Quote from Mats G on July 25, 2023, 8:20 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 25, 2023, 7:00 pm

Yes, basically what we do in Switzerland is

1. You try to reason with the person (if you're not a coward as many Swiss call the police first thing without even talking to the person)

2. You cannot reason, you say that from now on you're going to call the police as you've tried to reason and it does not work

3. Each time you have an issue (must be a significant one) you call the police and describe what happened.

How does it help?

Well, each time you call them now it's their responsibility if they don't intervene. That is if something bad happens it's now on them (you know how much the police love bad publicity through the media: does not have to tell them/threaten them, they know).

So sure, there is the risk of thinking it's "cry wolf". That's why the description must be factual, calm and remind them last time you call (I don't know your age but if you're a family I guess it would be your father or your mother's responsibility, not yours but you can suggest them).

"Hello it's Mats (again), regarding our neighbour X, he's drunk again in front of our house and is insulting us. It's been 30 min we are trying to reason with him and he does not want to leave. Could you please come to help us deal with it? I'm worried about my family's safety as last time (the exact date) we dealt with it by ourselves and he hurt my mother by squeezing her arm. He also threatened us to kill the cat with his gun. I don't know if he has one but that's what he told us."

By the way, if he hurt her I would consider pressing charges. No one has the right to hurt someone else in our current societies. That's why there are laws.

So now they have to choose if they intervene or not. If they don't well they estimate it's not that serious. But if you called repeatedly for the same issue and they never sent anyone to check it's neglectful behaviour: it's their job to come and check. Even if then it's "nothing".

Now, if they come once now it's not a threat anymore it's real: he sees the police. What will the police tell him? Of course: "don't do it again."

And now you have a precedent. Now you can use: "You want us to call the police again? So please go home now it's late".

Now that they're part of the scenario it's up to them if they want to escalate (take him for a night in jail to get sober or consider a psychiatric hospitalization knowing his psychiatric problems: maybe his treatment is not working well enough, could be : he left you guys alone for a year).

But now it's not you vs him. It's him vs the police. Different scenario. And you can even escalate verbally: "Last time they told you not to do it again. Do you want to go to jail?"

You see the Spiel. You appeal to a higher authority (whose job it is anyway).

Because the only thing these people understand is the carrot and the stick. In his inebriated state he's even less likely to understand anything so that will be the stick for this gentleman.

I understand and empathize with his mental issues. That being said it's his family's responsibility not yours.

That's how I view it. I hope it's helpful. I'm not saying you have to do what I say, I hope it's clear.

Edit: at the minimum the police should give you a "how to behave" in these situations and should give you "red flags" when to call them to intervene. Their job is to keep you safe. If you end up hurt, they failed their job.

Boom!

John this is invaluable advice, thank you so much man!

That whole dynamic of making the cops responsible if something happens (which as you point out is in fact their job) finally makes me see why it's so important to involve them. From now on this will be my new approach.

Shifting the situation from "us versus him" to "him against the police" would also be such a big improvement.

I think with this I'm finally starting to feel like I have some control. Just knowing what I need to do if he comes back is such a mental empowerment.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 25, 2023, 7:34 pm

My point of view:

For sure you don't call the police AFTER the facts or when nothing is happening.

As Sun Tzu says:

You always leave your enemy an escape route.

If you bother him when he's not doing anything, you teach him that he's going to be chased no matter what.
That's bad, because you want to teach him that as long as he behaves, he's OK.

And that's twice as bad with personalities who see enemy and persecutions everywhere (we had an example in this forum as well).

So you never get the police far away from the incidents.
And the same applies to you talking to him actually: it's better done when the issue is still fresh.

BUT, if he misbehaves, that's when he pays the consequences.

Thank you Lucio, now I see the big mistake I made yesterday.

I was actually telling myself it would be a bad idea to talk with him over a month after the latest incident, but I assumed I was just making up excuses to avoid it. And most likely I was, but still it's good to know that there was some truth to it as well for the future.

 

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 25, 2023, 8:37 pm

Just to be sure:

Talking, even after a month, is OK (especially since you weren't there).

Doing something that he may feel is harassing/aggressing may be different.

But don't over-sweat, it's not nearly as bad as involving the police later on.

Quote from Mats G on July 25, 2023, 9:05 pm

Thank you so much for the feedback Lucio!

There is so much value in here beyond just this specific interaction.

Comparing your proposed answers to the ones I gave is humbling; I definitely have a long way to go in my communication and social effectiveness, which is exciting.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 25, 2023, 7:48 pm

In my opinion this could have been:

• Briefer
• With more "pacing"
• Higher warmth / less "pouncing"

Such as:

You were already scoring your wins early on when he admitted.

That was huge: he wasn't denying, and he seemed to agree "it wasn't cool".

That's something you want to take full advantage of.

Yeah I definitely missed out on this. I think I was so hell-bent on enforcing my boundaries that his early agreement caught me by surprise. I was expecting more push back or shame from his side, not the nonchalant "yeah I agree" that he gave. That early on in the interaction I didn't feel like I had gotten to enforce my boundaries yet which was why I pushed on, but from his side that must indeed have come across as nagging.

In other words I was more focused on making sure I got to say what I wanted to say rather than using what he gave me. This is probably something I do in other situations as well. Definitely something I'll work on from now on.

 

Of course his reason was nonsense and he wasn't taking ownership, so you could have targeted that specifically, while still making the most of whatever good you had:

You: ahaha I'm glad the cats get along, but I want us to be good independently of the cats. If your cat bothers my cat, I don't go to your parents threatening to fight, right.
Well, neither do I want you to do that (<---- leveraging some exchange dynamics here and making it easier for him to agree since you frame yourself as giving already)

Pace and lead.

That would have helped him to say "OK".

Same thing here, not only does your proposed answer enforce boundaries but it remains warm and even power-protecting. My approach was not power-protecting at all and did make it very difficult for him to agree. I made a "me versus you" frame where he was in the wrong. Of course he doesn't want to buy into that frame, I wouldn't either.

And while he was indeed in the wrong, that doesn't mean I can just stop thinking about how to communicate effectively to get what I want. That's a big lesson for me.

As for "brief", I mean that he wasn't going to concede after a while, there was little point in arguing more and more.

So you can simply end with "dude, I expect no more messing around with my family".
Higher power, and also makes less "bad blood".

Generally speaking, I got the feeling that initially he was agreeing.
But then he turned more and more aggressive when you failed to acknowledge that he was agreeing.

I think that was already a win, and you should have pounced and thread-expanded on that.

Like "good, glad we agree".

Yeah it definitely became pointless after a little while. I was way too focused on making sure I got to say what I wanted to say instead of thinking about how to be effective.

Honestly I wasn't thinking about effectiveness in that moment. I was too stressed to think clearly so I poured all of my attention into making sure I stood my ground. For me the primary objective was just to make sure that I actually talked to him without backing out. Now that I've shown to myself that I can do that much it's time to focus on the effectiveness.

And I would have cut it shorter.
Such as "alright, just make sure that doesn't happen again", and then leave.
You don't need to engage him for a long time.
You step out, talk, make your point, ideally end on a positive and go.

Even a "OK, good day (name)" counts as ending on a positive in the situation.

Ending on a positive is such a simple thing and yet I never think about it. Because of its simplicity I should just default to doing this unless I have a specific reason not to.

I ended up learning so much from this that at this point I should really be grateful towards my neighbor : )

Jokes aside I'm very grateful for the feedback Lucio, it's super super useful.

Quote from Mats G on July 25, 2023, 9:22 pm

Quote from John Freeman on July 25, 2023, 8:06 pm

I want to say that I'm happy you feel better today and that the event the day before was a trigger in self-development as in a breakthrough. You went out of your comfort zone.

Thank you John, you definitely helped with making me feel better : )

I'm very grateful for that.

 

Regarding your interaction, it was really good I agree with Lucio and Bel.

The only thing I would change is that when he does not acknowledge your boundaries: the threat to escalate as we talked about:

Me: "Hey, you and I need to talk."

Him: "What is it now?"

Me: "You just greeted me as if nothing has happened between us. You've come over to my property drunk several times..."

Him: (speaking over me) "Yeah yeah."

Me: "I want us to have a good relationship but for that to happen you can't come over to my property drunk and insulting me and my family."

Him: "No, yeah we agree. It's not really a problem anyway because our cats are getting along now."

Me: "No but this has nothing to do with the cats. You can't come over drunk to my property and insult my family."

Him: "Me and your dad have already talked about this and it's fine."

Me: "But we haven't talked about it. If we are going to have a good relationship you need to stop coming over to my property when you're drunk and..."

Him:  (Interrupts me again) "Yeah yeah stop nagging about it. You're a little shitling (literal translation is "shit kid")."

Me: "Are you certain you want to say that to me?"

Him: "No but you keep nagging. This is all behind us I've talked with your dad about it already."

Me: "But you haven't talked to me about it and we need to talk about this."

Him: (at this point he is turning to walk away) "Yeah yeah okay."

Me: "Listen the last time you came over to my property you physically shoved my dad and squeezed my mom. That was not okay. You will never lay as much as a finger on my family again."

Him: "Yeah no I..., Are you threatening me or what the fuck?"

Me: "My family has always been kind to you but you can't come over to our property drunk if we are going to have a good relationship."

Him: "Stop nagging, this is all behind us. It's forgotten. Clean slate. All good."

Me: "It's only all good as long as you don't come over drunk again."

Him: "Yeah yeah whatever."

Me: you say "yeah yeah whatever" but you did not say you were not coming to our house drunk next time. I want you not to come to our house drunk ever again, ok ? (or you can remove "I want..." and directly go for "What do you want us to do next time? To call the police?" as he did not respond to your request the first time. And personally I would not trust his word. But you want to set precedents. So if you get him to say he won't come at least it's a precedent you can use in the future. Even in case of lawful actions: him agreeing not to come anymore proves that he knew it was a nuisance to you and chose to do it anyway: different story than if he was not aware of it).

Him: blablabla

Me: What do you want us to do next time? To call the police?

Him: blablabalba

Me: well I trust you not to do it again or we will have to call the police (now it's his choice and he knows the consequence, next time you can just say: "That's it I'm calling the police": you already warned him. And lock yourself and your family inside waiting for them. If he leaves you can just call them back and tell them he left).

You cannot appeal to him to put him in your shoes as he does not care. Like saying that your family has been kind to him is both true and noble. However he does not care one bit: he does as he pleases. He does not have a sense of guilt or shame in the sense like you and I have. So it does make him feel guilty or shameful which would trigger a behaviour change. With these people it's all about framing things as negative/positive consequences for THEM. I think he sees you guys as harmless. You have to show him that you also can harm him as he harmed you. But within the rules of society. He's one against the whole society. He already lost. He either complies or has problems with authorities: medical or otherwise.

We see these kind of people at the hospital and they don't respect other people's boundaries. It's only with (real) threats that they behave: the stick or showing the stick. It can be physical restraints, the threat of an injection, an injection, a security agent, the police: it depends. One thing that everybody at the hospital noticed is that once a couple of big muscular guys (just have to be bigger than the guy) in uniforms enters the room: magically the person gets way way calmer. How come? So funny... Everybody is afraid to have their ass kicked. It's just that some people aren't (yet) because they don't believe their ass will be kicked. Until it happens...

This has been my thoughts as well. I also think he considers us harmless, and why wouldn't he when nothing has happened to him after years of pulling the same shit?

That was why it was important to me to tell him never to put a finger on my family again, but he got very aggressive when I said that so I ended up backing down a bit. I wanted to enforce my boundaries harder like with the answers you suggest, but when it came down to it his aggressive tone was too much for me.

In this particular interaction I think it might have been a good thing I didn't push harder though because I think it only would have escalated into a conflict then and there. Since I approached him to talk I would have been equally responsible if a conflict broke out. Now if it had been on my property like the other times it would have been different, then I do believe it would have been a good strategy. I'm not sure if I have the strength to pull it off when I'm feeling so stressed though.

Quote from B on July 26, 2023, 12:31 pm

Concentrating on this:

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on July 25, 2023, 7:34 pm

Quote from Mats G on July 25, 2023, 6:46 pm

I wouldn't put it past him to see the cameras and instantly knock them down though. He is not exactly mindful of other people's property. I'm probably a bit too biased here though, it's very possible he wouldn't do that at all.

That'd be great news!

First precedent of crime against property.

Of course the camera should be recording and storing on an outside application, but I'd bet something like that does exist.

Yes, totally agree.

That in fact is the whole point, because the cameras would be:

• a deterrent: bullies and assholes are more likely to harass people who are undefended/naive rather than people who show awareness and willingeness to self-defend; and cameras are the utmost way to show awareness and willingness to defend one's personal property;
• a practical action: installing cameras shows determined action, because they are an expense (ie willingness to expend money to protect property and life) and predict future enforcement of rights;
• a way of acquiring proof of his potential bad actions: as Lucio said, if he damages them, or even if he enters your property again, you will have definitive proof for the police (ie the police won't be able to ignore you any further, and will be compelled to take action for trespassing);
• a self-signal, and a public signal, that you and your family now are beginning to take this seriously.

Quote from Mats G on July 26, 2023, 6:23 pm

Thank you so much Bel!

This is super useful and definitely something I will look into.

Quote from Mats G on October 6, 2023, 2:12 pm

October challenges

For the past few months I have felt my discipline slipping away. I've started skipping workouts, I eat a lot of sugar, and I waste more time. Last week I decided that I was going to address some of these by doing a whole month without eating candy/chips etc, and also doing some form of extreme David Goggins style challenge every day.

I'm a big fan of David Goggins, and I've tried doing things like these before. While I don't think David Goggins approach to life is something for me, or even for most people, I do think there is tremendous benefits to following his approach for a shorter time. That way you learn a lot about yourself and what makes you quit, and you develop very useful tools to control your mind in difficult situations.

So for the first four days of October I did one challenge each day. The first day I did 200 push ups despite my limit being around 60-70. The second day I took a cold shower every 2 hours for 24 hours. The third day I did a 24 hour fast, and the fourth day I watched a horror movie alone in a dark room (I've always hated horror movies).

But yesterday I didn't know how to challenge myself, so I asked my friends for ideas. I had told them previously that I really hate dancing in front of people, it's terrifying to me. So naturally my friends challenged me to dance for just 2 minutes in front of my closest friend group. That almost broke me mentally.

Even though I'm fine suffering physically, something clearly holds me back from putting myself in uncomfortable social situations. I've been thinking deeply about this since yesterday and realized that I don't feel ready to do something like that yet.

This made me realize that there's not much point in doing physical challenges that I know I can overcome if I just run away from my true fears of doing social challenges. As a result I decided to drop the challenges for this month and just focus on not eating sugar. And that was when all hell broke loose in my mind.

The moment I decided that I would stop the challenges this voice in my head started calling me a weak and pathetic little bitch. It let me know that I would lose all my self respect and that I'm not the type of person who is fit to lead or teach others. It also came with a strong feeling of self loathing.

This was something I thought I had put behind me a long time ago. I thought I had developed a fairly anti fragile ego, as well as a lot of self love. But clearly there are still parts of my mind, and worryingly big parts at that, that contain fragile mindsets and self hatred.

When I realized this I considered listening to that part of my mind and continue the challenges just to prove that I'm no bitch, but I think that would just promote having a toxic relationship with myself. I think the right approach is to drop the challenges and instead focus on studying where these fragile and self hating parts of myself come from. It's been a while since I actively did self love exercises but that is probably a good idea right now.

This all reminded me how easily self development can become toxic when taken to the extreme.

 

Edit

It's also possible that I'm just making excuses to myself to avoid doing the challenges. I don't think that's the case but I haven't completely made up my mind yet.

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on October 6, 2023, 5:14 pm

Congrats on those challenges, Mats!

A few notes from my side, and most of them are only my very personal point of view:

• You're focusing on the wrong challenge maybe? The one you didn't do instead of the ones you smashed (cold shower every 2h living in the nordics, that's quite something)
• You can alwyas find, for (almost without almost here?) anyone, that one challenge they just wouldn't do. It's just a matter of looking for it
• I think Goggin's approach makes people less confident and lower self-esteem, not more. And albeit I may not say this in most settings, if I'd have to spill my mind, I think Goggins is a ridiculous meme. Don't have much respect for him at all TBH (but I do like his approach to "haters")
• I now have a different take: what's weak is not failing to do what scares, but having to earn your own respect with the "challenge", instead of thinking of yourself highly no matter what (but then again, I did go through that period as well)
• You haven't danced in front of your friends yet. Future Mats may. Or the other universe's Mats that was born in different circumstances and had different experiences probably does

Quote from Mats G on October 6, 2023, 8:01 pm

Thank you Lucio!

Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on October 6, 2023, 5:14 pm

• I think Goggin's approach makes people less confident and lower self-esteem, not more. And albeit I may not say this in most settings, if I'd have to spill my mind, I think Goggins is a ridiculous meme. Don't have much respect for him at all TBH (but I do like his approach to "haters")

This part right here made me laugh. As much as I like David Goggins I think "ridiculous meme" is a pretty accurate description : ).

And yeah I think that his approach does lower confidence and self esteem as soon as one stops following it. As long as one sticks to it there is a huge confidence boost though (but who is mad enough to stick to it for long?). At least that's my personal experience.

Still there's a lot of great mental tools to be learned from trying his approach for a limited time. Is it worth the dip in confidence and self esteem? I actually don't know, but personally I've gained a lot from his approach.

• I now have a different take: what's weak is not failing to do what scares, but having to earn your own respect with the "challenge", instead of thinking of yourself highly no matter what (but then again, I did go through that period as well)

Boom.

Just boom.

This resonated so deeply with me that I saved a picture of it to my phone. If it's not already in the Ultimate Power ebook I think it deserves a spot in there.