One of my coaches, Malcolm, made a great point at our women’s self-defense class recently.
“No is a complete sentence that does not require justification.”
We always have a verbal component to our self-defense courses where we put everyone through a few gray-area verbal/social situations. In one variant of the scenarios an individual comes up (non-aggressively) to engage you and ask for money.
You have to respond appropriately with the intent of disengaging from the person and going on your way using the 3E’s of being Elusive- Empathy Excuse Exit.
As with saying “NO” it can be uncomfortable at first, but it’s extremely useful practice and it is something you WILL USE. So how can you build upon this practice for free in your own time?
Practice saying and meaning “NO!" when the opportunity is presented!
Malcolm mentioned that you can practice saying and meaning NO when a telemarketer tries to sell you something you don’t want! When it’s someone in your social circle it is a good idea to be polite in your response, but when someone is pushing their boundaries on multiple unwanted call attempts (for example, a cable company that rhymes with Sox and a consumer review site that rhymes with Shmelp), say,
“NO. I’m not interested.” rather than, “Sorry, I’m not interested.” And when they ask again, say NO again, affirmatively.
I’ve gotten so good at saying “NO” that I’ve graduated to electronic recording telemarketers. Now I have to push random buttons to then get connected to a human to say NO, stop calling.
Keep thinking, keep learning, keep training,
Evan D.
Owner/Lead Coach
NOVA Self Defense
“No is a complete sentence that does not require justification.”
We always have a verbal component to our self-defense courses where we put everyone through a few gray-area verbal/social situations. In one variant of the scenarios an individual comes up (non-aggressively) to engage you and ask for money.
You have to respond appropriately with the intent of disengaging from the person and going on your way using the 3E’s of being Elusive- Empathy Excuse Exit.
As with saying “NO” it can be uncomfortable at first, but it’s extremely useful practice and it is something you WILL USE. So how can you build upon this practice for free in your own time?
Practice saying and meaning “NO!" when the opportunity is presented!
Malcolm mentioned that you can practice saying and meaning NO when a telemarketer tries to sell you something you don’t want! When it’s someone in your social circle it is a good idea to be polite in your response, but when someone is pushing their boundaries on multiple unwanted call attempts (for example, a cable company that rhymes with Sox and a consumer review site that rhymes with Shmelp), say,
“NO. I’m not interested.” rather than, “Sorry, I’m not interested.” And when they ask again, say NO again, affirmatively.
I’ve gotten so good at saying “NO” that I’ve graduated to electronic recording telemarketers. Now I have to push random buttons to then get connected to a human to say NO, stop calling.
Keep thinking, keep learning, keep training,
Evan D.
Owner/Lead Coach
NOVA Self Defense
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