I shook my head as I sat working on my computer at home, sipping a coffee. I felt frustrated for him. He did not need work – he needed a 180-degree shift in perspective with self-probing questions, tips, skills, and advice to get the work he wanted – not to get job interview advice or a job.

Whether you’re going for a retail, nursing, accounting, teacher, or government interview full-time or part-time over the phone, online, or in person, the following job interview advice will help you ace any interview to get the job of your dreams.

Why You Are Unemployed and Miserable Before Any Interview

I could catapult many job interview tips at you because I’m a conversation skills coach and company owner. You won’t get the tips now because that’s not what you need. What will help you the most in getting the job you want is looking at how you approach job hunting and interviews.

If you go into an interview wanting the job to solve your money worries – to help your life – you won’t get the job. Few employers hire out of pity. They suffer from their own problems and want to pay you to alleviate these dilemmas.

The guy at the start of this article who wanted a job didn’t care about me. He didn’t want to add value to my customers. He didn’t think about how he can increase my sales. He didn’t care about broken website code, business partnerships to be made, or traffic to be attracted. He didn’t want to relive my itches. He focused on himself.

Most self-absorbed communication harms you. You don’t make friends by bragging about yourself, listing your accomplishments, and ignoring another’s needs. Job seekers do exactly this at interviews. Narcissistic-like individuals talk about themselves, their skills, their past, and why they want the job.

You don’t make friends by bragging about yourself, listing your accomplishments, and ignoring another’s needs. Job seekers do this in job interviews.

The first and most important leap to take to nail the job interview you want or move ahead in your career is to solve the employer’s problems. Talk about your skills, experience, and why you want the job by relating it exactly to the employer’s wants and needs. Without that relation, your abilities are open to misinterpretation and ignorance. Forget your needs for the moment – once you provide value to others, they become determined to reciprocate your efforts and keep you.

Empathize with the interviewer by placing yourself in his or her shoes. Constantly ask yourself, “What is their need at the moment?” If you can answer this question in any communication, you’re in the top five percent of communicators in the world.

No one cares about your bachelor degree or your intelligence. It’s what your degree or intelligence does that gets you hired.

I speak for many companies by saying that what’s on paper gets you hired, but what happens between you and people gets you fired. Poor human resource managers deny or accept a job candidate merely on experiences and qualities (what’s seen on a resume), while great HR managers go beyond shallow resumes and cognitive tests and really see if the candidate is a determined winner. I recommend you get Topgrading, which was written for company owners, because it helps craft you into an A-player companies want.

My Secret to Communicate Great at Interviews and Work

In a fierce economy, today is more important than ever to master your communication skills. We will always need to talk, listen, and connect with one another.

Start developing your communication right now in everyday life. How you socialize shows in how you interact with customers and coworkers. I have a saying, “How you do something is how you do anything.”

Skills you think take time to see are apparent to good interviewers. Seemingly minor signals of unconscious skill show in your body language. If you’re not immediately friendly to strangers in everyday life, you won’t immediately befriend the interviewer who will then project that feeling into the future and assume you cannot quickly befriend customers.

The most attractive employees are good communicators and good communicators develop themselves in their own time. This is something I’ve never heard anywhere else that I believe makes or breaks critical moments in a career. Attractive skills, such as your honesty in being unable to answer a question or your calmness when someone is agitated, must be developed outside of the workplace. Unemployment and job-misery begins before the interview.

Little-Known Conversation Techniques to Seduce the Interviewer Then Get the Job

All principles of good conversation apply to the interview (from the introduction, small talk, humor, self-disclosure, interest, and open body language). Any time you feel lost or confused, think what makes up an enjoyable conversation. Interviews are a conversation between the candidate and interviewer.

Start by standing and introducing yourself to the interviewer instead of waiting for an introduction. Lean forward to give a solid, slow web-to-web handshake.

All principles of good conversation apply to the interview.

Next, initiate conversation. Talk about the person’s lovely office, a plant, or photo. Drop a comment about a worker you spotted or a sign you read on your way in. The conversation builds rapport and relaxes each of you – the interviewer can be nervous as well! My Big Talk course offers a complete training on how to effortlessly talk and make friends with strangers.

Show interest in the business. Study its history before the interview. If it’s a smaller business and you’re being interviewed by its owner, be curious behind the owner’s motives for starting the business. The person will become animated and talk about the business’ foundations! He or she will walk away from your interview thinking you were a great person. Ramit Sethi has bonus job interview advice on YouTube to research a company:

A good conversation skill that is also a way to show interest in the business is to ask questions during the interview. Walk into the interview with at least three solid questions planned. This gives you backup questions if the interviewer answers one or two before you.

Before I taught communication skills, I had a group interview for the position of a night-fill worker at a supermarket. The human resources manager running the interview talked for 10 minutes then asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” The room was silent. I could see the twinge in her lips indicating her disappointment in our non-responsiveness.

Just before she was about to move on, I asked how she got into her managerial position because I wanted to understand her and what it takes to be promoted. She smiled and talked for five minutes about the company’s internal way of promoting employees. I think I easily got the job because of my question and display of interest.

Good questions to ask in the interview include:

• “What happened to the previous person in this position?”
• “What results do you expect from the successful candidate’s first year?”
• “How does the company lead its teams? Like, are workers given independence to make their own decisions or is it highly determined by upper management?”
• “How would you describe the company’s culture?”
• “In your opinion, what’s the most important thing someone new to the company should know so they and the company benefit?”

There are three real subtle benefits of asking questions. Firstly, questions show curiosity and interest. Secondly, you look better than other interviewees. Most candidates are too busy talking about themselves, not curious or concerned about solving the company’s problems. Thirdly, you subtly qualify the company to match your own needs. A subtle seduction technique is to make the other party work for you. Humans value what they earn. Employers will value you more if you have job opportunities elsewhere and are a little picky over how they can fulfill your needs. How very counter-intuitive!

Once a question is answered or you learn an important point about the business, write a note for yourself even if you have good memory. The power in this technique comes from how it makes the other person feel. You’ll look well-prepared and trustworthy. It’s amazing how much your credibility increases by writing down what someone tells you.

How to Appear Confident in an Interview

Believe your words. If you don’t have confidence in yourself, others won’t have confidence in you.

One of the best ways to show others confidence is through your voice. Speak at a good volume with relaxation. Literally talk louder to make yourself feel confident. A louder voice is physiological confidence that boosts your psychological confidence.

Bodily stress and tension wrecks havoc on your vocals when you try to be perfect. Shift your focus from yourself to how you fill the company’s needs like I mentioned before. You will relax, communicate confidence through your voice, and show attractive warmth.

Another technique taken from my Big Talk that I recommend to quickly boost your confidence in an interview is to think the interviewer is an old friend. Try more absurd visualizations that reframes the person interviewing you into a strange situation. Imagine the person nervously being interviewed by another manager or lazily lounging in front of the television. That’s crazy and effective job interview advice!

Similar to what I said before about how to better your communication, the best way to have confidence in an interview is to work on it each day. What you do inside the interview is how you live.

Insider’s Secret Job Interview Advice to Get Hired

Go to the company beforehand and introduce yourself to a few employees saying you’re interested in working for the company. Ask the employees for their thoughts on the company, tips for the interview, recommended dress, and any insider secrets that could give you an edge. Use these people to see if the company is worth working for before you waste further time in the screening process.

Mention the names of the people you talked to in the interview. You subliminally make the hiring manager feel you already work for the company!

Compliment the hiring manager about those you talked to. We love people who love people. How do you think the hiring manager will feel hearing about the great workforce?

When the interview ends, reward yourself regardless of the outcome. Interviews can be scary so it helps to appreciate yourself. Job hunting is tough enough without self-criticism.

If your interview is a success and you get offered the job, know how to negotiate your salary. It’s key job interview advice. Watch the video below on YouTube as Justin Wilson negotiates his salary with Ramit Sethi as if you were listening in on the conversation. They then breakdown what to do step-by-step:

Have job interview advice to share with Tower of Power readers? Post a comment below.

Why Stress Makes Communication Difficult

You find it hard to communicate in stressful moments. So do I. There’s a reason why it is hard to listen and not yell in tough situations that all relationships face. Science proves it is near impossible for you to communicate well when under stress.

The body experiences a primal response that agitates people in conflict. A stressed guy will tense his face, breathe shallowly, raise his voice, respond faster, and not think clearly. If you controlled these body responses, you would not be stressed. Not only does tension hurt your communication, it creates a viral effect. Your stress infects those around you.

Conflict is probably synonymous for you with stress. To be in conflict with someone is to be stressed. For me, I must have my mental and physical tension under control so I can communicate effectively to improve my relationships. If I do not manage my stress, it inevitably gets the better of me, as it will to you.

Stress makes us mentally ill. A psychiatrist could diagnose you with depression, mania, psychosis, bipolar disorder, or another mental illness when you are stressed. The difference between you and someone diagnosed with one of these mental health problems is the time you and they spend in those states. A person diagnosed with depression feels down for most of the day while you may temporarily be depressed only when you are under loads of stress. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze Responses in Conversation

Stress in conflict evokes the fight, flight, or freeze responses. An argument, disagreement, or confrontation elevates tension as you yell, withdraw, stand confused. You do things you later regret.

Aggressive behavior towards another person temporarily feels okay, but then reality kicks in as you feel even more stressed from hurting the person. When you try your best to hide tension, your suppressed emotions eat at you to later hurt your relationships.

A psychiatrist could diagnose you with a series of mental illness when stressed. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

When under stress, your communication style will change in response to the situation. You can go from a cool, collected person one moment, yet when a stressful situation impinges your tolerable threshold your calm style can quickly shift to aggressive or submissive behaviors. The behavior you fall back on in stressful situations is the one you found comfortable in the past that offered momentary protection.

When someone surpasses their tolerable degree of tension, telling them to get their act together or to communicate better, does not work. It won’t work for you either. It’s human extinct to block external factors, such as other people’s feelings, and listen to internal ones as your interpersonal communication skills decline. Better communication in intense conflict is a matter of managing stress otherwise it is next to impossible to deal with conflict.

“What Did I Say?” – Memory Loss and Other Dangers of Stress

Stress motivates us to take action, but it too often works against us. We yell, withdraw, or shut-down in tense communication. Our bodies produce cortisol, known as the “stress hormone”, to compel us into action. Without this double-edged hormone, we would accomplish little. If you are completely relaxed in conflict and untrained in good communication skills, you could overlook the problematic issue or give an unsympathetic response.

Research has shown cortisol to improve cognitive functioning. Too much cortisol, however, causes impairment. If you have ever forgotten what you said in a verbal fight, cortisol has literally shut off short-term memory. Cortisol obtrudes neurotransmitters that are chemicals responsible for communication between neurons and other cells. That is why you can memorize a speech 50 times and forget it when you present it. A stressful crisis temporarily results in a blank mind.

Stanford neuroscience professor Robert Sapolsky found that cortisol also causes long-term memory loss. When the receptors for cortisol located in the hippocampus (the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory) gets flooded overtime, it melts like microwaved Swiss cheese.

The affects of stress are too numerous to list here. From rapid aging of the body and heart disease, to poor sleep and skin conditions, the effects are real. You need techniques to manage your stress; not just for your communication, but also for your health.

Stress Reduction Tips: 9 Key Lessons for Intelligent Stress Management

We need to attack stress deep within our neurology where it originates. Thinking positively or talking yourself through stress isn’t going to reduce tension. I have developed nine effective ways and techniques to manage stress you can use to keep calm in stressful moments so you can communicate better and live a happier life:

1. Prevention is the best cure. The best technique to deal with stress is to stop it before it begins. Create the appropriate measures, boundaries, and strategies to interrupt rising tensions. If the tension between two people rises beyond a safe level, one strategy is to pause, walk away, punch a pillow, and take slow deep breathes before commencing the conversation. You can incorporate other stress management techniques listed below into your plan to be more calm in conflict.

2. Accept your feelings. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do. Do not say, “I shouldn’t be feeling stressed right now.” You must accept your feelings otherwise they will persist or repress into forms that severely affect your mental health and ability to effectively communicate. When you accept your stress, you move forward to taking personal responsibility.

3. Accept responsibility for how you feel. It is tempting and easy to release stress on other people. Do not treat people inappropriately. If you treat people in a way they don’t want to be treated, you make them tense, which they will be happy to put back on you.

Blame makes you more stressed because anxiety is related to events within your control. What is beyond your reach makes you anxious. If you blame your shouting spouse for making you angry, your anxiety and stress will remain because you have little influence over your spouse’s voice.

When you accept responsibility, you eliminate blame. You live in truth. You do not become a victim of others. You take control of your feelings. Your new levels of responsibility cause you to do something about how you feel.

If someone causes you stress, address the person about the problem. Explain to them how you feel, why you feel that way, and what can be done to fix the problem. Be problem-oriented; not person-oriented.

4. Breathe. When tension in your body rises, you automatically take shallow breathes. This is one of the first stages prior to full fight, flight, or freeze responses that hurt effective communication. When your stress levels rise, take several deep, slow breathes and you will instantly reduce your stress levels.

Accept stress. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do.

5. Take time out. A walk away is guaranteed to refresh your mind. Don’t call for the travel agent to book a Caribbean cruise though, because a temporary break is all you need. Go for a walk or workout at the gym. Be active to release hormones that counter stress. Exercise is the body’s emotional reset button.

Absence from the situation that created the tension takes your mind off the problem. It gives you clearer thoughts to attack the problem. Be sure to address the problem after your time out otherwise you will only temporarily avoid the real issue.

6. Be flexible. Stress is like the sunrise and sunset. It is inevitable. It is a part of your human body. Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to change your behavior and communication.

Be soft; not brittle. Recognize signals of stress by reading people’s verbal and nonverbal language, then adjust yourself accordingly. Be flexible by going a bit out of your way for them to assist their temporary needs and wants. Don’t run around the world for them, but do be more aware and respondent of them. This can lead you to less stress.

7. Discuss the problem afterwards. Combine this tip with the prior tip of remaining flexible and you have two keys to manage tense people. You need to address the problem following the stressful moment otherwise destructive, repetitious behavior occurs. Also, if there is someone you know that finds it difficult to manage their stress in communication, you can refer them to this article by clicking the “ShareThis” link at the bottom of this article.

8. Ask others about your responses in stressful moments. You are to do this because you cannot provide an accurate self-assessment when stressed. Your short-term memory loss makes it impossible to recall information.

Awareness of your behavior can trigger a pattern interrupt. If the person says you consistently yell when stressed, raising your voice can trigger self-awareness that your stress needs to reduce before the conversation continues.

9. Listen to binaural beats. Discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, binaural beats describes the low-frequency pulsations in the brain created by different frequencies played into each ear. The brain integrates the two sounds to form a third sound that relaxes the mind.

In terms of stress, binaural beats is a miracle. A correctly made binaural beat will scientifically make your brain produce alpha waves, which is the same brain wave you have when resting. That wonderful feeling you have when lying in bed almost asleep can be replicated by binaural beats. Imagine how better your life would be by simply putting on a headphone the next time you feel stressed as you enter a relaxed state at will!

If you are after binaural beats, Paul Kleinmeulman has a good program that includes a series of binaural beats for different purposes. You can check out his program here, where you will learn more about the proven science behind binaural beats, which can make you motivated, sleep better, intensify your focus, learn efficiently, and keep relaxed.

Conflict does not need to be synonymous with stress. Neither has to make you miserable. Stress can be a good thing when managed with the above tips.

Your body experiences stress because it is threatened in conflict. Do something about it. You don’t want to feel the same way in a fight as you do when watching the Simpsons. Harness this primal response and you will be communicating more effectively in your next confrontation.

Horrifying Statistics of Email Etiquette

The number of untrained email users is staggering. Former Chief Solutions Officer of Yahoo! Tim Sanders estimates that 90% of business communication is email based and only 10% of email users receive adequate training. The statistics now get nasty.

According to market research firm Radicati Group, 89 billion business emails were sent per day in 2012. There is expected to be 3.8 billion email accounts by 2014. This means an estimated 3.42 billion email accounts will be owned by people untrained in email come 2014.

Your workplace and business likely suffers from poor email etiquette. It isn’t getting better anytime soon unless you do something about it with the rules of email etiquette in this article.

Good Netiquette

Email etiquette, broadly referred to as “netiquette”, defines the rules of email communication. Netiquette is important because an email sent cannot be retrieved. You cannot reach through the computer cables to retrieve an email to your boss in a regretful emotional out-lash where you swore to destroy his dictatorship.

Netiquette is more than writing a grammatically correct email to a friend. It builds clarity, understanding, and productivity in everyday email communication. From having the right mindset when seated to sending an email, here are the most important email etiquette rules to follow so you’re one (or many) of the 380 million email account owners in 2014 that know what to do in their inbox:

1. Control emotional emails. Do not send an email when you are angry. You could say things you later regret and the receiver of your little outburst will have a record that could be used against you. Many careers have been destroyed from angry emails. Your email may appear okay as you compose it, but let time clear your mind so you don’t regret clicking the “send” button.

I also recommend you re-read your email to check for sentences, phrases, and words that can be interpreted another way to your main intent. You may come off as rude when you try to be nice. A simple joke you think is funny may offend someone because they misinterpreted the joke. The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium to communicate emotion.

The lack of nonverbal communication in email makes it a poor medium to communicate emotion.

2. Provide the right amount of information. People waste too much time browsing their inbox the way it is without having to read long messages. Do humanity a favor by keeping your emails short. Cut the fat.

You still need to provide all the information upfront when possible. It is frustrating and time-consuming to ask questions for more information that could have been provided in the initial email.

3. Format it right. You don’t need to be a geek to use this rule. HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is used to make websites look pretty. Making text bold or (what you think is) pretty in email uses HTML. When you copy and paste emails from websites, you may also unknowingly copy the HTML code across.

When you format an email, the email may look different when someone receives it. Just like in face-to-face conversations, the message sent is not the message received. Some email programs are not HTML compatible so when they receive HTML emails, weird HTML code might show and other formatting issues may occur.

Simply provide a website link if you are going to copy an entire web page. If you want to copy snippets of information, not only do you risk breaking copyright laws, but at your discretion you can copy the text across to a text-file program (such as Notepad, not Microsoft Word) then copy the text from there into your email program. Copying text to a text-file program removes HTML to prevent weird formatting issues.

4. Should you reply to all?. It is frustrating to receive emails from group members who simply say “Yes, I can come” or “No” when you do not need to receive them. Stop being lazy. Take the small amount of time to address your email to the specific people your email is intended for.

5. Do not forward to all. I am a big victim of this email mistake! If you subscribe to my newsletter, you are advised to add me to your address book or whitelist to help my emails reach your inbox. With tens of thousands of subscribers, I am in many people’s address book. Subscribers often receive an email then forward it to everyone in their address book. The result for me is a daily cleanup of forwarded emails containing stories, quotes, and cute kittens.

Chain emails are so annoying! The next time you get an email with a poem, story, or series of images you love, keep them to yourself. A lovely story about patience you forward to friends may infuriate them.

6. Keep people’s email addresses hidden. It is rude to send an email to several people making their email address visible in the “To” box. Unless the recipients know each other and are comfortable sharing their email addresses, avoid this mistake. Use the Bcc (blind carbon copy) function of emails to hide recipients’ email addresses. The Bcc function ensures everyone receives the email and makes it look addressed to the specific individual.

7. Save the message thread. Not having the replied message in the sent message is the face-to-face equivalent of being bashed across the head and forgetting what was discussed in the conversation. Based on many emails I receive everyday, I estimate 30% of people do not attach their replied message. I easily forget what was sent in an email someone replied to because I frequently have discussions with multiple people at the same time.

Make it easy for people to know what you talk about by ensuring their message you reply to is attached. Google’s email service, Gmail, is great at keeping track of past messages. Be sure to change your email settings so that messages you reply to get included in your reply.

8. Be smart with your abbreviations. Friend to friend or family member to family member, the use of abbreviations is up to you. Problems arise when abbreviations in workplace emails make you appear unprofessional. If an abbreviation is used in the industry and the recipient knows what it means, use it otherwise abstain from abbreviations. Here is a useful video on email etiquette I thought you might find interesting:

A three minute Fox Providence presentation discussing email etiquette. It focuses on professionalism by avoiding abbreviations.

9. Avoid unknown abbreviations. AFAIK 404 but I’ll POAHF because I TILII. Do you know what that means? Very few people do. It means: As far as I know I have no clue, but I’ll put on a happy face because I tell it like it is.

Good email etiquette avoids unknown abbreviations. What seems apparent to you might confuse the recipient of your email. How would you like it if a friend sent you an email with ADO, YOOAD, WWMT, and other weird abbreviations? (I just made those last few ) You would feel annoyed at having to clarify something the person should realize in the first place.

10. Pick the right subject heading. If you leave the subject field empty or simply put “Re:” in the field, you avoid an important function of email communication. Your goal in personal emails is not to write the most captivating subject heading so people open your email. Write an honest and specific subject heading that reflects your email message. Instead of writing “HELP!!” to your telecommunications company, you could write “Help Needed With Phone Wires”. If I deem a subject heading is important, I can take up to 5-minutes to think of a good subject.

11. Send at a suitable time. Be weary of the time you send your email. This etiquette rule depends on a few things. Firstly, with the worldwide connectivity and never-ending discussion over the Internet, it matters little what time you send an email to someone in a different time zone. Secondly, some people do not care what time you send your email as they only care about reading what you have to say.

Be careful of the time you send emails to people such as coworkers, managers, and clients. A job candidate’s email containing a resume sent to the human resources department at 3am looks bad in the inbox. Good luck acing an interview or even getting one because of this mistake. Send an email at another time if you think the recipient will judge you poorly based on the time you send it.

Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face.

12. Excessive Capitalization. IT IS CONSIDERED RUDE TO TYPE IN CAPITALS. Typing in capitals is the digital equivalent of yelling in someone’s face. Hopefully, you would not yell in someone’s face so do not do it in the digital world. On the other end of the spectrum, do not type all your text in lower case. It is simple grammar.

13. Spell check. I am guilty of this a few times and have been pulled up by the grammar police for teaching communication and misspelling words. (Apparently I am not allowed to misspell words!) Spell check your formal emails. Most email providers and even web browsers provide the option to spell check. If your email service or web browser does not have a spell checker, copy your email into a word editing document to spell check it.

14. Use attachments the right way. Any email attachment over one mega byte (approximately 1000KB) is pushing email etiquette rules. Not everyone has broadband or cable, and these people do not want to spend 5 minutes downloading an unnecessary file. For large attachments, you are better off using file upload services such as Mega File Upload and 2shared. With these services, you upload a file to their website and they give you a link you can send to others where they can download the file.

Another rule for email attachments is to consider the format of your attachment. Not everyone can open a file with the .odt extension.

15. Do not request delivery and read receipts. Delivery and read receipts is an old feature in email programs. The feature lets you send an email and have the recipient confirm it was received. You are notified with an email that the person received your email if the person confirms.

The feature is an unreliable way to check if someone receives your email. It also adds more clutter to an already busy inbox. In most cases, you don’t need to know if an email was received because modern technology with email deliverability is good.

If you need to check whether your email was received, ask the person in your email to reply saying they got your message. If your message is really that important, which it rarely is over email, maybe you should phone the person. Do not blame the recipient of your email for a problem you can control.

16. Write. Send. Edit. That is obviously in the wrong order if you follow good email etiquette. By the time you click the “Submit” button, you should be confident in not having to read what you sent. Get this common email mistake in the right order: 1) Write, 2) Edit, and 3) Send. Wow! Done.

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The law does little to protect victims of workplace conflict. Nearly all laws do not take into account verbal conflict, but if the verbal and other emotional abuse approaches physical abuse, the issue can become a legal concern. The typical employee who faces a difficult manager, however, needs to handle the workplace bully through a series of skills in this article.

People who lack the communication skills to deal with a bad boss either:

1. Endure the bully. These people put up with intimidation from the bullying boss. They may lack self-respect or assertive communication. They may feel at risk of losing their job if they tackle the problem.
2. Bully the bully. The people taking this action face their boss by reciprocating aggression. The problem often intensifies as a fight break outs or each person does things to sabotage the other.

First Common Reaction: Endure the Bully

The first reaction to a bullying boss is a passive response. In this response you forgo your needs while your boss tramples you. The last thing you should do during abuse is accept the abuse.

Address the issue in the correct manner otherwise your confidence, happiness, amd your work will suffer. Recipients of aggressive behavior who incorrectly handle aggression are known to develop health problems such as strokes, heart attacks, suicide, migraines, escalated stress levels, insomnia, and terrifying nightmares. One anonymous person often dreamed her boss pointing a gun at employees so they would complete their work.

Passive people suppress their own needs and get dominated by others. They live in frustration. Their anger bottles up inside. They lack the communication skills to address the problem, hoping the abusive person stops bullying out of goodwill.

People in this first category of responding to an aggressive boss sometimes avoid the issue due to fear. You may avoid defending yourself and accept the aggression in a work situation – especially with someone that has authoritative power – from fear of losing your job, being demoted, or undergoing further abuse.

I’m not hear to say your fears are irrational. Losing your job is a real threat because most who stick up for themselves do so aggressively, which creates further problems. The end result for people that choose this first response is a win for the bully and a loss for the passive person.

Second Common Reaction: Bully the Bully

The second common reaction to facing a bully is aggression. People who aggressively self-defend often have more confidence than passive individuals. They think the only way to get what they want is through retaliation. It becomes fire against fire. When an aggressive employee faces an aggressive boss, a fight starts as two individuals take to a verbal boxing ring, mentally beating each other’s minds.

People can be aggressive for several reasons:

• They were abused by their parents at an early age or placed under other emotional trauma.
• They are mentally ill. I’m not jokingly referring to a mental illness, but a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia or a personality disorder.
• They think the only way to stop someone else’s abusive behavior is to reciprocate the abuse.
• The aggression is a release of anger often caused by avoiding an issue that is irritating them. This behavior is otherwise known as “passive-aggressive behavior” where the person is frequently passive, but randomly explodes to release their frustration. After the occasional and often unexpected outburst, the person returns to passiveness.
• The person is in a high pressure environment. High stress work environments make its employees prone to unhealthy behaviors.
• The aggressive individual may try to prove his superiority, control, discipline, or focus on results to others through aggressive behavior.

While aggression in the workplace may create sufficient productivity, it is strongly correlated to a high turnover rate (said to be an average of 1.5 years) and other commitment problems. Employees fake sick days, become miserable, sabotage work, and lose passion for work. Aggressive managers end up creating an unproductive workforce. “Bully the bully” is a loss for the manager and the person originally bullied.

A Third Rare Action: Assertive Communication with the Boss

The first common reaction is a passive response. The second common reaction is an aggressive response. A median response known as “assertiveness” exists between these two common reactions and produces a win-win response. Where passive communication fails to respect yourself and aggressive communication fails to respect the other person, assertive communication respects everyone.

Assertive communication techniques can stop bullying, stop your fear of facing difficult issues, and build your self-confidence to create a nice working relationship with your boss. Assertive skills can transform your inner and outer conflict.

A Step-by-Step Approach with Techniques to Cure a Bad Boss

In this section you will get a series of techniques shared through a scenario to help you face an aggressive boss. Use as many techniques as you can in everyday life because assertive communication does more than help you handle an aggressive boss. Assertiveness helps you face aggressive people and other difficult personality types like controlling people.

The first step to handle an aggressive person begins before you open your mouth. Prior to approaching your boss about the problem, ask yourself: “What can I change in my behavior to solve the aggression?” Asking this question helps you own your behavior. It builds self-responsibility and stops you blaming others over what you control. This first step may solve the problem and eliminate aggression because you were the problem.

…this first step may solve the problem and eliminate aggression because you were the problem.

Additionally, before you approach your boss, develop a plan of what to say and how you can solve the problem. Prepare to make the conversation productive. Even if you think of good solutions when preparing for the conversation, remain flexible and willing to adjust your behavior to satisfy your boss. A willingness to compromise is assertive.

Once you approach your boss, be calm and responsive. Calmness is not enough because it can show ignorance and increase aggression from a lack of responsiveness. Behaving unresponsive hurts empathy and makes it difficult to diffuse an aggressive person’s emotions. You don’t want to ignore an angry boss!

When you are calm yet responsive, you will not become aggressive. When you remove your aggression, you will reduce your boss’ aggressive communication because the two of you are no longer in a destructive cycle of anger. Fire needs some sort of fuel to stay alight. By keeping calm yet remaining responsive, you remove the psychological fuel needed to keep your boss’ aggressive fire burning.

Have the right mindset of resolving the problem at hand. When faced with difficult people, it is easy think you are right. Guess what? Your boss also thinks he is right! This is why conflict feels like swimming with a shark – you sometimes have to compromise yourself to move the problem forward. Be the first one to step towards problem resolution.

Now that you understand these concepts and techniques, it’s time to approach your boss. Find the best time to talk with your boss. Do not try and solve this problem in an intense emotional situation. You may need to wait until the end of the day, or even the end of the week, until you believe the boss is approachable.

As you address your boss, the best thing you can do is ask for his opinion and point of view on the matter. If the person is unaware of his aggression, bring up a specific situation where the person became aggressive. This is an excellent technique that builds an awareness of someone who refuses to acknowledge their aggression.

When you begin a tough conversation by asking for the person’s point of view, instead of blurting what you think and feel about the situation, your persuasive ability builds from a newfound perception. You may see a new side to the story when you practice good listening skills. Asking for your boss’ point of view will help you understand, and even help, your boss understand why he is aggressive. Your boss will feel understood when you actively listen, which can lead to many great outcomes.

After your boss has made suggestions, begin to give your ideas about the problem. Keep calm and stay focused on resolving the problem while avoiding personal attacks. Ask for your boss’ feedback on ideas. Make it a joint solution so each of you follow through with the final plan. A mutual solution is always followed through by both parties more consistently than a solution forced on one person.

A mutual solution is always followed through by both parties more consistently than a solution forced upon one person.

Take note of the positive points your boss shows in his behavior during the discussion then compliment him on these. Tell him how happy you are for him to listen and be in the conversation with you. Keep the conversation positive as problem solving can seem negative – even though it is good for people.

If none of these techniques work – provided you have talked with others about the problem and tried your best to stop your boss from behaving aggressively – ask yourself: “What’s more valuable to me: my happiness or my work?” Without knowing your exact situation, your happiness is more valuable. Should your boss continue treating you poorly, have the courage to respect yourself. If the only way to stop an awful boss is to quit your job, so be it.

Work is a task people hate for 40 years of their life. It does not have to be that way. You no longer have to be in an unproductive and miserable working relationship. Value yourself and do something about your aggressive boss the next time you go to work. You may start to love work. Your livelihood depends on it.

(The techniques presented in this article have been adapted from my Communication Secrets of Powerful People program. This program is a revolutionary way to charismatically change minds – even in difficult situations like how to handle a cruel boss.)

The benefits of communication are mind-boggling. It goes beyond what you’re about to discover here. Any interaction with people or lack of interaction from things like shyness can improve with communication.

Rudyard Kipling said, “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” Kipling’s quote fails to communication because it is far more than words – communication is also nonverbal. Imagine the powerful benefits of communication now.

Here are a list of communication benefits that tell you the “what”, “why”, and “how” this amazing skill will change your life:

1. Communication increases your happiness. You’ve heard money cannot buy happiness. You become happy by taking the right actions. Think about it. Happiness is at the core of your actions because happiness is not conditional. You don’t become happy by getting a certain object or person in your life. When you learn communication, you take action to make yourself happy.

While developing your communication makes you happy, happiness also increases as you minimize destructive conflict. Effective communication makes you happier by helping you: reduce verbal fights, manage anger, express yourself to “get things off your back”, and change other situations to increase relationship-enhancing feelings.

2. Communication makes you one hot dude or chick. You attract the people in your life. Get excited because you have invisible forces that draw and repel people. This is not mystical mumbo-jumbo. If you want to attract a fun, loving, positive, and caring person, you have to become a fun, loving, positive, and caring person.

When you improve how you talk and present yourself, you reap the benefits of communication. You boost your confidence, self-esteem, and social life – all universally attractive qualities.

Communication is the relationship.

Without communication, attraction dies. Physical appearance can only get you so far. Communication makes you interesting, connects you with people, builds friendships, and attracts a partner. Pick-up artists use communication to build attraction and get physically intimate with women in hours and sometimes minutes.

3. Communication adds intimacy. How do people become open in a relationship? Good communication, of course, because it is the only bridge between a relationship. Communication is the relationship. Poor communication in a relationship is like a plant without water. When communication dies, so does the relationship. Two persons connect only through good communication.

4. Communication increases love. This benefit of communication ties in with intimacy. You can love people more than you think by changing the way you talk and actively listen. These skills show respect and love to people. Giving love is the best way to receive love.

5. Communication makes you more popular. Though it’s a superficial goal to become the most liked person in school or a club, communication makes you more popular. Once you develop good conversation skills, your number of friends is only limited by the time you talk with people. Subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like tips on how to win friends.

6. Communication increases your success. John Johanson and Carrie Fried did a 2002 study published in the Teaching of Psychology Journal asked graduates what skill contributed the most to their success. The number one answer was interpersonal skills. Drew Appleby in a well-known psychology magazine “Eye on Psi Chi” asked 39 employers what job skills they want in job candidates. Interpersonal skills was number one again.

World renowned personal business consultant Brian Tracy in Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life says the highest paid intelligence in the United States is interpersonal intelligence. A person with such intelligence understands people’s feelings and desires – and employers pay big bucks for someone with these skills. Success is yet another benefit of communication.

7. Communication makes you relaxed. Stress relates to how we manage ourselves with the world. You become relaxed by assertively telling someone “no” if they ask you to do what you don’t want. You no longer worry over the world’s reactions if you respond from control within yourself. (Checkout another article of mine, where you learn effective stress management techniques in communication.)

8. Communication makes you satisfied. You’re satisfied when you meet a need or desire. To get what you want, either someone gives it to you or you get it yourself. You cannot control what someone gives you (although you can influence them), which means you must learn how to get what you want to be satisfied. You do this by improving your persuasion, negotiation, and influence skills.

9. Communication gives you self-control. Think of the times you said something you later regretted. Maybe you even slapped someone. Communication skills helps self-control to manage impulsive behavior. Self-control is beyond not doing actions; it also involves doing the right things.

10. Communication helps self-understanding. Do you know why you feel bad when someone gives you criticism? Why do you feel surges of anger towards someone you love? How do you overcome fear that stops you from talking with that hot chick?

If you’re like most people, you don’t understand your behavior. This hurts you everyday. Not even I fully understand myself in a way that lets me use my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual resources to my potential. No one ever will. You will never have the complete answers to these questions – and you don’t need them. Perfect communication is unnecessary.

11. Communication helps you understand people. Rarely do we understand people to the level they want. Effective communication helps you see someone’s emotions, understand their emotions, and communicate at the level of emotions to connect the two of you in a way people rarely experience.

Understanding happens at two levels. Firstly, good communication helps you understand human behavior as it relates to everyone. Secondly, it helps you understand people you talk with as you explore what really matters to them. This my friend, is the real benefit of communication. Let it empower your life.

There is an abundance of additional benefits effective communication creates…

This is a small list of the benefits communication skills can give you. There are many other benefits of communication such as getting that job promotion, better teamwork, and connecting with children, but hopefully the list gives you a great idea of the impact this glorious skill can have on your life. Experience the power of communication. Let it supercharge your life today by signing up to my free newsletter here to improve your communication.