Verbal Judo, Updated Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion

George J. Thompson · Jerry B. Jenkins

Feb 2017 · Blackstone Audio Inc. · Narrated by Keith Szarabajka

About this audiobook

When you react, the event controls you. When you respond, you’re in control.

Verbal Judo is the classic guide to the martial art of the mind and mouth that can help you defuse confrontations and generate cooperation, whether you’re talking to a boss, a spouse, or even a teenager. For more than a generation, Dr. George J. Thompson’s essential handbook has taught people how to communicate more confidently and persuasively in any situation. Verbal Judo shows you how to listen and speak more effectively, engage others through empathy (the most powerful word in the English language), avoid the most common conversational disasters, and use proven strategies to successfully express your point of view—and take the lead in most disputes.

This updated edition includes a new foreword and a chapter featuring Dr. Thompson’s five universal truths of human interaction:

People feel the need to be respectedPeople would rather be asked than be toldPeople have a desire to know whyPeople prefer to have options over threatsPeople want to have a second chance

Stop being frustrated and misunderstood. Stop finding yourself on the losing end of an argument. With Verbal Judo you’ll be able to have your say—and say what you mean.

Ratings and reviews

This was excellent. Keith has the perfect voice for the content of this book. The stories included seemed to come alive when he read them. The principles within this book are sure to help anyone with better communication, and I believe that this will be on repeat for a while as I become a verbal judo master. I do recommend getting the actual book so that specific examples can be referred to easily, I found it difficult to go back to a specific place without having to listen and try to remember the exact phrasing. The e-book is searchable. I was disappointed that in the last chapter, they felt the need to leave out the first numbers 3 - 11 in the section "More On My List". I am not sure who made that decision, but it seems that there was a great deal of information lost there.

EDIT: I apologize for the poor formatting, but it looks like Google Play has outlawed carriage returns. I own paperback versions, audio versions and ebook versions of this book. I am a baseball umpire and several veteran umpires recommended this book when I was starting out. It took me a while to build up enough failures interacting with Coaches before I picked up the book for a third time and read it all again. This time I took notes. If I were to recommend an alternative approach to reading this book, I would say, try to read the final two chapters first. They are the highest impact and stickiest content the book has to offer, in my opinion. They are intended as summary/review, but those last two chapters really set my mind up right to allow me to maximize the fourth time through this book. I have since re-read it maybe three more times, for a total of seven times. One particularly helpful method I learned was, "Name your enemies", where Dr. Thompson recommends identifying and naming your behaviors and actions that hurt your interactions, and then attaching positive behaviors to them so they are easily remembered at the right time. From my notes, here is my list of enemies, and the alternatives I try to incorporate when my enemies rear their heads. Instead of Reacting, Respond. - Instead of Talking, Listen. - Instead of arguing, paraphrase. Instead of "Calm down", say: "Let me be sure I understand what you are saying." - Instead of "I know", try "I agree" or "I think you're right". - Instead of Threats, offer options. - Instead of Threatening him, Enlighten or Educate him. - Instead of posing, have poise. - Instead of professing, practice. - Instead of getting Personal, be Professional. - Instead of Telling, Ask Instead of "Come here.", try "Can we chat for a Second, Dave?" - Instead of Repeating, Explain. - If you feel you need to repeat, ASK what he has a question about or that he needs more info on. - Instead of "Coach", "Dave". - Instead of playing the Victim, play the Survivor. - Instead of blaming yourself for the outcome, assume/accept responsibility for the situation as a whole.

These teachniques are toughth by my county's police academy one of the best in the start of GA. I have to listen to this at least once and everyone who has bought it does the same. We love it.

About the author

George J. Thompson, PhD, was an English professor and a black belt master of karate. He created and crash-tested verbal judo when he was a police officer on an urban beat.

Jerry B. Jenkins has written a dozen New York Times bestsellers. His repetoire includes fiction, nonfiction, and books for children. He and his wife, Dianna, live in Colorado and have three grown sons and one grandson.

Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins’s Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.