How to deal with your enemies

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

Do you know your enemies?

Even if you are a good person who hates conflicts or even if you think that you don't have enemies still there will be people out there who will hate you and who will want to see you suffering.

In my article Why do people hate each other i pointed out how insecurity, jealousy, conflict of interests and many other reasons could force some people to hate you even if you did nothing wrong to them at all.

The important question you should ask yourself is, do i know my enemies?
For the first instance you might believe that you know them well but in fact most people who hate you will try to cause as much harm to you as possible (if this doesn't contradict with their values) without revealing their identity.

You are very less likely to be physically attacked by an enemy of yours these days but instead he might try to back stab you while acting as if he loves you.

Because deception is a part of human nature especially when no strong opposing morals are found i decided to write this article to help you know your enemies and deal with them.

Knowing your enemies and dealing with them

So how can you deal with your enemies?
Before you can deal with your enemies you need to first know them.

Most of your enemies will be feeling resentful towards you and the good news is that resentment is one of the emotions that usually forces the resentful person to vent whenever he has the chance. (see also Dealing with resentful people)

You can easily recognize an enemy by his non constructive critical comments, by watching for his positive body language when he hears about your problems and by the words he says about you in your absence.

Lets suppose that someone wanted to criticize you for something, does it make any sense that he writes the negative comment on your facebook wall or as a comment on a post in your blog?

Certainly a person who does so has other intentions other than giving you feedback. I was once talking to a person about the big troubles i was facing during a certain phase of my life and i noticed that his body language showed that he was happy to hear about these events!

Of course it would be a great mistake to start suspecting everyone around you or to assume that someone is your enemy without having solid evidence and that's why one of the best things you can do to recognize an enemy is to stir up his emotions in order to force him to reveal his true intentions.

Yesterday i wrote a provoking comment on my Facebook status, an action that i do every now and then in order to catch the wrong people on my list. The comment wasn't provoking enough to disturb normal people but for real enemies it was so distressing that one of them wrote bad words on my wall only to delete it few seconds later.

Find out a way to tempt someone to show his real intentions and if he was an enemy then certainly he will make a mistake.

How to deal with your enemies?

Here is how you can deal with your enemies:

  • Show them the mirror: The fatal blow you can give to any enemy is to show him that you understand his intentions. Lets suppose that you found that someone was bad mouthing you because he was jealous of you. In such a case confronting him directly with the fact that he is jealous will instantly paralyze him and will let him think hundreds of times before he mentions your name in your absence again
  • Don't counter attack but control his movements: Most people do the mistake of responding back to threats without thinking and as a result they always find themselves stuck in a corner with few options. Instead of doing so you must always be the one who forces your enemy to do the things that you want him to do. For example if you were going to a party and if you knew that your enemy will be there then instead of waiting until he approaches you and verbally attacks you in a subtle way you should surprise him by taking the first move and so force him to be in the defensive side. Don't get me wrong i am not asking you to attack him but just approaching him with confidence and showing him that you know everyone in the party can be enough to force him to back off that day. Sometimes creating false perception of power in the eyes of your enemy, like acting as if you know everyone in the party in this case, can be enough to scare him
  • Set traps: I met a guy 2 years ago and i knew he had bad intentions. At that time he didn't knew that i have my own business and he thought that i was only depending on my day job. I decided to set a trap at this point by talking about how horrible this company am working for was and this made him mistakenly believe that he found a vulnerability that he could use to attack me. He said "you wasted a lot of time in that company you are working for and you didn't reach a good managerial position yet, why is that?". I replied saying, "i am not sure if i told you that i am making 7 times my salary from my website and that i am just using that career i am in now as a backup plan in case anything goes wrong. The guy was resentful because he was doing bad in his career and that's why he decided to attack me. To his surprise the vulnerability he believed he found was just a trap set by me to lure him to an area where i could silence him forever. Today, when he sees me he looks at the ground
  • Collect more power: There are numerous methods for acquiring power. The more powerful you become the less you will give your enemies room to work against you. For example if you have lots of friends or if your relationship with most people is good then those people will deliver you information about what's being said behind your back and your enemy won't find enough room to spoil your reputation (see How to be a powerful man)

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