Managing Difficult People
Managing Difficult People is a leadership podcast that helps managers, executives, and team leaders handle conflict, improve communication, and build stronger workplace relationships. You can’t change difficult people—but you can change how you lead, influence, and respond to them.
Each episode delivers practical strategies to reduce workplace tension, build trust, strengthen culture, and turn challenging personalities into opportunities for better leadership. Learn how to manage reactive communication, set boundaries, resolve conflict, and lead teams with clarity, confidence, and connection.
Managing Difficult People
Living to Be Liked with Eric Geisendorfer
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How much of your life is shaped by who you truly are... and how much is driven by the need to be liked?
In this deeply personal episode of the Managing Difficult People Podcast, Adam Holbrook sits down with his lifelong friend, Eric Geisendorfer, whose story inspired Adam's upcoming book, Living to Be Liked. Together, they explore how childhood experiences, fear of judgment, and the desire for acceptance can slowly lead us to wear masks that hide our authentic selves.
Eric shares how becoming a school mascot gave him the confidence to express the person he longed to be, while alcohol later became another mask that temporarily silenced insecurity and self-doubt. Their conversation uncovers why so many adults trade joy for responsibility, why we stop playing, creating, and dreaming, and how the pressure to fit in often disconnects us from who we were created to be.
You'll discover how to recognize the masks you wear, rebuild self-worth, let go of the need for approval, embrace authenticity, and reconnect with the version of yourself that has been there all along. Through honest stories, practical wisdom, and heartfelt reflection, Adam and Eric remind us that true freedom begins when we stop performing for acceptance and start living from the inside out.
Because the greatest relationship you'll ever build isn't with the people you're trying to impress.
It's with the person staring back at you in the mirror.
Stronger leadership starts with better communication.
Learn how to manage conflict, set boundaries, and lead with confidence.
Listen now: https://managingdifficultpeoplepodcast.com/
If you deal with someone who talks over everyone, claims credit for everything, and still gets invited to the leadership retreat, then this podcast is for you. So here's your host, Adam Holbrook of Managing Difficult People Podcast.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Managing Difficult People Podcast. I am your host, Adam Holbrook. I am so excited today, because today I have a guest. He's been my friend since seventh grade. And the reason I'm bringing him here today is to talk about my new and upcoming book that's going to be coming out this fall, which was inspired by him. I was writing this book for years. I had parables and notes and all different stories on the sidelines, but it was missing something. My friend Eric Geisendorfer joins us today. And the reason why he is here because he is the heartbeat of my new book, Living to Be Liked. This book started off in Atlantic City this past year. Eric was my roommate. We met each other in seventh grade. And that weekend in Atlantic City, we got together to just kind of forget about life and enjoy life. And that weekend, the first night, Eric drinks like a fish. He had like 12 beers and a half a bottle of whiskey. True story. By 2:30 in the morning, he's throwing up in the toilet all over. And when he finally settled down, I said to Eric, why do you feel the need to drink so much? He said to me, he was just so excited about the weekend so he can get away and become his true authentic self and be free. I said, Eric, in high school you were the school mascot. He was the kidotinny cougar. And when he put that cougar costume on, he became alive. When he took the costume off, he was this shy kid and he was picked on. And when he had the costume on, he was running around, he was doing dances with the cheerleaders, running all around. He said to me, I can only be myself when I wasn't myself. I said, Eric, so the alcohol is a mask? The cougar costume is a mask too? He said, Yeah. After he graduated high school, the mask continued. He went on as the Cardinal for the New Jersey Cardinals. It was a division one, division A for the Farm League for the St. Louis Cardinals. And he was the mascot for them as well. And he had that costume alive. 4,000 people were cheering him on. Everyone was just so happy. And he felt like he was making everyone have a lot more fun. But when he took the costume off, again, he was a shy kid. So that's what the book is about. The book isn't about Eric, it's about all of us and how we trade in being adults. We adult instead of having fun. We trade in responsibilities for having fun and games. And before you know it, we forget who we really are as a person. And this book is about becoming that person we once were, and that person that we still are behind the mask. Eric helped give the heartbeat to that book. And I'm so excited that he's joining us here today. Welcome, Eric. Thank you, Adam. Eric, I would love to ask you some questions regarding this book. And this book isn't directly about Eric, it's about all of us because we all wear these different types of masks. We wear masks to cover up who we really are because we're feared of judgment or we're feared that if we don't act a certain way, we might get fired from our jobs. And this is about getting back to that place, having fun again. You know, it's about having boundaries, how we having to do all of these areas. And I'm so grateful for that weekend in Atlantic City, even though our room smelled that night when you were throwing up. Eric, I want to ask you when you think about yourself before seventh grade, because seventh grade is when everything had changed for you. Seventh grade is when you went to a new school, we were in school together, and friends that you had for all those years all started to shift. You know, those people that you were normally close with aren't there anymore, they're not wanting to hang out anymore. Who was Eric back then? When you think about yourself in seventh grade, who was Eric?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So before seventh grade, I just got to be open. I was a kid. You didn't have to have a filter or anything like that. You didn't have a subconscious telling you what you had to do. I didn't worry about how I laughed or what it sounded like or what shirt that you were wearing. You know, was it a cool shirt or not a cool shirt? You just wore a shirt back then. You really got to just be alive in the moment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that's so important. And we lose that as we get older because we're afraid that we don't wear the right clothes, we don't act like the person we you were so obsessed with Michael Jordan. I remember going to seventh grade with you and you were wearing Michael Jordan all the time. You wore his sneakers, you wore his all of his shoes and his shirts every single day. I remember this. You were you would shoot baskets in your driveway and you would replay that moment and you thought you were him, and you were just really excited to actually be creative and imagine your life. Why do you think you were so obsessed with Michael Jordan?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, I was wearing red sweatpants back then before it was cool. Today, every kid wears sweatpants. That's a good point. I think with Jordan, it really started. So I was born in North Carolina, and before I was six years old, he was playing for UNC. So that's when I really got to start knowing Michael Jordan, and he was gonna be this great basketball player. So, of course, once he joined the Bulls, I started loving the Bulls for a while. I probably didn't know any of the other players in the Bulls. I just knew that I liked Michael Jordan. So that's really where it came from. And Michael Jordan as a kid, it just represented a possibility and that you could do anything in your life.
SPEAKER_01So, I mean, we all kind of wanted, I wanted to be a professional golfer. You were kind of thinking, like, I'm Jordan in the driveway, right? And we lose a little bit of that as we get older, right? And we lose a little bit because people may not believe in us. We stop believing in ourselves because we're picked on. And I think that is the clear indication for me that that Jordan was your idea of like, hey, look, I can be this one day. I'm gonna be this star, whether it's on the basketball hoop or my dreams can come true. And we're lost that along the way because of everyone else around us.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure it's because I never quite made six foot. That's what it was.
SPEAKER_01Spud Webb, right? Spud. What was he, like five foot? Yeah, he was like five five or something. Amazing. And he won the slam dung contest. Okay. What did Eric do for fun back then?
SPEAKER_02I remember that we had we were at the end of the neighborhood there, and we had the flattest yard, so everyone would always come over to our house. Nothing was ever planned. We'd come over, play kickball, and baseball, break a couple windows in the house occasionally, but it was just nice to hang out with everyone in the neighborhood. It didn't matter what age they were, it didn't matter, you know, boys, girls, whatever. We just all played together.
SPEAKER_01And then came seventh grade. And seventh grade changed everything. Everybody was trying to climb up the social ladder. Well, most people, I truly wasn't, and I don't think Eric was either. We kind of just wanted to, I don't know, fit in or just kind of go through the motions of life and hang out with people that liked us. But sometimes we just kind of hid and just wanted to hide out, not knowing if we were gonna be picked on further. So that was really important. But when do you first remember becoming aware that of what other people thought of you?
SPEAKER_02So it was definitely in seventh grade. I mean, you gotta remember I came from Freedom School. I think we had 12 kids in my graduating class from sixth grade, right? And then we come into a school which was attached to the high school. So you had 1,200 kids in there, 145, 150 in our class. So it was just such a large school. And I remember standing in the hallway and realizing really for the first time that people weren't just looking at me, they were judging me. You started noticing the whispers or the different clicks that were around and all that, the unspoken rules of what was cool. You couldn't wear those sweatpants anymore, right? And it was that moment where the mirror was almost forced in front of you, and you started looking at yourself more.
SPEAKER_01Eric, that's so good. So then comes high school, and the mascot position opened up. I was actually the school mascot, and I didn't want to do it anymore. And I mentioned to Eric that hey, the mascot position is there, and Eric jumped at it. I mean, he jumped at it. He was so excited to do this mascot position. Tell us about what happened, why you chose to do it, and what were your emotions and feeling during that first time you put the cougar costume on.
SPEAKER_02So, my number one reason why I wanted to do it, I mean, you got to practice with the cheerleaders. There was no other reason you got to practice with them, right? But I think that was the first time that I actually put a physical mask on. And by putting that on, I would never have talked to these girls in the hallways or anything, right? But when I got in there, I was able to put this mask on. I was skinny as anything back then, so I could do backflips, I could do some of the stuff that they had done anyway. So it was just nice being part of something, being part of a team like that. Okay, had not had.
SPEAKER_01When you had that costume on, I gotta tell you, he this guy could do backflips in these costumes. It was amazing. He would run around, he would slide across the floor. He was a phenomenal, phenomenal mascot. And then when you see him in the hallway, it was always like, you know, he was a little bit more reserved. And that costume made you become alive again. And I think you lost it, as we're indicating earlier, through the judgments other people had of you. But when you had that costume on, it didn't matter anymore. It didn't matter. The book says Living to Be Liked, which is coming out this fall, little plug for it. He could only be himself when he wasn't himself. What goes through your mind hearing that sentence?
SPEAKER_02So I think when you didn't have that mask on, over time you started losing yourself a little bit. You didn't quite understand why there were these unspoken rules and why you had to do everything a certain way. Putting back on that mask, I became the person I thought I wanted to be. It was really what everyone else wanted to be at that point. So I felt like I could not be myself or who people wanted me to be without having some sort of mask on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. And then after you became the cougar, you went on to be the Claudia Cardinal at the Skylands Park. But then after you graduated college, you picked a creative major. I think you picked a landscape architecture as your major. You graduated, and that spark of imagination had come back. But then you settled into life. And look, life gets messy. Like life is good, right? He got married to his beautiful wife, Krista, had a son, started working all the time, liked his work, but in the process, you know, his creativity was dulled because other people had always something to say. There was always more going on. He was going through all the motions of life, and everything he was doing was right, but he didn't feel alive. And that is why he slipped into alcohol and drinking alcohol. Give us some insight to that.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So I think with all of us, when you start getting more responsibilities, probably my first big one was not even so much getting married. We still had fun after that. Most of our friends were not married yet, we were still going out. But when you got a house and all of a sudden you had a mortgage, and then you knew that you didn't only have to work to survive, you had to work to pay other people. So I think that was really the part where I realized that that I still wanted to have that fun. And alcohol was that way of kind of dampening all the responsibilities and being able to just have fun. I felt like I couldn't have fun without hiding those other responsibilities, even if it was just for a few hours.
SPEAKER_01And also the stress of life, and it was kind of just the little release for you. And you know, I get it. I get it. I absolutely get it. And it's our little escape in life is alcohol. And that night in Atlantic City, when me and you are we had a ball that night until he got sick on me. We were playing mini golf around our hotel, like we were just like making holes down the hallway. It was great. It was a great time. But as he's continuing to drink, he got a little lost in the alcohol. And it was almost like he was competing against the alcohol. I don't know what you want to call it, but it was like, I'm up to 11 beers, I'm up to 12 beers. What was that? Like, talk about that whole, you know, why do you feel like the need to kind of keep track of how much you did it? It was almost like this is just a giant release for me. I needed to be free, and the more drunk that I can get tonight, the better I'm actually just gonna feel because I just want this feeling to last forever.
SPEAKER_02Yep. I think the alcohol definitely hides that because as you start drinking, you think, well, I like this feeling. I want more of this feeling, even though at that point you're good. You should just stay exactly where you are, right? But you look at how many beers that you brought up for the weekend, you're like, well, I can always get more, too. So you continue to drink because I have even more fun if I keep drinking, and that certainly is not the case.
SPEAKER_01Who is drunk Eric versus sober Eric?
SPEAKER_02So drunk Eric to me is, you know, the life of the party. I'm unbothered by anything at that point. Sober Eric was a lot more reserved, he was more careful, he was calculated, and although I like that in my normal life, I'm a planner, but I did not want that even part of when we were out somewhere, you know, and I had that opportunity to just let loose.
SPEAKER_01And Eric, the second night we went in Atlantic City, we went with a group of guys to a dance club. It was called Boogie Nights, and they played 80s and 90s hits, and it was Eric's favorite type of music. But Eric's stomach was off from the night before he was you know sick, obviously. And that night he stood on the sidelines, watched all of us as we were dancing to Journey, Don't Stop Believing. How's that song go? And we're dancing, and Eric is just stone sober with his arms crossed. He didn't have the mask on that night. My question for you is was there a point where you realized that alcohol wasn't creating freedom? Because since Atlantic City, you guys got to hear this, right? Since Atlantic City, that weekend away trying to find himself and just be free from himself. Eric, I don't think you've had much to drink. Share that story with us, what where you're at.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So that was I might have had one beer since then. I didn't even drink on New Year's this year, right? It was that idea that I just didn't need that. And I think what really made me realize that, it was the hangovers. And I'm not talking about the physical hangovers, I'm talking about the moral or emotional hangovers that you'll get the next day. I'd wake up and realize that I really didn't need that alcohol to be liked or to feel comfortable in a different skin, if you will, at that point, having that mask on. I didn't need that to be free at all. And I also realized, now my wife, when she was looking through this, or she got a sneak peek at your book, of course, and she was saying, Well, well, I don't think Adam ever saw the you with me, you know, and what it caused. So I think for my immediate family, they didn't care about that drunk Eric, right? Everyone else loved him. That was a lot of fun, but they did not. So that was part of that emotional hangover that you would get the next day or for weeks after.
SPEAKER_01Well, if Krista, if you're listening to this, yeah, I will take that compliment. Amazing thing. And I hope that your husband is now everything he's supposed to be. Now, I haven't drank in about three years, and I didn't stop drinking because I was an alcoholic. I stopped drinking because I didn't like the person that I was becoming with the alcohol, how I felt the next day, but I also felt more jealousy creeping in. I felt a lot of other things happening to me. So that's why I had stopped drinking and I actually like myself better when I don't drink. And people will say, you know, how do you loosen up? Don't you want to loosen up? And I feel like I can be myself just as myself right now. I don't need to have the alcohol to do that. Why do you think, Eric, that so many men stop playing, dancing, creating, or expressing joy as they get older?
SPEAKER_02I think it's because of society. I mean, it tells us that we have to be mature when facing any hardships. We have to be mature when facing pain or adversity without showing any emotion or complaining about it, right? We're adults, we're not supposed to complain about this stuff. But it taught me to really be the provider, a protector. You have to be serious in life. And play almost seemed childish at that point. You know, I'm an adult now. I can't play unless I hit the bottle, right? But we end up exchanging our fun for utility.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And that's such a shame, but it's such a great awareness. And I feel like it the Atlantic City might have gained you that awareness of maybe some masks that we wear. And this book I write, it's called Living to Be Like It. There's 15 different masks that we can wear. And it's almost impossible to not be wearing a mask at all. At, you know, we jump from mask to mask that we wear, but the ultimate goal is to try to be our authentic self as much as we can, because when we're our authentic self any as much as we can, other people are not going to have that same impact over us. We're going to be able to be in control of our emotions. People aren't going to bother us like they used to bother us because we're actually the better person. My question for you next is have you rediscovered any parts of yourself? Maybe it was from your childhood? Maybe today me and Eric went and hit some golf balls before. So what discoveries? I know that you like to go hiking. I know that you like to go out to dinner with your wife. I know that you like to go hang out with me and go for a cup of coffee. I know there's a lot of things that you like to do. But since you stopped drinking so much, how have you filled that time in? You know, did you start rediscovering some other things in your life that you may not have discovered with the alcohol?
SPEAKER_02I think, I mean, you had mentioned hiking, things like that. You still need that escape. You still, I feel like you have to fill a void with something. You just don't want to fill it with something bad again, right? So hiking, whether it's with people, I'm not afraid of people at all, right? I like hiking with people. But at the same time, going out for a long walk or a hike all by myself, being in nature, you know what doesn't judge you is the trees. So it's very nice to be out and just be around nature, which does not judge you at all.
SPEAKER_01Well, there's a couple things in that statement. I think that we all need like a break from the world as well. And, you know, after I get done speaking in front of an audience, I'm fired up. I feel great, but there's a crash afterwards, and I need to hide myself away. Like if you Eric's working day in and day out, or he's coming home, and once in a while, you just need to have space. Like, I know we're serving other people, and I know that's the ultimate goal, but it's about taking care of ourselves first and having some fun and be able to serve ourselves. And I think that's where you're saying, like that hiking, being away from people, being away from the judgments, being away from people that are going to be constantly telling us what to do. It kind of brings us back to our true authentic self. Well said. Have you ever avoided doing something you wanted to do because of fear of judgment? And I think we kind of answered that, but go ahead. Hundreds of times, right?
SPEAKER_02Staying silent sometimes, even if it's a meeting at work or something, you'll be around a group of people, and you might have a great idea, but you stay silent because you want everyone else to kind of go first. I think part of that, they might have a better idea, and then I don't want to bring mine up, right? Mine might sound silly. Or maybe their idea is terrible. Now I just gained a lot more confidence to spread mine. So I think sometimes you avoid speaking to share your opinion because it just might not be accepted by all people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And and when do you feel like your true self? When does Eric feel like his true self? Like what is that a place? For you. Just go into that, take a deep dive. And we should be all asking ourselves this question, too. This isn't just a question for Eric. This book isn't just about Eric, it's about all of us. So when do you feel most alive? When do you feel your true self?
SPEAKER_02So moving forward, because it always used to be the life of the party, right? I'm almost 50 now. There's no more parties. So it's not the life of that. So I think really I feel more like myself now, just around family. You know, I don't hang out as much as I do. When was the last time we saw each other quite a while ago, right? Yeah. Maybe once since Atlantic City. So I think hanging around family, that's really my true self. Or my son's very involved in the band with his high school. So the marching band and different things like that. So we have our band boosters club, right? All the parents get together, we do a lot of work, but we have a lot of fun with it too. So I think that's where I have really found the comfort in myself.
SPEAKER_01So good. Because sometimes we can just go through the motions of life, and if we're not taking care of ourselves, and like you said, you're, you know, and some of that is actually having fun with our family. Sometimes we need space to go on that hike by ourselves, but other times it's serving our kids and doing work with the band and doing all of those other things that bring us joy. And I think it's just a constant balance, but it's just being aware of our needs and then recognizing when we do have that need, how can we serve ourselves? Because fun and self-care, it doesn't have to take all day. We don't have to play around the golf or go away on vacation to do it. It's a simple hike. It's a simple, hey Eric, do you want to go out to dinner tonight? Or, you know, hey, you want to go hit a bucket of golf balls? Or what is it for you? And how can you serve yourself? Or it may be hanging out with, I love watching my son's basketball games. And that just, I feel like so alive when I'm watching my son play basketball. I'm like, oh wow, this is great. And I feel like you seem that same way with your son in the band. I love it. Eric, why do you think so many adults feel disconnected from themselves?
SPEAKER_02So I think with any adults, we feel like once again we have to be that responsible person. We have to continue providing. We have to be looked at a certain way. Society has made it that way. So I guess with that is that it comes down to what society thinks that we should be versus what we actually are. As I get older again, I really don't care what people think about me anymore, right? I am gonna be who I'm going to be.
SPEAKER_01But there also is the responsibilities that come in as being an adult. As much as you want to just like, you know, quit work or not being at work and just be able to just take care of yourself and have fun with the kids, we gotta have that responsibility too. How do you have fun at work? What are some things that you do to have fun at work or make light of work?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think being in a very virtual world now, so all of my team is not in my office. So they're all across the country. So our meetings are all virtual, our chats are all virtual with Google Chat. It's funny that memes are probably the best way to kind of get those laughters, right? So you might be having a serious conversation, but just the memes that people put up, and then you end up getting into this meme war going back and forth. And it really kind of helps you mentally to move forward with that project. You need that little laugh here and there.
SPEAKER_01And when you actually are the first one that does that stuff and you make it lighter for everyone else, right? And that's how like relationships form. I think a lot of times, my biggest mistake in my first business, my cleaning business, was I actually didn't believe in building relationships. And that's why people would quit on me all the time. And I would say, where's the loyalty in this business? But there it wasn't that. It was that I didn't care about who they were. I was like, here's the job, do it, because this is all I knew. And what Eric is saying is like, hey, look, I'm gonna do these memes and just like joke around a little bit, make light of work because when a problem happens, it's so much easier to deal with somebody that we had a relationship with, these little cute little memes that we're shooting back to one another. But if you don't have that relationship, then we wind up getting into an argument, we wind up having to say things that we don't want to say, or we have to hold in our feelings, or we say our feelings, and it causes a fight. So there's a lot of different things happening there. So it's great that you're making light of work by doing those memes. I love it. Now, the title of the book coming out this fall is Living to Be Liked. What does living to be liked cost a person?
SPEAKER_02So I think it builds upon itself. So we had talked about before seventh grade and after seventh grade, right? Before seventh grade, I didn't care about being liked. I guess I just was or didn't know whether I was or not, right? After seventh grade, you're looking in that mirror and you're feeling like everyone else is looking at you. So you want to start positioning your life and what you're doing in life so people do like you. So you start becoming someone that you're really not, and then it merges with, well, that is that really me or is it not me at that point? So you end up losing yourself.
SPEAKER_01Eric, there is some young people that are listening to this podcast right now, and uh they're listening because it's a managing difficult people podcast. And I'd like you to give them one message to the people who might be afraid to be truly themselves. What would you say to them? It might be uh the adult who is miserable at their job, it could be that student that's picked on. What's one message you would say to those people?
SPEAKER_02So I was thinking about this last night, and the people that love when you wear that mask, they're going to leave someday. They're not always going to be around. But it's the people that already love you without that mask, that knew you before that mask, and they end up staying forever. So trust your own self-worth and know who you actually are.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love that. And I know that sometimes we want to hold on to friendships. And sometimes friendships are for a season, sometimes they're for a lifetime. Sometimes friendships are like what me and Eric's friendship was is we were very close when we were younger. As we got married, we stopped hanging out, and now we get together maybe you know three, four times a year. And it changes. Friendships change with season, but one thing has remained the same with our friendship is I allow Eric to be who he is, and he allows me to be who I am. In reading Living to Be Liked, and I'm so grateful for you drinking those 12 beers and half bottle of whiskey that night in Atlantic City. What do you hope that people, the readers, the students, the adults, the people in work will learn from your story?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. So sometimes it's not just that mask, right? It's actually the armor that you're wearing. It's full body armor at that point. So it builds that that protective gateway around you. And when you're young, you think that everything is perfectly fine, you're gonna be okay with that, but as you get older, it ends up trapping you as an adult. So it's safe to put the armor down, I think is what I would want people to learn from this. I survived by doing it, and then it's time to live after that.
SPEAKER_01I love it. And look, we may break our patterns, we may make mistakes again, and I think that one of the chapters, well, I know one of the chapters of the book is about self-compassion and taking care of ourselves, but also how we treat ourselves. And I know that some of our relationships with ourselves are probably really not that good. And I know you've had always had a really good relationship with yourself. This I know because you're always very light with yourself, you're always having a good time with yourself. How do you maintain that positivity as we're wrapping up this call today? How do you maintain that positivity instead of like beating yourself up? Because a lot of people are listening to this and they just get so down on themselves. What would you say to those people that are reading the book and how can they stop treating themselves so badly? And why should they stop treating themselves so badly?
SPEAKER_02So I love challenges. I love winning. So I will create that challenge for myself, right? So you have to keep the challenges small at first. Don't create big challenges. Create small challenges for yourself that, you know, tomorrow I want to accomplish this. Tomorrow I don't want this to bother me. And as you continue practicing that, it just gets easier and easier and easier. And you really don't even see the negative, it's covered up by the positive throughout the days then.
SPEAKER_01Wow. And what about forgiving yourself? Like if you screw up, you like if you made a mistake at work, how do you adjust? Do you forgive yourself and move on, or do you beat yourself up about it?
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell So it's do it right the second time. My father actually, probably the best advice he ever gave me was he said, learn from other people's mistakes instead of your own. Because that way you're not even making that mistake. I think I started off by telling him I'm very good at learning from my mistakes. And he said, learn from other people's mistakes, right? So I love that. I'm definitely a people watcher. So if you watch people enough or you watch enough YouTube videos, I don't want to be like that guy, right? I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01I'm the guy that makes the mistakes. And my problem is I go full force and I have no idea which direction I'm going in. I'm just going this way and trying this thing and failing and failing and failing, and then eventually I get some sort of luck. But maybe I should be like the advice that your father had given you and just watch other people, watch them fail, and then I can learn from their mistakes. But maybe I'm learning too. But I do forgive myself when I make mistakes, and I'm not that hard on myself. I used to be very, very hard on myself because we spend more time with the person looking at us in the mirror than anyone else. And often it's the cruelest relationship we have. And with that, I am just so grateful that Eric agreed to come out and share his journey with us on the Managing Difficult People podcast, sharing the journey of where he was, where he, all of his struggles, everything that he's been through, and what the lessons that he's learned from that along the way, the mask that he's wears, because we all wear these masks. This book is not about Eric. This is not about just Eric. This is just helping us gain, hey, look, my goal with this book was to say, hey, that's me too. Hey, that's me too. Because I think we all can recognize there's a little bit of us in all of this. And I hope that you will pick up the copy of the book this fall. And I hope that you'll read it, and I hope that you'll be able to gain insights to us. Eric, I want to thank you for taking the time with us today. I want to give you the last word.
SPEAKER_02Thank you very much. Well, I actually learned from the process of making this book, right? You had written it, but you kept sharing with me different chapters and this and that. And with that, I was learning more and more about myself and some of these deeper questions, right? Some of the questions you asked today kind of made you think about it. Well, how do I answer that?
SPEAKER_01I got a sneak peek at the book, and that certainly helped me out. Amazing. Well, thank you guys for joining us. If you have any questions, go on to the askadamnow.com. You can write us a voice message, and we'll get back to you on that. With that, you guys have a great night, and thank you for joining us on the Managing Difficult People Podcast.
SPEAKER_00So that's it for today's episode of the Managing Difficult People Podcast. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or iTunes wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a ten thousand dollar private VIP day with Adam Holbrook himself. Be sure to head on over to Managing Difficult People Podcast dot com and pick up a free copy of Adam's Gift and join us on the next episode.