Page 141 - Effective Communication Skills Mastery Bible 4 Books in 1 Boxset by Tuhovsky, Ian

motives and the intentions behind what they told you and what

they threw at you. They simply surrender or suddenly change

their attitude to a much nicer one. They sometimes work as a

“wake up call.”

11. Practice with yourself. Your internal dialogue,
constantly commenting on the surrounding reality, can be very

useful. Just sit for a few minutes in a quiet and peaceful place

and start talking with your own mind. It can be done out loud,

but if you do not want your family to take you to a psychiatric

ward, you’d better choose to practice only in your mind. You
will need two inner voices: one should be your friend’s, and

the other your own.

The exercise is very simple—you need to imagine this

person saying unpleasant, mean or insulting things to you.

Then you think of some good, relevant, creative retort. Of

course, in the beginning, coming up with such retorts can take
a few minutes or longer, but having dialogues with your own

mind shouldn’t be so strange, since almost everyone on this

planet is doing it on a daily basis. No matter how much time it

takes you at first, you will become better with practice. Once

you come up with a juicy retort, let your inner voice tell you
something unpleasant again. You’ll see that in a short time,

good answers will appear faster and faster. Practice it as often

as possible!

Once you master the above points, you will become a
conjurer who juggles with words. Retorts as sharp as a

Japanese katana blade will be flowing out from your mouth

just when the situation requires it. Work on improving your

ability to find relevant answers and you will see that in some