Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman Boundaries Expert: Handle Difficult People With Confidence and Clarity
22 snips
Apr 28, 2026 
Dr. Henry Cloud, clinical psychologist and bestselling author on boundaries and leadership. He shares stories about fear and public speaking and why small steps beat paralysis. He discusses replacing critical inner voices, handling chronic negativity and gossip, and building clear team and family norms. Practical frameworks for vision, feedback, and keeping work stress out of home are highlighted.
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Overcome Fear With Small Incremental Exposure
- Face fear by taking small, incremental steps into the thing you're avoiding so your brain relearns safety and the fear subsystem 'goes back to sleep.'
- Combine exposures with internal work on trauma or self-talk and supportive coaches to accelerate progress.
Get Confident By Doing Not Waiting
- Don't wait for confidence before starting; build competence by doing the task and accepting early mistakes as learning.
- Use flow: push challenge slightly past ability, normalize anxiety, then incrementally increase difficulty to grow skill.
Handle Sensitive Colleagues By Asking How To Give Feedback
- When someone is hypersensitive, ask whether it's from wounding or entitlement and then ask them how they prefer to receive feedback.
- For teams, proactively ask everyone how they want feedback and normalize tailored approaches.