How to have a conversation with difficult people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cover for the April 2026 issue of Toastmaster magazine describes it as having Top Tips for Effective Conversations. There is a Featured Article by Jefferson Fisher on pages 14 to 17 that is titled How to Talk to Difficult People and subtitled Tips for handling people with challenging personality traits. He describes seven types and how to handle them:

 

The Insulter and Belittler

The Interrupter and Talker-Over

The Always-Has-To-Be-Right

The Passive Aggressor

The Gaslighter

The Narcissist

The One-Upper

 

Also, back on page 26 there is another article titled 5 Questions with Jefferson Fisher, which logically should have appeared right after it on page 18. It is not linked to under Related Articles though. You have to download the pdf file of this issue to find it. That is a very curious editorial omission.

 

On March 1, 2026 I blogged about how The Next Conversation is a thoughtful book by Jefferson Fisher.

 

The image of a 2017 BMW press conference was cropped from one by Matti Blume at Wikimedia Commons.