How to Win a Fight (Part 3)

Hey guys! Here we are for another Wednesday Workshop. Today is part three of how to win a fight. Maybe I should say how to avoid a fight when you’re in an argument. Or when somebody’s trying to goad you into an argument or put you down.

They use verbal insults, right? They’ll use verbal insults. “Hey Q-tip, come over here…hey rent a cop…wannabe” When I was in the Marine Corps, “Hey jarhead…shallow water sailor… you were too dumb to pass ASVAB so you couldn’t even get in the Navy.” Things like that. You guys all know I’ve lost 57 pounds. So, “Hey fatty…you’re a fat tubby out of shape nobody guard. How in the hell can you do anything around here positive?”

You know what…”Hey, thank you so much. I’ve lost 57 pounds. Literally three or four months ago people were calling me morbidly obese. Thank you for noticing that I’ve lost weight. Is there something I can help you with?”

Did you see what I just did there?

I use myself as the butt of the joke. You do the same thing. “Hey, four eyes.”

“Thank you for noticing that I need that Lasik eye surgery. I’ve been saving up. I can’t wait. Now you didn’t come down here just to do a vision test with me right? What can I help you with? I want to help you. I’d like to think that we can work something out.”

See how I’m turning this thing around? I’m coming back to the original message and the important thing for us to remember especially as security officers is these people aren’t coming to see us. When you’re working at a facility, whether it be a government facility, a school, or a hospital. It doesn’t matter. It does not matter what the facility is. A business, a shopping mall, it doesn’t matter where we’re at. What we’re doing is providing security and sometimes we are more of gatekeepers. Lobbies, things like that at hotels, out in the parking lot, those kinds of things because that’s what we do.

Because that’s what we do, we sometimes get the brunt of somebody’s anger.

We sometimes get the brunt of somebody’s frustration. They’re really really mad at a bill they got. They’re really upset that they might have to pay taxes, they’re really pissed off that you know their loved one is dying. there are a lot of reasons for a lot of things that go on. We take the brunt of that pain and suffering that they’re having. Sometimes they’re using the insult to distract us or to feel better and/or to try to get past us through the insult. But we still need to be able to do our job and we need to do it in a smart way. That’s where this comes in. So somebody calls you fat, you have a simple little quip but

Does it work outside of the job?

Well of course it does. It works pretty much anywhere. You just have to be on your game.

So let’s imagine you’re at a ball game. Football, basketball, it doesn’t matter where you’re at. Some guy comes up where you’re at a bar watching it, at the sports center, standing at a bar, or a nice restaurant. Somebody comes up to you and says, “Hey, are you looking at my girlfriend? Man, are you looking at my girlfriend? That’s my girlfriend!”

You look at him and say, “This your girlfriend? Oh my goodness, I was looking at her! She looked so much, she’s a spitting image of my cousin Beth and I was wondering what she was doing here because she lives in Minnesota! Hey, what are you drinking? Can I buy you a beer? I am just astounded. Your girlfriend looks so much like my cousin.”

Now, I might not even have a cousin Beth. As a matter of fact, nope I don’t but I don’t want to fight. I didn’t come to this establishment to get into a bar fight. I didn’t pay good money to go get seats at a baseball game to get into a fight. It’s much cheaper to spend three or four bucks, ten bucks, whatever. Buy a guy drink and talk to him for a few minutes and then walk away as opposed to bringing a fight on.

The easiest way to win a fight is to not be in a fight. The easiest way to not be in a fight is don’t engage.

Don’t engage in it. Don’t let your temper flare up, don’t get upset, don’t get mad. Sometimes the best way for us to learn how to not do that is this: stay hydrated, make sure you’re getting enough sleep. Make sure you’re not drinking too much alcohol and make sure that you’re staying well fed. Take care of yourself.

If you’re taking care of those things then your mind is going to be spinning in the right direction and you will hear these things coming. You will recognize them for what they are and they are engagements, verbal assaults, or threats that are coming at you and you don’t want that.

So again, somebody’s calling you names? I had a guy one time he sat there and he looked at me and he said “Hey you’re blah blah blah and he called me a white cracker.” A racist term.

I looked at him and I said, “Sir, you know what, hold on a second. Do you realize it’s like 2017? The pc term today is saltine American.”

He looked at me and he was upset. Then all of a sudden he looked at me and he just started to laugh. I said “I’m just here to help man. I have a job to do. Ci work with you? Can you tell me what your problem is? Let me help you.”

You can turn things around.

I use humor. It doesn’t always have to be humor but you want to be on your game. The best way to not get into a fight and to win that fight is by not getting into it. And more importantly, make sure that your temper doesn’t go up so that you don’t become brittle and break like we talked about in episode number one.

All right, you guys. Have a wonderful week and remember to be valuable because nothing else will do.