughts, and feelings Randy ignores because her experiences fail to match up to the idealized princess. This leaves Alicia feeling confused, invalidated, and ignored.

The ideal image knows what the controller wants, feels, and thinks. Controllers assume “one mind” with their victims. If the controlled person fails to behave congruently with the ideal image by mind-reading the controller, the person is often ignored, abused, argued against, or told what to be, say, and feel in an attempt to negate authenticity and be molded into the unattainable image.

Victims like a woman who try to be the perfect wife based on the abuse received from her controlling husband cannot consistently be the idealized image. Moments of genuineness always show – they are who the person really is after all.

Controllers do not see their behavior for what it is, however. Most are completely dumbfounded as to why they control others. If you are a controller, you will not know why you behave hurtfully towards one or two victims of your controlling behavior while most people see you as a beautiful, nice, caring person. Pleas for help can easily go ignored for the behavior is deceptive.

Blame blinds controllers. Rapists, murderers, and others convicted of assault say it was the victim’s fault because the victims showed authenticity that stirred the perpetrator to eliminate. Controllers never take responsibility for their behavior and instead accuse their victims who “deserved it”. Battered wives are blamed, beaten-down, and belittled by abusive husbands who believe their spouses are responsible for their rage. Criminals can sit in their prison cell and still blindly conclude their victims are the reason one is imprisoned.

Signs of a Controlling Relationship

The best sign to identify a controlling man or woman is to see if the person assumes one mind. I would assume one mind with you if I became angry over you not knowing what I wanted.

One-mindedness is a warning sign of a controlling person because the ideal image knows what the controlling person wants, thinks, and feels. The moment this perfect understanding is brought back to reality with a question, rage can form. If Alicia asks Randy, “When will you be back?” “Why do you treat me like this?” and “Why can’t I satisfy you?”, he could show controlling behavior like avoiding, arguing, or abusing her.

A second major warning sign of a controlling person is they define you. I would define you by telling you what you think and feel.

A controlling person defines victims based on the ideal image. Authenticity is neglected – what a victim really feels and thinks is replaced by the controlling person’s definition. The definitions form a fantasy, trying to pull the victim back into the perfect persona. You can see this in the following situations in which Alicia is defined by Randy:

• Alicia says, “I want to order chicken teriyaki.” Randy replies, “Don’t get it because you won’t like chicken teriyaki.”
• Alicia says, “I’m trying.” Randy replies, “You’re not trying!”
• Alicia says, “Please don’t treat me that way.” Randy replies, “You always try to blame me for what happens to you! It’s your own bloody fault you get treated that way!”
• Alicia says, “I’m feeling sad.” Randy replies, “Stop trying to manipulate me.”
• Alicia says, “I want to work again.” Randy replies, “You don’t know what you want.”

Randy defines Alicia. He destroys her authenticity by molding her into his idealized image.

Most of the responses defining Alicia are paradoxical. Controllers create the exact opposite of what they try to achieve:

1. They try to get close by barking orders, but their controlling behavior creates distance
2. They try to show power by belittling others, but their controlling behavior shows inferiority
3. They try to show wisdom and intelligence by disproving a victim’s point of view, but their controlling behavior shows incomprehension and shallowness
4. They think their perception is clear, but it is unclear

Intimacy is a paradoxical outcome avoided. The controller attempts to fulfill a need of closeness with the victim, yet true closeness is never achieved when the connection is with an inauthentic person. You cannot be intimate with a controller. Intimacy requires two persons to understand their feelings and connect with each for who they really are, which controllers cannot do because they lack four operational functions.

If you control someone, seeing theses signs is usually enough to make you see firsthand the false reality you are living in and what you need to bring yourself back into an authentic world. Some recovering controllers see the severity of their behavior and cannot kill it so they respect their victims by ending a relationship to seek healing.

How to Deal with a Controlling Person

Now you can recognize and understand a controlling person – maybe you even identified some characteristics in yourself – I’ll share with you the secrets to manage a person who tries to control you.

The first step to deal with a controlling person is to believe no one knows exactly how you feel and think. Victims of abuse can have their self-esteem pummeled heavily into the ground that they believe abusers more than themselves. Someone cannot define you – not even a psychologist. It is vital you acknowledge and believe your self-understanding over what a boyfriend or girlfriend, husband or wife, father or mother, manager or employee tells you.

The second step to deal with a controller uses the one-mindedness warning sign, which is to identify when the person trespasses your “psychic boundary”. Similar to the first step, detect trespasses by seeing what someone does when they attempt to define you. While the first step is an acknowledgment and belief before any controlling behavior surfaces, this second step reinforces the first step the moment someone controls you.

The third step is to speak up. You cannot shatter the idealized image placed on you until you speak up to face the problem. Though you are a victim of someone’s hurtful behavior, you are responsible for your response.

The fourth step uses the “What?” technique taught by Evans who says victims fall into the false reality controllers create by arguing with them. Most people respond to controllers by trying to contradict the nonsense such as: “I do love chicken teriyaki!” “Far out, I try so hard!” “I am sad… You don’t know how I feel!” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who sticks to her habits by arguing with Randy, which is ineffective:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“I do want to work again. I have a desire to pursue my photography career.”
“You don’t really like photography! Keep doing what you’re doing now.”
“No! I’ve been looking at some photography magazines and I really want to do it!”
“Where are those magazines? GIVE THEM TO ME SO I CAN TEAR THE DAMN THINGS UP YOU F***** B****!”

Instead of arguing with a person who defines you, Evans recommends you do not even validate what they are saying through argument and instead ask, “What?” or variations of it repeatedly. Other responses Alicia and you can use that do not validate a controller’s remarks are, “Cut it out”, “Quit that”, and “What are you doing?” Here is a sample dialog between Randy and Alicia who uses variations recommended by Evans:

“I want to work again,” says Alicia.
“You don’t know what you want,” replies Randy.
“What?”
“You don’t know what you want.”
“What?”
(For the first time Randy realizes something is going on.) “Cut it out. You heard me. You don’t want to work again.”
“Nonsense.”

A word of warning using this fourth step: do not use it on a dangerous person. It is too threatening to use on someone who can potentially go into rage. Protect yourself, protect your children. Be careful when you deal with a controller because they fight to keep their reality alive – a cut to their reality is perceived as death.

No controlling person is going to change their behavior through one conversation, but the above dialog between Alicia and Randy, for example, is the start of healing. Controllers need to see for themselves the backward connections they have created with others.

Leaving a Controlling Relationship

If you decide to leave a controller, their fake reality weakens. They may not change, but many do realize what their behavior did to themselves and the lives of their victims.

There are shelters that help sufferers of abuse should you leave a controlling spouse. Other options you can consider is to stay with family and friends and contact the police. Do something about the problem for the safety and happiness of yourself and your children.

Children in controlling relationships need help otherwise they are at risk of dictating others later in life. The moment a child’s fundamental needs remain unfilled, the child escapes to a fake world where those needs are met.

Psychotherapists say a common object in which a child obtains these needs is from a toy like a teddy bear. The bear is spoken to as an idealized person, always listening, always knowing, always understanding the child. The teddy is defined by the child and is one mind with the child. Later in the life the toy is projected onto others who get controlled by the person.

The intergenerational transmission of control cycles again unless it is stopped. Now is the time to deal with a controlling person and take control of what is controlling you.

If you suspect someone is in a controlling relationship, possibly the greatest gift you can give them right now is an understanding and freedom from controllers by telling the person about this article. You can click the “ShareThis” link below to email the article, post it on Facebook, or share it in the many other possible ways.

(To discover more on one-mindedness, checkout chapter three of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program, which reveals this communication barrier many people use. You can learn more about the program that can help you better communicate in your relationships here. If you want to become whole again and connect with suppressed parts of yourself so you can easily connect with people, my other program Big Talk: Effortlessly Talk to Win Friends with the Real You is a breakthrough solution you can discover here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People
2. Top 15 Dumb Mistakes People Make in Relationships
3. How to Manage and Deal with an Aggressive Boss
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People

We make many dumb relationship mistakes, which I have noticed after years of study and observing communication and human behavior, that all cannot be listed here. I use the term “dumb” not to put people down, but only because a lot of people repeat the same blunders. Put an end to these 15 relationship mistakes, in no particular order:

1. Withhold Feelings

Men are more guilty than women in withholding feelings from their partner. If something ticks men off, they may hide their irritation instead of revealing what it is that annoyed them. Women are indirectly guilty of this relationship mistake. While women are more emotional than men, they withhold feelings in the sense that they blame or criticize others to indirectly express their emotions. “I hate you for…!” is not an example of expressing your feelings. An expression of emotion is, “I feel sad about…” “I’m feeling happy you…” “I am angry!”

2. Reject Emotions

We may withhold feelings from someone because we reject our emotions. It is uncomfortable for most people to feel guilt, shame, anger, sadness, and even love so they reject these emotions by thinking positively or generally suppressing them. You feel whatever you do for a reason – accept it. Your relationships deteriorate if you suppress anger, for example, because you will resent and behave bitterly with people.

3. Blame

The failure to healthily express emotion can show itself through blame, a common relationship mistake. Look at an argumentative couple to see each person blaming the other for relationship problems. Neither acknowledges imperfection, preferring to be right. Each person thinks people ought to change instead of taking the responsibility for self-change. Victimization is a relationship mistake unhealthy for either person.

4. Gossip

People gossip about their relationships mainly for self-pity. They seek validation that the other person is to blame for relationship problems. If you have a relationship problem, talk with the person you share the problem with and stop complaining about it to your friends or coworkers. The other person is not the cause of your suffering; you are because of your ignorance to the problem through gossip. If a gossiper just turns the mirror on himself, he would realize the rumors hurt his relationships. A gossiper is no better than the originator of the problem. Neither roles create resolution – both compound it.

5. Interpret Behaviors Negatively

A gossiper is one example of a person that blames others and interprets their behaviors in a negative light. Each little behavior signals a conspiracy against the cynic. If you think your husband is having an affair, anything he does will be filtered through that perspective.

Give people a margin-for-error because you don’t know every detail. Each of us hold a piece of truth discoverable through communication. The best way to resolve your worries is to ask the person by showing interest in their life.

6. Show A Lack of Interest

Do you know what happened to your partner today? When was the last time you watched a friend play their weekly sport? When did you last ask what someone did at work? Get curious about people’s lives by asking a lot of questions and displaying attentive body language. Communication often lacks in relationships because neither person takes the initiative to learn about the other person. Interest in people’s lives makes them feel important, builds the relationship, and teaches you a lot of great stuff in the process. Think of something a person important to you enjoys then go do it with them. You may even want to take up a new hobby together like dancing or yoga.

7. Exert Excessive Control

We hate being controlled and told what to do. The worst managers micro-manage, dictating employee behavior. Many angry employees echo similar remarks.

The greatest leaders give team members freedom. The same is true in families and interpersonal relationships. If you order your teenage daughter to not smoke, research shows she is more likely to smoke. One study that looked at how values transmit through families found that children with authoritative parents have different values to them. When the parents are supportive rather than restrictive, the children agree and accept similar values.

8. Try to Change People

Whenever we try to change people, whether it be through manipulation, criticism, orders, threats, or rewards, they take on strange behavior. Do a test in a safe environment. Intentionally tell someone what they are doing is wrong and the person could not change, become suddenly quiet, resent you, gossip about you, or purposefully do what you said not to do. We always try to change people, but rarely succeed.

9. Remain Unchanged

We expect people to change while we remain unchanged. Rigid perspectives on money, family, work, emotion, and the relationship creates severe friction that can destroy a relationship. “If my coworker stopped…then I’d be able to…” “If my son stopped…then I could…” “My partner should…then I’d feel…” I’ll give you an if-statement to remember: if you don’t change, you have no right to expect people to change.

10. Keep One’s Point of View

What is your honest estimate of the percentage you think you are right in an argument? 80? 90? 100%? I estimate most people say 95%. That means a fighting couple’s righteousness totals 190%, a formula for conflict. It is logically and mathematically irrational to conclude one can be right 95% of the time. We are not divine beings knowing of truth.

Each of us possess the truth that we must be flexible enough to explore. The cure to any couple’s problem is held by each person because their point of view is 50% of the relationship.

11. Deny Flaws to Show Perfection

Because we don’t change and like to keep our original point of view, we deny flaws and show perfection. When a mistake arises, we freeze about being found out. A simple sit-down discussion where the two of you each admit three flaws about yourselves helps keep destructive perfection at bay while encouraging growth. You do not fear imperfection when mistakes are encouraged to surface.

12. Absence of Admiration

Relationships are easy to take for granted. We devalue what we have while desiring what is out of our reach. Put some effort into the relationship. You can show people you value the relationship with them through admiration. Give a compliment. Send a gift. Thank someone for a task they did. Phone one person now and thank them for something specific.

13. Be Judgmental

We love to judge people. As described in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book, there are four judgments: criticism, labeling, diagnosing, and praising. We criticize (“You are no good at helping me”), label (“You are a jerk”), diagnose (“Stop being rude because you don’t get what you want”), and praise (“You are the sweetest person for doing that”). Each judgment has its own problems too deep to described in this article.

14. Send Solutions

It is counterintuitive that solutions kill relationships. After all, don’t solutions cure problems? More often than not in relationships, solutions create problems. We feel inferior being controlled and the problem-solver often overlooks the real issue. Solutions are usually manifestations of other dumb relationship mistakes like blame, gossip, trying to change people, and sticking to one’s point of view.

15. Avoid Concerns

The most frequent dumb mistake people make in a relationship is avoiding their partner’s concerns. Look at any bad relationship and each person will tell you their needs are not being met. They are not being listened to, understood, cared for, loved, whatever. Good communication is the key to overcoming these problems and meeting each other’s needs.

There you have 15 mistakes people frequently make in their relationships. Follow this advice then hopefully the next time you ask someone what one mistake you do in the relationship, no walls break because walls are nonexistent.

(If you are reading this and want to eliminate the communication mistakes that hurt your relationships, and to learn more about judgments, sending solutions, and avoiding concerns, read my Communication Secrets of Powerful People book to discover the 12 barriers of communication. Nearly all of the dumb relationship mistakes can be avoided when you understand the 12 barriers.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. 4 Reasons Advice and Other Solutions Kill Relationships
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. 40 Ways to Make a Good First Impression
4. Controlling People – Signs of a Controlling Person and How to Deal with Them
5. Principles and Tips to Deal with Difficult People

For men, this means you’ll be able to cultivate what the article discusses into your life so you can attract and maintain happy friendships and intimate relationships with women. If you are already in a relationship, this is what your woman wish you already knew. Anytime you can get a woman or anyone feeling what you want to them to feel, whether it be over the phone, in a business deal, or placing an order at a restaurant, you will get more out of the situation – not necessarily at the expense of the other person.

For women, it could mean many things. You will gain a clearer understanding of what drives you as a woman in your relationships, why past relationships have failed, and even how to select a real, authentic man that is Mr Right.

The Triad of Dilemmas

I’ve read dozens of books, subscribed to attraction newsletters, talked to attraction experts, talked to women about what they want in a man, tested techniques, and have observed many scenarios comparing and contrasting variables men display in their interaction with women to create a set of complete, holistic characteristics women want in men, which I will share with you in this article. In my search, I came across my first dilemma: experts gave contradictory advice – more so in the diverse stages of a relationship.

At the start of a relationship, dating experts attempt to describe what women want. There are pick-up artists and attraction experts that tell men to neg (a gentle, teasing insult), take advantage of a woman’s insecurities, and advance the relationship as fast as possible. Such people praise themselves as pioneers in defining what women want, but in reality nearly all of them cannot keep a long-term relationship. They excuse themselves as having the power to be selective, instead of dating and keeping any woman that comes their way, though their denial is a facade for deficiencies in their personality.

At the later stages of relationships are marriage experts, psychologists, romanticists, and communication trainers that teach men to listen to women. According to such experts, women want to be heard, understood, and made to feel special. These teachers do not tell you the skills and personality characteristics that create animalistic urges in women because the principles are counter-intuitive to “good relationship communication”. Pick-up artists and other advisers that teach men how to succeed in dating, bash marriage trainers and the like over their teachings because the dating coaches feel long-term relationship advisers transform men into sensitive, new age, wuss-bag, girly men – and I agree to an extent.

Most men that learn communication skills from me fall the trap of applying interpersonal relationship advice at the start of a relationship. It is not so much what they do as it is how they do it. The men become needy, have low self-esteem, and fail to communicate strength. Women don’t want to feel understood, listened to, worried about, and comforted at the early stages of a relationship – such “nice boy” characteristics send them running. Women want to feel indescribable urges that arise from bad boy qualities.

Culture and society creates the second dilemma: society infuses disempowering beliefs and limiting norms into men. I don’t blame guys for their limiting beliefs about what women want – but I do blame them for holding onto them when the truth is revealed. We are lead to believe women only want tall, handsome, wealthy men. Such advice drives men to feel insecure about themselves, which validates their initial belief. They may get rejected on an approach, dumped by a girlfriend, or divorced from a long-term relationship, and reason through their perceptual filters that their shortness, ugly looks, or poor wealth did it to them.

If most experts and society don’t know what women want, surely women know? What better way to get the answer, then from the source itself, right? No. Most women don’t even know what they want – and therein lies the third and last dilemma.

Women preach to guys the characteristics they feel attracted to. They reason, “I’m a woman so I know what I and other women want.” This causes confusion.

Malcolm Gladwell in Blink says attraction is one topic of many when our rapid judgments and feelings are unconsciously processed. When our conscious, analytical mind enters the fray, errors occur. Gladwell says we label what we think attracts us to what really attracts us. Few people are aware of what lurks beneath the conscious mind. We succumb to personal qualities that leave us feeling out of control and bewildered.

If these three sources of information create dilemmas in defining what women want in men, what is the source of truth? What I’m going to teach will probably shock you, but put your preconceived notions about this entire topic aside so you can learn. “Empty your cup” as Bruce Lee would say.

Women are Mixed Up

Women say one thing and mean another thing. A woman says she wants you to spend more time with her, but according to David Deida, author of The Way of The Superior Man, if you give her that in certain circumstances, your compliance disappoints her. If a woman sees she can upset you by calling you ugly, she will weed you out of being a potential mate – not because of your looks, but because your weak self-esteem let her easily destroy you. The surface is not a description of the depths.

When women say what they want, it isn’t really what they want – it’s an attempt to rationalize something abstract to them. Attraction is a confusing subject to intellectually understand and experience. Often guys and women cannot explain why they are attracted to someone because attraction isn’t a logical decision (“I keep dating the wrong type of person”). Attraction isn’t decided and it certainly isn’t a choice.

Women are strange – though you probably already knew that. Women say they want nice guys, so men be nice, but a woman does not make the logical decision to be with a guy because he is nice to her with compliments, presents, and gifts. Both genders make emotional decisions on their relationships. If a man compliments a lady, gives her gifts, buys her flowers, and earns her affection, the techniques may work for a while, but he is just being used. Such behaviors are fake, manipulative, needy, and undesirable.

Another confusing characteristic men adapt that women say they want is humor, one of the most universally attractive qualities women want in men. Being funny, however, is not the whole story. A good sense of humor isn’t what they entirely want. Women aren’t crawling over comedians. What they want is a guy who is cocky, has a sense of humor, can tease, and doesn’t constantly degrade himself. Unstoppable confidence combined with humor attracts nearly every woman – even the psychotic type so be careful. (Here’s a good guide on humor to attract women.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. What Men Want in Women
2. How to Be Charming to Men and Women
3. Why People Remain Quiet, Shy, and Non-Assertive: The Benefits of Passive Behavior and Communication
4. How to Not Care What People Are Thinking About You – and Release Your People-Magnetic Self Into the Conversation
5. Review of Double Your Dating by David DeAngelo

“Hang out the washing”, “Stop moping around and cheer up”, “Fix what you broke”, “You need to improve your skills with customers”, “You need to get a new attitude”, “Obey your mother and father”. There are four reasons why such statements kill your relationships.

4 Reasons We Hate Receiving Solutions

The most common communication barrier people use to send solutions is advice. We give advice to help a person or to get things done, yet the outcome is destruction. Whether you’re a child or parent, brother or sister, employee or manager, we hate receiving advice and being told what to do for four reasons:

1) Loss of control. The other person takes the reigns of our life as they control what we do. No one likes being controlled – it impedes their freedom. To be in control of one’s life is a fundamental human need. Psychologists say the more you’re in control of your life, the happier you’ll be.

If you get controlled, you respond with rebellion. Humans seek to reestablish freedom by engaging in a threatened behavior. You may refuse to carry out the order, do the task poorly, procrastinate, or blame others for the task not being completed. Your response to being controlled is natural human behavior, unhealthy for relationships. Rebellious behaviors strain relationships – pulling on the fabric that binds a peaceful relationship.

An insurgent individual causes the person giving advice to continue giving their solutions because no change has occurred, which furthers defiance. The problem is not the nonconforming person, but the stubborn person blind enough to continue controlling the individual. “They just keep doing the same goddamn thing that doesn’t work and worsens and perpetuates the problem,” says Robert Fisch, author of Brief Therapy with Intimidating Cases: Changing the Unchangeable. “What people are doing is ‘common sense’ to them. People say ‘it’s the only thing to do.’” We need to stop attempted ways of changing people that fail to work.

2) Feelings of inferiority. A side-effect of being controlled is feeling inferior. We feel like a lesser person when we lose control of ourselves. Solutions and advice prevent people from feeling good about themselves and developing a healthy self-esteem.

We seek to feel important. To make a man hate you, simply take away what makes him feel good about himself. Tell him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, then you’ll have yourself a lifeless human doing, not a human being.

3) The problem is not obvious. Humans are complex creatures. Even our simple processes are complex. Has someone ever given you a piece of advice on a serious emotional problem? The person tried to help you, but you became frustrated because he or she “just didn’t get it”.

Chances are you didn’t change. You probably rebelled against the person to regain freedom. As a result, things got worse. You became angry, silent, or defensive. Perhaps the person then tried even harder to assert their way of thinking was right, but this only pushed you further from where they wanted you to be. They didn’t understand what you were going through. I know, I’ve been there.

Advice subtly communicates the solution to your problem is obvious. It communicates you must be stupid, incompetent, and inferior to overlook the solution. Aeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright in 500 BC, said, “It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer.”

When you’re tempted to send a solution to someone, remind yourself that you don’t know the whole story. Even when you think you know the truth, you probably only know one side of the story – your story. Why? This leads us to the fourth reason people hate receiving solutions from others.

4) People are oblivious to the truth. Human behavior and everything we experience is like an iceberg. An iceberg’s visible tip is 10% of the entire iceberg because the ice’s density is less than the sea water’s density. The remaining 90% of the iceberg is below the water’s surface, not visible to the common eye. How the 90% of the iceberg is shaped cannot be determined by looking at the iceberg’s tip.

Our likeness to an iceberg is a double-edged sword. On one side, most people never concern themselves with understanding the 90% of a person or story difficult to see upfront. They prefer to focus on themselves, stick with what they know, and never seek to fully understand people. We don’t follow or become inspired to change by someone that doesn’t understand us.

On the other side of the iceberg of human behavior is tremendous potential for you to connect with people in a way they have likely yet to experience. People’s poor ability to understand others stores further energetic potential to have them connect with you. When someone hides what matters to them in the dark from fear of being told what to do, your understanding through empathetic communication shines a light on their life to open them up.

Unfortunately, very few people know these secrets of communication. That is why they are secrets. Most people try to make knock-out blows by giving advice, criticism, and other communication barriers. They hope to change people and their relationships through solutions, yet all this does is make people hate them and resist change.

What I have discussed here is only the first of five solving barriers people use almost everyday in their communication. This is not even 1% of information I share in my communication secrets program that teaches you how to become a charismatically persuasive people magnet. There is more to the advising barrier, four other solving barriers, and an additional seven judging and avoiding barriers people use to kill their relationships, reduce their persuasive power, and decrease their charisma.

If any of this resonates a message in your life, you’re sick of misunderstanding people, and you’re tired of people resisting your helpful advice, and you want to know the true way to change people, I encourage you to learn about my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program here.

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