For the past few months I have been reading up on anger management. This review is a look at three of books and a podcast. I also mention two really good books on emotional intelligence below, but this article is specifically focused on resource recommendations for anger management.
I happen to be quite passionate about my work and being as efficient as I can possibly be. As a leader, probably 70 to 80% of what I do is based on whether I can negotiate and convince others to follow my lead, especially when I am suggesting something unusual. Or at least something that is unusual for them. It can be a bit of a grind and wear on you when you’re not able to convince others to join an effort you are driving. This article is about how to handle yourself when your fatigue is high, your tolerance is low, and opportunities to get frustrated abound.
When you are passionate about something you feel that is the right path, it can cause you to let your emotions steer more than they should. As a leader I am always looking for books and guides that I can use to make myself better and that I can pass along to my managers or individuals who need some additional outside guidance.
Sometimes people don’t need additional study, but they want it, as they understand the value of ongoing continuing education well after they finish college or high school. I fall in that camp too. I believe I can always get better at something, so I get delighted when someone asks me for a recommendation or a tool they can use to further educate themselves. This article happens to do two things for me. It helps me share what I have learned from a personal perspective on techniques for managing anger and better understanding it, and it provides you with three or four potential sources for your own education.
If you’re looking for a short guide that you can finish in a couple of hours, I recommend Anger Management: 7 Steps to Freedom from Anger, Stress and Anxiety
This book is a decent tactical guide to some techniques you can use in the moment to manage your angry tendencies. It does not necessarily go very deep into particulars on what drives anger. I’ll share a different book with you in a moment that does that. However, if you don’t have 9 to 10 hours to read or listen to an audio book that goes into more depth, this is a great guide for you. It has some very realistic steps you can take to manage your anger in the moment.
After you listen to a few books, you’re going to hear some common, basic techniques. An example of that usually comes in the form of small podcasts that only have 2, 3, or maybe 6 minutes to teach you some basic techniques and self awareness. So for example this Anger Management Institute podcast, does that very thing. It provides short bursts of information around anger management. And although that may seem helpful, you won’t get much out of a short series of bursts like what is in this podcast. You normally will hear platitudes and tidbits of information that seem intuitively obvious. So I would encourage you to be weary of podcasts that promise to give you tools that really help you. You just can’t go deep enough with them. Anger management topics take too long for shallow podcasts.
My favorite book of the set that I have read is The Anger Trap by Dr. Les Carter. This book is a 9 and a half hour listen on Audible, but you can get it done comfortably in 6 hours at 1.5x speed. The narrator has an excellent voice for this type of book. The Anger Trap goes into real depth on a variety of sources to anger. It examines anger as a defensive emotion, and uses a variety of anecdotal examples to shape the message for you in a relatable fashion. The book’s depth is good, because you will find that there are some scenarios that connect with you and your history. And then there are some scenarios that you will see in other people.
This is particularly helpful if you are a manager or leader. I’m always trying to understand my teammates’ needs, so that I can relate to them better and manage situations fairly. Although we all want to stay results-focused, sometimes the emotions of the moment can get in the way. That is true for me, for you, and that is also true for your teammates. This book has many chapters on a variety of emotion-driven topics and relationships that can get out of hand. It goes into peoples’ childhoods, and how they tend to cover emotions such as anxiety with anger as a defense mechanism.
For some specifics on The Anger Trap:
This book has a great section in chapter 5 on anger training that parents use to teach their children how to handle anger. He describes that children basically learn to handle their anger from watching how their parents handle anger, and as a result, generally stay stuck in the same trap. It is not until the children have a conscious study of it or some mentorship, that they start to examine what they would change in their own patterns and potentially break the cycle.
In chapter 6, he dissects the ownership of your own anger in a concept called “freedom thinking”. By doing this, and then by calling into question whether or not our responses to anger-generating situations are correct, and comparing them against our ability to make a choice, he really surfaces the elements of commitment that enable you to controlling your own anger. At a high level he says we are free to make any decision instead of being ruled by our natural tendency; he emphasizes our choice to be angry is not reactive and can be controlled.
In chapter 15, Dr Carter talks about patience “falling apart” as nothing more than a feeble attempt at hiding contempt. That’s very powerful, and is a mindset changing look at the struggle we have with anger versus patience. He goes on to describe patience as “being able to handle hardships without complaint”. That is also powerful, if you can change your fundamental mindset of what patience really is.
And also in chapter 15, just after describing the differences between true patience being a mindset, instead of a technique used from time to time, the author describes that in order to be satisfied with being patient and not feeling like a push-over, people must be confident they have used their opportunities to be assertive very well. He describes a triad of mindsets: successfully using assertive behavior, fundamentally believing patience is more important than using anger, and understanding that patience is a mindset and not a tool to be used to get other people to do what you want them to do.
Upon first listening to the concept of mindfully using opportunities to be assertive, it feels quite like an epiphany of sorts. It can be hard to stay cognizant of this over time without good practice. In discussing it with my wife (a psychiatrist), she reminds me that good cognitive behavioral habits take time. First you have to become aware that you were doing something, you have to know that you want to make changes, you have to try to make changes, say that you’re not perfect yet and be patient with that, and stay the course continuing to exercise those changes.
If you’re looking for a great in-depth guide, I recommend you pick up this book. It is one of the handful of books that I have rated with a full five star rating. It does not have many platitudes. It usually describes a high-level concept and then gets into the details pretty quickly each time. With these things in mind, I would say it is 95% meat and 5% potatoes. There might be a little bit of verbiage that sounds too ideal at times, but that is very rare. This is one that I will tend to listen to again and again to remind myself of the subtleties on anger management and emotional control.
Moving On:
The only reason why I will share with you awareness of this third book, is because I want you to be careful of getting books that promise a lot and deliver very little. This book called Emotional Intelligence Mastery, was a nine hour lesson. I thought that by getting a large book, I would get a lot of depth. However I did not. This author simply collected together a handful of other short manuals he had written or co-authored and put them in one large volume. So instead of going into detail on anger management and emotional intelligence, it just lightly touches on seven different topics.
When you are looking at books for any sort of self-help guide, including emotional intelligence or anger management, read the reviews to see if the book is full of platitudes or adds a real value. And by value, I mean real depth. Otherwise you will spend your highly valuable time reading or listening to something that does not help you.
By the way, in case you do not know what a platitudes are, they are phrases used by someone preaching about all the value you were going to get, if you just change your ways. Or they might excite you and hype you up, but when you’re done with the book you cannot remember anything tactical you can use to change your world.
Lastly, I will offer up a terrific book on emotional intelligence. “Emotional Intelligence” was created by Daniel Goleman the person who coined the concept. I’ve written this book review of “Emotional Intelligence” and the “Whole Brain Child” by Daniel Siegel here. These books give you a sense of academic information and insights as well. If you are a leader, or a manager trying to do a better job and understanding your people‘s needs, or if you’re just someone trying to be more professional at work or in relationships, these are excellent books. The one on childhood development is particularly good for parents.
I have noticed that when I discuss with people or mention to them that I’m studying books on anger management, some people get uncomfortable. This may be because they think that if you’re studying something it must be a problem for you. However, if instead you are on a journey of personal development, where you are studying some topics to the level of understanding of subtleties, you can become an expert in that topic. And although I don’t consider myself an expert at body language, in any given room and for most situations, I feel that I can read people really well. That is because I’ve studied many books on body language, facial affect, intonation, and enunciation. I believe that although my body language is solid and has been for a long time, my understanding of it gets deeper with each new reading. The same can be said for anger management.
You may be interested in the subtleties of the topic and simply getting better at managing your anger and helping others manage theirs. Whether you are coming at the study of anger management for your own personal benefits, to help you manage relationships better, or to become an anger management teacher, I encourage you to forge ahead. You will learn a lot, maybe change some bad habits, or reinforce some good ones. I confess that at the beginning of this four month journey, I frankly thought that I was going to hear a bunch of “just control yourself” types of instructions. Instead, I gained some real insight to the emotional foundations that are behind anger, how to manage it, and I think a stronger sense of empathy for others when they are struggling with emotional control. I encourage you to take the same leap that I did, and if you happen to find any of these resources helpful, please share below.
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