Living in Peace With People Who Drive You Crazy

In those early years, when I came to know the Lord, he and his family were so against it that they actually advised him to divorce me. Joy spent many lonely years trying to trust God and love her husband well. Thankfully, she found the support and encouragement she needed. I think that God just really used Focus on the Family and your guys' ministry to grow me and prepare me and guide my heart to live out in front of my husband what it means to follow Christ. And the best news of all is that Joy's husband also became a follower of Jesus. I'm Jim Daly. When we work together, we can strengthen more marriages like Joy's and give families hope.

Please call 800 the letter A in the word family or donate at FocusOnTheFamily.com slash hope and your gift will be doubled. It drives me crazy when you're in a conversation with someone and you can tell they're not paying attention to a thing you're saying, they're just thinking of the next thing they're going to say. My mother, she likes to accuse people of taking things when she just lost them. It drives me crazy when my husband doesn't understand that I have a very short attention span. My Aunt Vicki constantly thinks that she has the worst life ever. I personally can't think of anything because I think if there was something that really drives me nuts about the person, I wouldn't be friends with them. Well, maybe you can relate to that. We all seem to have one or two or maybe more challenging people in our lives and dealing with them can really just increase your blood pressure and upset your schedule, even ruin your day.

But don't despair. Today on Focus On The Family, we're going to help you explore some ways to manage those relationships better and we're going to help you find peace in the midst of chaos. Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, I don't know about you, I struggled to think of somebody that really sets me off, that drives me crazy. You know, they're there but I tend to have such a low-key approach to some things, I just kind of move out of the way and then it kind of goes away for me.

I don't know that that's the healthiest way to approach it. I know for you, you know, folks often talk about the holidays and that crazy relative that's coming and man, that person drives me nuts and we get that. And actually, we want to talk about that today in order to equip you to do a better job understanding how to live and work and deal with folks that push your buttons.

Yeah, this is the time of year when we often rub shoulders with people we don't see a lot and we get together and there can be some friction. Well, you know, right there in Romans 12 18, it says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, I love that, you know, live peaceably with all and as Christians, we are told to love one another. And that sometimes is really hard, I mean, even to love our enemies. That kind of service and sacrifice only comes from an indwelling of the Holy Spirit and that's what we want to try to do today is kind of open those floodgates for the Lord to work through you. Well, our guest is Dr. Mike Bechtel and he's an author, a speaker, a corporate consultant and a ministry coach. Today, we'll hear more about his book, People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys. I love that title. It's a great title. Mike, welcome back to Focus on the Family. Oh, thanks.

It's always a privilege. Okay, where'd you get it? Where'd you come up with that one?

I have no idea. It just sort of appeared on the page. I thought, that's not bad because we can all identify with it.

Okay, but when you crack the pages open, I love the story you shared there. And of course, we're talking about, you know, people that drive us crazy when we talk about crazy people. But you talk about a tuba. I thought that I'm going to use that tonight with my boys, my teenage boys, because I think this is a great framing tool. And for all the folks who play tuba or have a tuba player in their home, this isn't intended for you. But the tuba kind of overwhelms everybody.

That's the point. And you applied that in this word picture. Well, I think it's true with an orchestra. We love hearing an orchestra because there's so many different instruments that come together. And when they blend their sound, you get a sound you can't any other way.

It's the uniqueness of the instruments together. But if you have the tuba in the middle of a concert that goes off and does his own thing, it kind of changes the whole dynamic. You can't really hear the violin. You can't hear the flute. You can't hear the violin. And you don't know what to do with the tuba. It's like tuba's gone wild and you're trying to figure out where do we go with this. So when you apply that, are you talking the tuba represents those people in our lives that are just off key and just overwhelming the whole room?

Well, yeah, you're not sure what to do with them. And a lot of times it's because they're family. There's a lot of people in our lives that do that. But especially around the holidays, we do see people we don't see all the time. And sometimes it's family members and they can change the whole dynamic when they come in and you've got a tuba player. Well, let's play it safe. Let's end with family, the discussion today.

We'll talk about strangers first, the outer ring. You had a story in your book that was hilarious about an airport observation, somebody that wasn't getting the service they felt they deserved. Tell us what happened there. Well, it goes back to the whole idea of what you can control and what you can't control. And there's things you can't control like the stock market, like late delayed flights. And that's what happened here. Mechanical problems.

Mechanical problems, exactly. And we can get really upset even though we can't do anything about it. It was years ago, I was sitting in the gate area and the flight was delayed and this man was at the counter and he was just berating at the top of his lungs. He was yelling at the gate agent and he must have special privileges. And he was going after it.

It was pretty embarrassing for everybody. And finally, he just said, do you know who I am? And then he repeated, do you know who I am? And so she got on the microphone very calmly and just said, ladies and gentlemen, we have someone at the counter who doesn't know who he is.

If any of you recognize him, please come up and let us know. I love that. I hope she got a raise or a bonus or something. She got a big round of applause from everybody.

I just think that's a funny way to handle it. What did he do? Were you observing this? When she said that, what was his reaction? He just turned around and I think it was a little sheepish because he had been caught. He was so angry.

And when everybody started applauding, he was the center of attention and he just sort of disappeared. Well, let me let me go there, because what creates in us that specialness that we feel we need to be treated differently than everybody else? Don't you know who I am, Mike? Come on. Well, I think we all have a certain comfort zone. I call it a set point. It's kind of like a thermostat, something where nobody's bugging us and they're not messing with our lives and we feel comfortable. And that's where we like to be. And when somebody comes in and messes with our lives, it takes us away from the set point. It's like changing the thermostat. We want to keep it a certain way because we're comfortable. And then they come in and they change the thermostat for us and we feel like, wait, no, this is about me. And we tend to focus on what all the other people are doing. And in some way, we feel a little untitled because they're messing with us.

Why are they driving me crazy? As you're saying this, it's interesting that Jesus, of course, who is our model for those of us who claim faith in Christ, he had every opportunity to say, hey, don't you know who I am? In front of Pontius Pilate or any of the rulers of the day. And our wonderful leader, the Son of God, never chose to approach a person that way.

How can we do any different? It's so interesting because he is our model for that. And he didn't go around trying to fix people. He got involved with people and took them where they needed to go. Every situation was different.

Boy, that is so good. Explain this quote from your book. You said, we love to watch crazy people as long as we don't have to interact with them personally.

And again, when we talk about crazy people, we're talking about those that are just driving us crazy. Well, it's kind of like being on vacation. You don't come home from vacation and tell stories about reading the newspaper on the lanai in Hawaii.

You talk about the storms and the close calls that you had. We love drama when it's past tense and when it's third person. And with these types of events, to be able to watch other people, that's why we do it on TV. There's always a villain or there's somebody in the reality shows. You're thinking, they are just crazy.

And we like watching it from the security of our living room with our Cheetos. But to actually be there and have that conversation, how do you confront somebody like that? It's uncomfortable.

It really is. You had an experience with your son that I thought was really insightful. You were in, I think, trying on ski goggles. Describe what happened there in terms of our ability to understand reality. Well, I think we tend to see things through our own lenses and we assume that we're right because that's what we see.

I mean, if I really believe that I'm right, do I want your opinion? And so we went in the sporting goods store. My son was probably about 10 and we tried on ski goggles. I tried on a pair that had blue lenses. He tried on a pair that had red lenses and I saw a jacket hanging across the room and I said, Tim, what color is that jacket? And he said, well, it's blue. I said, no, it's red.

And he looked at me like I lost my mind. He said, it is not. It's blue. I said, no, it's red.

And we went back and forth. I couldn't convince him because he was seeing one color. I was seeing the other color. It's what we saw.

So we assume we're right. We took off our lenses and the jacket was white. So we didn't see the jacket the way it was. We saw it through our perspective. It's a great simple illustration of how to do that. Make it more complicated, though, in our personal experiences that way.

How do we create lenses that give us a false impression of what's real? You know, I think we look at what other people do and we see their behaviors. And we think if I was doing what they're doing, this would be my motive.

This is what I would be thinking. So we assume that they're thinking the same thing. We project our lenses on them when they may be thinking something totally different. In fact, they usually are.

Yeah. And so we to be able to approach that and look at them from their lenses, knowing they're thinking differently. So we can't make those assumptions.

We need to explore and actually talk to them. In fact, you mentioned in the book a relational coworker that had a relationship problem with just about everybody she came into contact with. And that probably is one of the most practical illustrations you can provide all of us. What happened in that case? Well, I remember this. Several of us were talking about this one coworker and it was starting to get down to the point of gossip. And it was someone who was arrogant, someone who was narcissistic and just seemed to have it in for everyone. Everyone looked at her behavior. And then one of the women in the group said, I wonder what happened.

He said, what do you mean? She says, that's not normal behavior. It's not a normal way of relating.

Something had to have happened to her when she was growing up, just her environment or whatever that has caused her to handle life this way. And it really threw us all back a little bit and thought, OK, we all are a product of everything that's happened to us in the past. The choices we've made, the things we've learned. And we don't know why someone has the behavior that they do.

But there are reasons that got them there. Mike, in fact, we struggle at times to apply scripture to our modern day lives. You know, we think these are ancient people living with ancient customs. But this area of how we interrelate with one another, how human beings treat each other is as relevant today as it was two thousand four thousand years ago when the scriptures were being written.

Right. What are some of those applications of scripture? The Bible does give us practical advice for everyday living. And that's why we can take verses, especially out of the Proverbs. Things like Proverbs 18, seven that talks about hearing both sides, one side sounds good until you hear the other perspective and to be able to not assume that we know what somebody is thinking. Proverbs 10, 19 about talking less and listening more.

Somebody said God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. Thinking before you respond. Proverbs 15, 28. And then just being careful with what we say. Proverbs 21, 23. I like this one. Proverbs 10, 19.

I mean, just think of this. All of you listening, think of this and how it applies to your life. When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. I mean, that's a you know, maybe the language seems antiquated, but that's a way of saying sometimes the wisest person in the room is the one who's talking the least. And it's so true.

It's true. Well, I think that there's and I don't have the verse in front of me. I think it's in Proverbs 24 that we thought about putting on our guest room wall. It says something like, don't stay too long in your neighbor's house, lest they grow to hate you. That would be a great plaque on the wall when people stay with you.

They'd love it. I mean, neighbors understand that. Exactly.

Philippians 2, 4 is another one. And again, this is applying it to your everyday life. It says there, let each of you look not only to his own interests, which we all do, but also to the interests of others. I mean, that's directly applying to what you're talking about. I think that's kind of a key to the whole thing is that it's so easy to look at everything through our lenses, through our perspective and saying, why are these people not doing it the way they should? And really, one of the most important things we can do from all these verses is to stop and listen and just to look through their lenses, not to agree with them, just to understand. Well, like that friend, that coworker that pulled you all back for a moment to say something must have happened to this person because they're behaving oddly.

There's got to be some damage emotionally that was done that drives him or her in that direction. That perception that you talk about versus reality, I find it intriguing, Mike, that when Jesus was in front of Pontius Pilate, and I've mentioned this many times for the faithful listeners, you're going to hear it again. But I'm intrigued by the fact that when Pontius Pilate was pushing Jesus to answer his questions, particularly in the gospel account of John, that's where the most robust areas, Jesus responds to say, I've come to testify to the truth. You know, if you think about it as a faithful follower of Christ, what would you expect him to have said? I came to testify to righteousness. That's one. I came to testify to his grace.

That'd be another. But Jesus said, I came to testify to the truth, because that covers it all, doesn't it? That's so good.

And it is good because it's a great illustration for us. We need to know the truth as best as we can, even in our human foibles, right? Well, it happens anytime we have what we call crazy people in our lives, that we're basing it on our assumptions, our expectations, but not truth. And the way to deal with all of this is to go to truth. You're listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, and Mike Bechtel is our guest today, talking about his book, People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys. And you can get your copy.

Just check the episode notes for more. And Mike, the title so aptly describes this next question. You know, if you don't give people the keys to your emotional heart, they're not going to drive you off a cliff, basically. But we can't really change anybody. We can't even change necessarily external circumstances. We can influence those. But the only thing we can truly change is our own attitude towards something.

And that's where the key factor comes in, right? Control the keys, meaning your attitude, and you kind of control your emotional stability. Hand those over to somebody else, meaning you get upset at somebody, you know, somebody pushes your button, and maybe your kids. Okay, let's get closer to that. Maybe your spouse, who has this ability to just push the right button at the wrong moment, and BAM!

There you are, into an argument. Describe for us, from a Christian perspective, what is it handing over the keys, and how do we keep the keys and keep control? I think it's what you just said at the beginning, the realization that we can't fix somebody else. And that we really can't change another person.

We can influence them. There's things we can do, but if my happiness and my security depends on what you do, I'm probably going to be disappointed. Because I can't change another person. The only person I really am responsible for is myself, and making choices myself.

Why for a lifetime? I mean, somebody who's in their 50s, like me, or 60s and 70s, we've struggled our whole life with that. And somehow it's like banging your head up against a wall. We constantly just give the keys over.

What can you practically do to say, okay, I heard that program, I'm focused today. I'm not going to hand my emotional keys over. I'm not going to let that person drive me crazy. Now what? I think it's like playing tennis, that you stay on your side of the court. I can serve, but I can't be responsible for how they return it.

Do you use triggers to help you stay in that lane, in that side of the court? You know, I think it's something as simple as going back to truth. It's like, I don't know what the truth is. And when they respond a certain way, I can say they need to change. They're messing up my lives.

They're ruining everything. Especially, like you said, if it's a family member. Mike, I'm thinking of parents who are saying, but I have to train my child.

And so, where's the room for that in this equation? Yeah, I think training the child is part of our responsibility, and we are guiding them. At the same time, they're real people.

Your aunt is not your child. That's right, that's right. And we're preparing them to be adults. We're giving them the tools they need.

And part of that is going to be the process of helping them understand what does it mean to operate from truth. Do I talk to my child and say, hey, you're really driving me crazy here? Or do I just let them have some space?

I can do that. I think it's fair to say, you know, when you're doing this, I am feeling just crazy here. I feel like you're driving me crazy. But then we go back to truth of what's really happening. When you do this, you're better than that.

And I want to help you get to where you're going to go. It's driving me crazy, but I love you no matter what. And I think it's that unconditional love. When we have a wayward teenager that's making a lot of bad choices to separate the behavior from the person.

Must do. To say that they are, their value comes from who they are, not from what they do. And for them to know that they're unconditionally loved could be the thing that brings them back. Yeah, and that's so critical. So many parents are going through that. In fact, I think you experienced that as a parent, right? You had to demonstrate it, which always brings a greater credibility to the microphone here. So could you explain any example that you might have had with your own kids?

Sure. My son was making some of the teenage choices you don't want him to make for a few years, and was choosing a path that really wasn't where we had taught him to go. We dropped him off at college. So he was driving you crazy. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I was trying to be nice, but he was driving us crazy. And then we dropped him off at college, and it terrified me because I thought, okay, now I'm not there to talk to him, to guide him, to make those kind of choices. Control him? Yeah, control him. I can't fix him. At least I have a chance when he's in my home, but I can't now. And I remember looking in the rearview mirror and seeing him walk backwards, and he didn't look back. And at that time, I felt like God said, okay, I love him more than you do.

You can't be here, but I can't. I'm going to stay with him. I'm going to be working with him constantly.

Your job is to pray for him. And it's hard to embrace. It is. But I think it goes back to truth. Everything goes back to truth. It's like we're responsible for the choices we make, staying in our side of the court, as it were.

Also, Mike, you had a quote in the book I want you to explain, which said this. We will spend every hour that we have. Period. I was looking for the next word, but that's it. We will spend every hour that we have. If we don't determine where we're going to spend it, then someone else will decide for us.

Who deserves the best of your time today? Then that is convicting. Yeah. If I had a hundred dollar bill, it has no value in itself. It's a piece of paper with ink on it. It gains value when I do something with it. If I take it to a restaurant, it has the value of food.

Take it to the theater, it has the value of entertainment. Time is the same way. A minute really doesn't have value by itself.

It's what we do with that minute. Whatever I choose to do with that minute, whoever I spend it with, whatever choices I make, that's the value that minute has. But the difference between time and money is that money you can choose not to spend. You can save it, you can invest it. You can't do that with time. You will spend every minute.

And that's why if you don't decide intentionally, make a choice about what do I do with that minute, then someone else is making the choice for you. It's just a good life reminder of what's most valuable in this life. You know, I was able to hold a moon rock. A friend of mine had a moon rock from one of the astronauts. First of all, it's amazingly light.

It's like foam. But he said to me, you know, this is the most precious material on earth. And I thought that's really interesting. More precious than diamonds, the things that the earth has created, because it's outside of the earth.

It's a moon rock and there's only a few dozen of them in the world. And you think about that. But in the same way that value for time, it's amazing that we negate or we discount the most valuable commodity that we're given in life. It's not money.

It's time. And what we do with our time. I love that calling it out to that one hour. How are you going to spend it? And that's what goes back to how do you deal with your crazy people?

If I can spend an hour listening to them instead of spending an hour trying to fix them, that's an investment that will pay off. Well, let's move in that direction. You know, one of the key things is holidays are always present. We said and promised we'd end with the family side. And there might be one or two people that push your buttons in that area and you're going to host the Christmas dinner and 25 people are coming over.

But that one person, when she gets on the silverware and tells me how tarnished my silverware is, or how the plates aren't just right, or how dry the turkey is. Are you going to share a name with us? No. I'm just guessing. Hypothetical. I have a friend. But that is really the point. And it just does something to get under your skin. And you're saying, why do we go through this every holiday where we invite that relative over?

What's a different way to approach it this year? It's with family. It's like swimming with sharks.

They're all underwater. Is it because everybody's so comfortable with each other they're not wanting to behave? Well, I think there's patterns we've developed for so long. And it's the way we've always done it. So if they've always had Christmas dinner at your house because you have the biggest house that's the most central, everyone expects that. And you expect it, too. So suddenly you're saying, all right, I'm going to have Christmas dinner. But that person's coming over.

They complain about the silverware. Uncle Joe doesn't like turkey, so I have to make a ham every year. What is it? Tofuki. Tofuki.

Something like that. It's a tofu turkey. OK, I know. Don't write me. I get it.

I'll pronounce it better next time. And nobody complains. I mean, everybody complains about how many raisins there are in the dressing. And nobody helps clean up. It's a setup for disaster.

It is. And so you dread it. You want to be with those people because you care about them. But what do you do in that situation? I think one thing is to call it back to say, OK, what choices can I make? And sometimes it might be asking Uncle Joe to bring his own ham and maybe saying, you know, just announcing, saying this year I'm not going to have it at my house. But wherever you have it, I'll help coordinate or I'll reserve a room at a restaurant.

I'll send out an invitation how much it's going to cost. Or I could take a Caribbean cruise that week or or have the house tented for termites. That's a drastic move, but it's in the repertoire. Could be effective. Well, it's extreme, but it's the idea that I can make some choices. I don't have to say it has to be the way it's always been. I can make some simple choices to get other people involved.

I can hire a cleaning person to come in afterwards. Hey, Mike, how do you differentiate between that line of what's real and then the admonition in scripture not to be a gossiper? If you can tell me where that line is, I'd deeply appreciate it. Boy, it's really hard.

You have to find it in the moment. I think we're because when you're with family and you've got that crazy relative that everybody knows about, there has to be some discussion about how are we going to handle this? What do we do with this person? But when it drops into we're telling stories about how bad it was, that's when it's gotten into gossip. Yeah. So it's a matter of how do we talk about survival or boundaries without going into that area?

And that is good. Mike, here's the kicker question. The whole half hour we've been talking, I'm thinking, what if I'm the crazy person in another person's life?

How do we know truth that well to say, oh, I've got something I've got to do or I've got to change? What if we're that person? Well, I think we are. There's an assumption that because, well, yeah, right. Because everybody else might be crazy to us. And they say, if you join a group and there's nobody crazy, then it has to be you.

But in this context, to be able to recognize it to someone else, we're moving their set point to the degree that I do that. That makes me the crazy person for them. That's so good. And it's been so great having you here. Focus on the family. Thank you. Thank you.

It's always a privilege. Well, a fun conversation with Dr. Mike Bechtel about his book, People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys. John, I know Mike's message has resonated with many of our listeners. As we're entering the holiday season with Thanksgiving and then Christmas, there's probably a troubling family member who comes to mind.

Or maybe it's a neighbor or a co-worker. Whoever it is, Mike's book is a great resource for you. Here at Focus on the Family, we want to put that tool into your toolbox so that you can do a better job of living in the fruit of the Spirit. And that's our goal today. So if you can, send a gift of any amount to Focus and we'll say thank you by sending you this great book.

And I guarantee you'll find lots of good advice in this great resource. And it'll make your life a little more peaceful than it is right now. Our number is 800, the letter A in the word family, 800-232-6459. Or donate and get the book by clicking the link in the episode show notes. And let me remind you that some good friends to the ministry have provided us with a matching gift, which means any donation you make today will be doubled. And as a result, more marriages can be strengthened, more parents equipped to raise godly kids, and together we can give more families hope. We'd really love to hear from you today. Again, our number is 800, the letter A in the word family.

Or check the episode notes for more. And coming up next time, the importance of family traditions. The reason we're doing all these traditions is because I want to bond my children to our family to let them know you have people here that are for you and to bond them to their faith. On behalf of Jim Daly and our entire team, thanks for listening to Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. I've received some great tools from the counselors that have changed my life and my marriage. To begin the journey of finding health, go to HopeRestored.com today.