A lady walks into a shoe store. She tries on dozens of pairs of shoes but nothing seems to fit. In exasperation, the shoe salesman says, ”WOH lady, one of your foot is bigger than the other!”
Offended, the lady left the shoe store without buying anything.
She goes into another shoe store. Again, she’s trying on dozens of pairs of shoes but nothing fits. The second salesman gently says, ”Hmm, you know what lady. I think one of your foot is smaller than the other”.
Ah, there lies the problem. She has uneven feet. She leaves the store with 2 pairs of shoes, same color, and design but different sizes.
Three Lessons
There are at least 3 lessons here:
Patience, the tone of voice, and choice of words.
The first salesman is impatient thus becomes exasperated. Therefore his tone of voice projects irritation. And he uses a negative word. We never use ‘big’ or ‘bigger’ to describe a woman’s feet!
The second salesman is patient. His tone is tactful and he uses the positive word ‘smaller’ to describe the lady’s feet. Of course, if one foot is smaller, the other must be bigger, but choose the better word!
The first time I read this story I was like wow, so many powerful lessons in a simple story. Lessons that can be applied in all relationship.
For example, it’s 10:30 pm. A teenager is engrossed in his computer game, headphones on. The mother is calling. No response. Now she’s shouting! The boy hears the shout and annoyingly replies, ”WHAT!”
Mother’s face is now on the teenager’s face. He gets an earful! He goes to bed angry. She’s upset. Imagine this scenario is repeated every day.
Now quickly rewind. Mother is shouting. Teenager puts down the headphones, ”Yes mama, what is it?” Mother brings a glass of milk for him. ”Drink your milk, 30 minutes more for your game, then off to bed”. The boy gets milk and extra 30 mins of the computer game! Everyone goes to bed happy. All because of a tactful tone and gentle words.
Any similar experience? PLEASE share in the COMMENT below.
2 thoughts on “Lady and the shoe salesmen”
I love this little story! It shows just how the human break works, it doesn’t want to be told the negative, but the solution!
I don’t want to hear that the reason why shoe doesn’t fit is that I have huge feet! I just want to know what can be done to fix the situation and if you cater for having one shoe that is smaller than the other.
Working as a consultant, I constantly have to use more friendly and positive words to encourage the customer or client along with the project. They don’t really want to know that a project might be late, they wont to know what you are doing to fix it and when it will be done!
Hi George, so glad you enjoyed the story . I can imagine you’re doing very well as a consultant as you are aware of the importance and impact of positive words. Have an awesome day!