# The 10 strategies for dealing with angry people

- **Episode:** [163](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/163.md) (2025-01-16)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** anger, strategies, dealing-with-people
- **Time:** 32:23–35:50 (start 1943s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1943](https://truthliesandwork.com/163?t=1943)

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[32:23] Al Elliott: Yeah. I think what I'm more afraid of than the frequency of anger, because I would argue there's a lot for people to be angry at right now. I mean, I think it'd be fair to say that I am a relatively angry person. People don't think of me that way because I'm not someone who yells and screams and gets in fights, but But I deal with a fair amount of anger and frustration day in and day out, most often about sort of broader political and systemic issues. What I'm more scared of is the degree to which cruel treatment and aggression have been normalized. And so what I find worrisome is less the amount of anger and more The way in which we use it, some of the impulse control problems people have. Those things are things that I think are essentially much more worrisome to me and much more frightening to me
[33:24] Leanne Elliott: Before we move on to some of the strategies that you discuss in your book, I just want to just ask you, because you talk quite a bit in the first part of your book about the difference between You know, a person experiencing anger as a state and a person being angry as a personality trait. If somebody's listening, how can they maybe tell the difference between, I'm just angry because there's a lot to be angry about, or actually I have an angry personality?
[33:50] Al Elliott: Yeah, that's a great question. And in reality, there isn't necessarily a dividing line, right? You know, that I think what it really comes down to is all human beings get angry. We are all capable of experiencing that emotional state the same way all human beings get scared or all human beings get sad or all human beings get happy, that we're all capable of experiencing those emotional states. However, we also know that there are some people who are just angrier than others, and that part of what's going on for them is that they are just more likely to kind of have that switch flipped, that they're more likely to enter that state frequently. They're more likely to express that anger negatively. They're more likely to experience consequences as a result of their anger. They're more likely to— they feel anger more intensely than other people. And I think I would argue that One of the best ways to kind of figure out if you're that person is to pay attention to those consequences. How frequently am I getting into arguments? How frequently am I having relationships disrupted because of my anger? How frequently am I driving dangerously or maybe in a way that scares the people around me? And if the answer is often, if the answer is, yeah, that's happening for me way more than other people, I think it's fair to say, well, maybe it's you, right? Maybe you are the reason that's happening. Even then, not always, right? I mean, some people are just surrounded by other people who provoke them. They're, like we said earlier, they're in a situation that tends to bring that anger out where they experience more provocations. But going through that process of self-reflection, is a really important piece to figure that out