This one comes from Monday’s New York Post:
“An overweight passenger aboard a Taiwanese airliner forced flight attendants to remove his pants so he could use the toilet — then wipe his butt as he moaned in pleasure, according to reports.”
Yes, it really happened. The question is how.
How exactly does one grown human being force another human being to wipe his butt?
After all, there are frequently plain-clothes police or air marshals on board planes to deal with rowdy passengers. And even if not, a team of flight attendants can subdue a single passenger, even an overweight one.
The fact is, this passenger didn’t use force to get his butt wiped. The only option that’s left then is a kind of nuclear persuasion.
Here’s how it apparently went down:
The man asked for assistance using the lavatory.
The flight attendants refused.
The man then dropped his pants and threatened to relieve himself on the floor.
That seemed to soften up the flight attendants a little, and the man was helped into the lavatory. One thing led to another, and a couple of latex gloves later, the man was moaning in pleasure as a female flight attendant wiped his butt for him.
Now this is a pretty gruesome and shocking story. I’m retelling it because I’m hoping it will make the following point stick in your mind.
It’s again something from top negotiation coach Jim Camp (I’ve written about him often), and it’s in continuation of the “don’t look for a YES” emails I’ve written over the past few days.
You see, Camp’s big thing was trying to get people to tell him NO. In fact, he even wrote a couple of books on the subject, one of them being, “Start with NO.”
According to Camp, it’s only when people say “no” that they make a real decision. A “yes” doesn’t mean much, and “maybe” is even worse.
So what does this have to do with the above story?
Well, there’s a powerful vision created when a 440-pound passenger drops his pants on a plane and effectively says, “Do you want me to take a shit right here?”
It’s possible that some people would say “maybe” or “yes” to this. The flight attendants in question apparently didn’t, and their saying NO allowed the man to get what he wanted.
Can this same approach work for you?
That’s going to depend on the question you’re asking. And who you’re talking to.
For example, if I ask you if you need help with your sales emails, how might you respond?
You might tell me NO. And I’d be happy to hear it, because I’d know you’re not interested in my offer, so I should focus my energy elsewhere.
You might tell me MAYBE, in which case I wouldn’t pursue the conversation any further.
However, you might also say YES. Which, as Camp would tell you, is far from meaning you will like my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space. But it does mean you might be interested in getting notified when it comes out. That’s because if you sign up now, you can get your copy for free.
If that’s what you want to do, here’s where to go: