Speaking Your Mind in 101 Difficult Situations

by Don Gabor

From telling a boss that a deadline is absurd to appropriately breaking off an engagement or informing a child that one of their friends is not welcome in the home, this straightforward approach illustrates how to prepare for difficult situations by developing listening and assertiveness skills and maintaining the composure to deliver tough messages tactfully. Through numerous sample scripted conversations that encompass a myriad of potentially awkward situations and hundreds of tips and skills, this handbook provides readers the confidence and the vocabulary to communicate in a respectful yet assertive manner.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published April 4, 1994

Reviews

[Elliard Shimaala · Rating 2 out of 5]

As the title suggests, this book is literally about speaking your mind in 101 difficult situations in an assertive manner.

Don presents the reader with a simple strategy to improve assertiveness, a strategy he calls TACTFUL. Each letter in word has a meaning in relation to assertiveness;

T – think before you speak
A – apologize quickly when you blunder
C – converse, don’t compete
T – time your comments
F – focus on behavior and not personality
U – uncover hidden feelings and
L – listen for feedback.

I thought Don made his point in the first chapter than went on a roll of giving examples that made me forget what chapter one told me to keep in mind - TACTFUL. I did learn something, as is always the case with any book, I just felt like they was too much rambling and repetition. In my opinion, thirty pages or less could have sufficed for the material Don chose to present in more than two hundred plus pages (guess I should have taken the title more seriously).