Page 140 - Effective Communication Skills Mastery Bible 4 Books in 1 Boxset by Tuhovsky, Ian

with the retort of the year (or even of the century) on their

minds. I know that sometimes it’s hard to stop yourself when

something funny and accurate wants to escape your lips, but

believe me—there are moments when it is better to swallow

some words and keep them for a better occasion.

Try to use this ability only when you know that the other

person will take it with a smile or at least with a positive

attitude. Enjoy it, entertain others with it, unleash your

creativity and surprise everyone around you, but use it for a

good cause.

10. Take away these “magic bullets”: At the beginning of

this chapter, I told you I won’t be giving you any ready retorts

and “canned material”, but this will serve as a good exception.

With these phrases, you can respond to anything anybody ever

tells you when buying yourself time to think and regain

composure.

The phrases always start with, “That’s interesting,” and they

are:

“That’s interesting. Why would you say that?”

“That’s interesting. Why would you do that?”

“That’s interesting. Tell me more.”

“That’s interesting. Why would you ask that?”

There’s nothing that you can’t respond to using these

phrases.

Moreover, they also get people off track and make them

realize how stupid, futile or vain the things they tell you are.

Also, they sometimes have the power to make your

interlocutors start thinking very deeply about their real