2. Say, “I need to make sure that I heard exactly what you said, so I don’t go off in some wrong direction. If I heard you right, what you said is….” Then repeat exactly what the person said, calmly and with no angry or sarcastic inflection in your voice, and say, “Is that correct?” When you do this, you mirror the person—that powerful connecting technique I talk about in Chapter 2. You also cause the person to move from venting to listening, which slows the brain down so the person can think more intelligently.
