The Mindset Mentor - Do This Once & Watch How Toxic People Disappear

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

Are you letting toxic people drain your energy without even realizing it? In this episode, I break down my six-step process to help you identify who’s disrupting your peace and start setting boundaries that actually protect your mental health. I’ll also teach you powerful tools like the Gray Rock Method so you can stop engaging in unnecessary drama and focus more on your personal growth. Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you want to improve your life, you need to improve yourself. And that's what this podcast is designed to do. We put out episodes four times a week to help you learn and grow and improve yourself. So if that's what you want to do, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about the six-step process to handling toxic people.

because if you keep letting toxic people into your life, you're basically volunteering to be emotionally exhausted. Because toxic people don't just have like a bad personality. They drain your confidence, they hijack your peace and they slowly train you to doubt yourself. The worst part about toxic people though is a lot of times they don't look toxic. They look kind of charming sometimes. They look like victim sometimes. Or they kind of look like. like family. But once you understand the psychology behind a toxic person, you'll learn how to start spotting the patterns instantly with them. And there's one technique called the Grey Rock Method I'm going to be teaching you today that feels almost too simple. But if you use it,

it will work so well that toxic people usually stop targeting you completely and move on to somebody else. Okay? Let's go through the six-step process. Step one is that quite simply, you need to identify the toxic people in your life. Now you might be like, well, yeah, no shit. That's very, oh, very obvious, right? But you need to get a pen and paper and write down the toxic people who exist in your life, not letting it live in your head. Oh, they're kind of toxic sometimes, but I've known them for so long, whatever it might be. But I want you understand, not everybody who annoys you is toxic. A toxic person is somebody who repeatedly disrespects your boundaries or repeatedly disrespects you or makes you feel emotionally exhausted after interacting

with them. They can even make you feel emotionally exhausted just by thinking about them. These are people who manipulate you or they guilt trip you or they gaslight you. They thrive on drama. They thrive on negativity. And they rarely take any responsibility for their own actions. So if somebody is, somebody consistently makes you feel the bad about your or drains your energy, it's time to put their name on that piece of paper and it's time to rethink their role in their life. I don't care how long they've been around in your life. Your mental health is the most important thing that you have. Okay? So I need you to take them and legitimately put their name on a piece of paper. We're going to list these people out. And we're going to make a

plan for each person. Step two is you need to reduce time with the people. who are on that piece of paper. Now, you don't have to cut people out completely. And sometimes that's not fully realistic. Like, you might have toxic coworkers. You can't fully get rid of them if you have to go to work with them. You might have toxic in-laws. You can't just never see them again because they probably have to come over for Christmas. But what you can do is you actually can get better at limiting your interactions and having a plan for those interactions to protect your mental health. So there's a couple different methods you can use. There's one of them that's called the fade out method.

The fade out method is the idea of gradually spending less time with them. So instead of just going from like full on to nothing, like you gradually spend less time with them, so you're kind of like sneaking out so they don't even realize that you're spending less time with them. You can start to take longer to respond to texts. You can be quote unquote busy more often, right? and you can tell them that you've got a lot going on with work or that you're working hard on

XYZ. And you slowly start decreasing time with them and you slowly start decreasing communication. Right? You're just gradually spending less time with them. You have to understand. You teach people how to treat you. You teach people how to talk to you. And that's why it's really important that you do this. Next thing you can do is start doing something called time blocking. If you must see them, like if it's a family member and you have to go, to Thanksgiving or you have to go to Christmas or Easter or whatever might be for you, whatever family event, schedule short visits with a very clear end time and communicate that end time and give a really good reason why that is. The next thing that I'll say around that too is that whenever you go into a interaction with this person, you need to always in the back

of your mind have some sort of out, right? Have some sort of excuse why you can leave. And one of the things that I recommend is that anytime you're going to go and you have to be around these people is to drive yourself. Take your own car so that if you have to leave, you can leave and not rely on anybody else. If you do ride with somebody else, communicate with them. Hey, listen, this person's been really toxic. I'm trying to spend less time with them. If I give you the look or if I give you the code word, we're leaving. And then just you're planning how you're going to actually be interacting with these people.

Okay. that's number two. Number three, which is the one that I love and I spoke about very quickly, is to use the gray rock method. The gray rock method is one of the best tools for dealing with toxic people, manipulative people, narcissists. And the idea is to be as boring and uninteresting as a gray rock so that they just lose interest in you. That's what you're trying to, you're trying to get them to be, you're trying to get them to be bored with you as a human. right so here's how you do it you want to keep your responses whenever they say something short and neutral yeah okay like you're just you're just freaking boring right that's what you want to be

the other thing is you want to do is you want to avoid giving emotional reactions toxic people want you to engage they want you to get fired up in some sort of way right they want to get some sort of drama out of you. And so what you want to do is just not get caught up in it. Show no enthusiasm for their drama. Would a gray rock get dramatic? No, then be a gray rock. They want you to get caught up in it because they get energy from your anger. They get energy from whatever energy you bring to it. A gray rock has no energy. That's who you want to be to them. So if you start to notice yourself going into old patterns of being triggered, you have to stop yourself. I've coached many people through this, especially with family members,

is that they know how to trigger you and push your buttons better than anybody else in the world. You need to learn how to be a gray rock. You need to breathe through it. You need to learn to distance yourself and go to the bathroom, like fully disconnect for the moment. Close your eyes. Tell everybody you're taking a shit, whatever. that you need to to disappear and give yourself some time to reset, right? And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. This method works really well with narcissists, with gossipers, with energy vampires. Remember this. The less entertaining you are, the sooner that they're going to move to someone else. They will be looking for someone else to suck the energy from, to get into drama,

and to spill the tea and to gossip. And if you're just sitting there and you're boring as can be, they're going to want to find somebody else. That's what you want to be. Okay. That's number three. Number four is to get better at setting and enforcing boundaries. Toxic people love to push your boundaries.

And that's why it's so crucial to set firm limits and to stick to them. Now, many people, I know a lot of people, especially like people pleasers, are terrible at setting boundaries. They've never set a boundary in their entire life. And so I like to make boundaries as simple as possible, just a simple three-step process, okay? Get out of pen and paper. Stop doing all the stuff in your head. If you notice I keep talking about pen and paper, get out your pen and paper. And I want you to get very, very clear on what your boundaries are with this person, with other people, what you will do, what you won't do, everything. You need to get crystal clear on your boundaries, which is why you need to write them down. Because step number two is you need to communicate. You

them clearly. If you can't write it down clearly, you will not be able to communicate it clearly. And if you don't communicate it clearly, that person will not understand. Okay, so the first thing you're going to do is you're going to clear on your boundaries. The second thing you're going to do is you're going to communicate with your boundaries. And the third step of it is you need to stay firm on your boundaries. Just know, especially if you have a long history with this person, they will overstep your boundaries over again and over again and over again. Your job, is not to get pissed off and to yell at them. Your job is to remind them of the boundary over and over and over again.

It will take multiple times, three times, five times, ten times. You have to understand that if they keep overstepping it, it's because they're trying to gain control of you in the situation. This is a boundary is not a suggestion. A boundary is a rule for how people can interact with you. If they cannot respect the boundary, they don't deserve it. your time. And so you need to actually start to think about boundaries this way. So like, here's what a boundary would look like in action, right? So if they come in and they're like, oh, you never make time for

anymore, I guess I just don't matter. Right. They're trying to stir the pot in some sort of way. And so what you would just say is, hey, remember when I said, I'm just protecting my mental health? Like, I just won't be available as often. I'm working on myself. Right. That's you. We'll have already gotten clearing your boundaries, communicate your boundaries, but now they're trying to overstep them again. So now you're going to communicate, hey, remember I said I'm working on my mental health? Remember I said I've been really anxious recently? Well, I just won't be available as often because I am taking more time to myself to protect my mental health. It has nothing to do with you, has everything to do with me, right? Clear, direct, talking to them. It's, I am in charge of what I do,

and if you want to continue to have a relationship with me, you need to go with these boundaries, right? There are other things that they'll say is tell me everything that's going on with XYZ like insert drama here, whatever drama that is. And what you would say, like, oh, tell me everything that's happening in your relationship with your husband. What's Bill been doing recently? Because they want to hear the T and they want to, they want to just gossip around it. It's like, hey, remember when I told you a few months ago? Like, I'm not talking about my relationship with Bill anymore. I'm not comfortable talking about this. And so we're just not going to. right so it's like you're reminding them of what you said before in the past and you're clearly

communicating with them no we're not going to do that and they're going to want to hear about it and overstep it over and over again it's like hey i'm not going to talk about my relationship with bill whatever it might be right another example will be like oh they come in and they because you know talks people love to this right might be might be some of your parents right or who knows criticizing your life choices or your life decisions, your aunt, your aunt Betty, right? She's always just like criticizing, oh, you should have done this. You should have gone to school for this. You should have married him, whatever it might be. It's like, hey, I'm happy with my decision. And I'm not open to discussing it any further. If you remember six months ago, the last time I saw you, I said I'm not open to talking

about this with you. And guess what? Six months later, I'm still not open to talking about it with you. Sound good? And so it's like you're reminding them of the boundary that's been set and you're staying firm to the boundary. Once again, it's not a suggestion. It is a rule for how you actually are in a relationship with another person. And then you understand that. Okay. Step number five is when necessary, you do need to cut them off completely. Sometimes a toxic person is so damaging that the only real solution is to completely remove them from your life. And it can be hard. I get it. especially with long-time friends, sometimes with family members, with partners, but your peace of mind is worth it. Your mental health needs to be protected. You can't just lay down and let people

step all over you just because they've been in your life for a long time. Right. Now, people really have a hard time with this. So like, what about family members? What about my mom and dad? I've heard the worst of the worst things that could possibly exist being in this industry for over 20 years now of what people and their family have done to them, what people have done to, their parents have done to them, all of the stuff. If you're like, oh my God, I can never cut out a family member, you don't understand what some people's family have actually done to them. It's crazy. And so I'm just going to say, I'm going to give you permission. If somebody is so damaging to you, I am giving you permission to cut them out of your life if you need to, right?

if you need to go no contact, block them on social media and your phone. We don't need to give any explanations. Tell mutual friends or tell other family members if necessary. Like, hey, I'm stepping away from this person because X, Y, and Z. Right. And then just like, here's the thing, resist the urge to explain. Like, they will not accept your reasoning anyways. You just have to be Houdini and disappear. Just exit. If someone's abusive or manipulative or dangerous to your well-being, don't feel guilty about cutting ties with them. Your mental health always comes first. And then step number six is always remember to protect your energy moving forward. Now that you've set boundaries, now that you've distanced yourself, now that you've turned into a gray rock

and go maybe no contact sometimes, it's time to focus on you. Like surround yourself. Start to find ways to surround yourself with people who are positive people, people whose energy is contagious, people who want the best for you, people who challenge you to think bigger for yourself, to challenge you to grow yourself, spend time with people who uplift you and supports you. And start thinking about that, like on that same piece of paper, flip the next piece of paper, I don't want you to look at all that talks to people's names, but flip to the next piece of paper and write down what type of people do you want to surround yourself with? Talk about the characteristics, their hobbies, what you want to do.

ask yourself, where are they? You know, you could go to meetup.com or you could go to networking events or you could hang out with a good friend who you know is a really good person who's trying to get better and trying to expand themselves and get better in every aspect of the life. Meet their friends. Right. And then like all at all, like I just want you to understand that if you're the type of person who is a people pleaser and this type of stuff is hard, right? You've got to learn to say no. Like you don't have to please everybody. And this is like I said, really big for people pleasers. people pleasing is something that you created in childhood as a safety mechanism to maybe not add to the chaos of the home environment that you lived in. But you don't live at home with your parents

anymore. You're an adult. So it's time to break that pattern. Saying no is one of the biggest forms of self-respect. And so you've got to learn to trust your gut. If somebody gives you bad vibes, pay attention to that. Like trust your intuition. It's a lot smarter than you actually think. because dealing with toxic people looking at it is not about fixing them. We're not asking to fix anybody. I'm asking you to protect yourself. Some people thrive on negativity and drama and manipulation. And that's their business.

That's not yours. Your peace is what you should work on. Guard it fiercely. And so, I got a question for you. Who's the first person that came to mind when you started thinking about this? Like the first person when you said, oh, toxic people, I'm going to click on this episode. I want you to think of that person. I want you to write down their name,

and I want you to think of one boundary that you could set with them today. So that's what I got for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories, tag me in it Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside this podcast,

you can go to coach with rob.com. And with that, I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.