T-----Tongue Fu

 

A difficult, rude man boarded a completely full flight .He began complaining loudly about anything and everything in sight. His bag not fitting the overhead bin ,he being sandwiched into the middle seat of the middle row, the delay in serving lunch and the lunch being a mere sandwich etc..He then proceeded to take a bite of his sandwich and dropped it back in the tray and angrily pushed the call button.

The flight attendant appeared promptly and asked him very politely, “Yes, how may I help you ?“  

He shoved the sandwich towards her and growled,” This sandwich is bad!”

The girl looked from him to his sandwich. She then looked back at him and stared at his sandwich long and hard. She focussed on him and then shook her finger at the sandwich and scolded, “Bad sandwich, you.. BAD sandwich!!”

The man was taken aback, a stunned silence followed and then everybody around burst out laughing, including the man.

Someone asked the girl later, how she came up with the idea. She explained that in her profession, she was required to handle such difficult people almost every day. Humour was a perfect antidote for the poison of rudeness, she said. Humour   was her mantra for people management at work and beyond.

The above excerpt is from an interesting book called Tongue Fu by Sam Horn.

Tongue Fu is the verbal equivalent of Kung Fu ( a martial art form ) .To deflect, disarm and diffuse any verbal conflict ,the art of Tongue Fu can be used.

Sam Horn has described various real life situations with rude or difficult people from all walks of life and how to tackle such people. The book is laced with humour in the form of  funny anecdotes and that makes it a delightful read .

Anyone who feels tongue tied in the face of a conflict, can use tongue Fu to create connection instead of alienation. Many pearls of wisdom in this book come from eminent personalities but I loved the real life anecdotes the most.

I picked this book ,only because the title intrigued me.I had not heard of the author before and  I am glad the book did not disappoint me.It is an easy read and I finished reading it in two days.