Free Soft Skill Power Strategy #1
Provide Your List
When people insist on telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about or am stupid, I respond with this:
List all of the professionals and government officials with direct experience who are coming to you for your expert opinion.
Repeat as necessary.
Only once has someone responded and they failed to provide names. He just said:
“All of them.”
When I again asked for names, he merely repeated.
“All of them.”
No one else responded, which means they stopped explaining my stupidity.
One man wrote a detailed explanation to demonstrate his intellectual superiority over my intellectual inferiority. After I asked for his list, he deleted his intellectually superior comment.
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Free Soft Skill Power Strategy #2
Why Are You Presenting Yourself As Stupid?
I experimented with this one a bit.
I decided on asking people a direct question.
No one has ever responded.
When people make claims without evidence, I ask for evidence. A good number of people get snitty and tell me to “Do your own research”or “Google it” because they “don’t have the time” to provide “lazy” me with their evidence.
This is my response (adjusted to the statement they use):
Why are you presenting yourself as stupid?
When PhD candidates defend their dissertations, do they say:
“These are my results. Do your own research on / Google my research method.”
“When professionals do business presentations, do they say:
This is my solution to your problem. Do your own research on / Google my problem-solving process.”
When lawyers are in court, do they say:
“This is what we believe happened. Do your own research for / Google our evidence.”
Note that I am not saying “You are stupid.”
I am asking “Why are you PRESENTING YOURSELF as stupid?”
This strategy has stopped everyone I used it with.
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© Paula M. Kramer, 2024
All rights reserved.