Easy Ideas For Easier Persuasion
How do you get somebody to do something? To understand that, we’ll need to understand the basic reasons we humans do anything. Of course, every single person is different, but on a structural level, we are all pretty similar. Otherwise blood transfusions and heart transplants would be impossible!
Human Decision Making
The first thing to understand is why humans do anything. There’s a saying in NLP that you can’t not communicate. Which means everything you do is giving off information. We can consider a similar idea that says you can’t not decide, and you can’t not act.
Wait, What? I’m Just Sitting Here!
Not really. If if you are a world class meditator, and can clear your mind of all thoughts and drop your heart rate to one beat per hour, you are still moving. Even if you heart is being once every hour, your blood is still circulating. Why does our blood circulate? To deliver energy TO our cells, and take away waste FROM our cells. Part of the process is delivering oxygen, and removing carbon dioxide. Even if you are such a world class yogi, and can hold air in your lungs for an hour before needing another breath, you still have air IN your longs. And that air is slowly being used to remove CO2 and add O2.
Dude, Why The Biology Lesson?
Because what is always happening on the inside is what is always happening on the outside. There are plenty of ways to look at us humans, but one way is as exchange machines. Meaning we are always exchanging one thing for another. Red cells get rid of CO2, and pick up O2. Then they take that O2, and deliver it to the muscles where they deliver that O2 and pick up some CO2. Then they make the trip back to the lungs where they trade it again.
What Are We Trading?
One way to look at every instant of human existence is of trade. We are trading our now moment, for a future moment. And not just any future moment. We want a future moment that does one of two (hopefully both) things: Increase pleasure and or decrease pain.
Even Alone – You Are Trading
When you shift in your seat, you are trading one now moment for a future moment (which will then become your now moment). When you shift, you shift BECAUSE you (or more correctly your subconscious) has decided your new position (after the shift) is going to be MORE comfortable (less energy, less strain, more balance, more comfort) than your current state.
More Decision Making
All human decision making is comprised of the same simple elements. We want to increase our pleasure, we want to decrease our pain, and we know it’s going to cost something. When you shift in your seat, moving costs calories. But the new position will burn slightly less calories, as your new position will be more balanced and take less energy. But then your muscles will start to get tired, burning more calories, and you need to shift again.
Spend Money To Make Money
On a very basic level, we spend a little bit of energy now, so we can save more energy in the future. This the biological equivalent of “spending money to make money.” All of our decisions are based on one simple premise:
We Must Get A Positive ROI
ROI is for “return on investment.” If you invested a hundred dollars, and got back a hundred and ten, you would get a return of ten percent. An ROI (return on investment) of ten percent. If you invested a hundred bucks and got back ninety, your ROI is negative. Our brains are hard wired by evolution to be predisposed to only take action if we have a good idea it will result in a positive ROI. This thinking radiates throughout our entire being and thinking process.
What’s In It For Me?
Dale Carnegie famously said that everybody is always listening to their favorite radio station: WII-FM, or “What’s in it for me?” Nobody will do anything unless they think they will benefit. This is the total of their conscious knowledge, unconscious knowledge, current state and future expectations. This is hard to see from the outside, because you can’t really tell what somebody’s true motives and personal incentives.
Crazy People
Every Crazy people who bang their heads against the wall are doing it because, in some messed way, they think they are getting some benefit from doing that. Maybe they imagine demons that are mentally tormenting them and the only way to get the demons to shut up is cause themselves a lot of pain. From their own viewpoint, extreme physical pain is better than the tormenting demons.
How To Get Anybody To Do Anything
This is the secret of any kind of persuasion, whether you are asking your mom to let you stay up past your bedtime, trying to talk your way out of a ticket, or trying to get the hottest girl on earth to come home with you. If you can figure out way to get them to believe they will benefit, meaning they will be better off because of what you are suggesting, they’ll do it.
Few People Will Do Things Only Because You Want To
If you wanted to get people to do things just because you asked, that would be a very special situation. Only a few of these situations ever exist. Let’s look at some of the common ones below.
They Are Genetically Programmed To Help You
This is mostly the case of mothers and children. Mothers are genetically programmed to empathize a great deal with their children. They feel pain when their children feel pain. They feel good when their children feel good. Just giving something to their children, and seeing their children smile, is a positive ROI from the mothers subjective perspective.
There Is A Pre-Existing Relationship
Bosses ask their subordinates to do something, and they do it. This is within the preexisting relationship. The basic idea when working for somebody else is that as long as you do what you are told, and do it well enough, they will pay you.
There Is A Threat Of Punishment
If a cop asks for your ID, and you give him the finger, you won’t likely get a positive ROI on your actions. Most of the time we obey authorities (police, teachers, IRS agents knocking on our door) because we are afraid what will happen if we don’t. In this case, we are MINIMIZING the negative ROI of our actions. This is similar to the crazy person banging their head against the wall. They don’t enjoy the pain, but the pain is better than the demons. Nobody likes getting pulled over the cops, but pulling over is better than going to jail or getting shot.
The Person Really Likes You For Some Reason
If the person you are asking to do something already has a pre-existing desire to please you, then just doing what you want will make them happy. Waitresses, bosses hoping for their workers to stay late, people that are hoping you’ll have sex with them, etc.
What’s Left?
What’s left is how to get somebody to do something when these relationships above don’t exist. Every single one of them is based on the idea of convincing them that they will be better off taking your advice than not taking your advice. The good news is that this is a lot easier than most people realize. Because we will be able to leverage a very powerful aspect of human nature.
Unlimited Wants
The first idea is that humans have unlimited wants. In fact, this is why economics is called the dismal science. Despite how much politicians love to tell us we can have everything we want and never have to pay for it, we do live in a world of finite stuff. Economics is called the dismal science (and hated by politicians for this very reason) because it forces us to acknowledge that all humans have unlimited wants but live in a world with limited stuff.
If you were a politician and needed to both promise everybody everything but also be constrained to reality, this would suck, unless you happen to have access to a money printing machine. (Of course, while you can print unlimited money, there is still a limited amount of stuff you can buy with that money, but I digress…)
How does the idea of unlimited wants help us to be persuasive? Easy! Most people approach persuasion the wrong way. They come at the target with a bunch of built in ideas, hoping the target will be convinced. But if you do the opposite, it will be waaaaay easier. What’s the opposite? Get them talking about their wants.
Any Wants Will Do
In economics (Yikes! that word again!) there’s an idea of fungibility. How the heck does this help us? Hang on, we’re getting there. If you were a grain farmer, and you stored your grain in a big grain silo, when you went to get it back, would you want the same exact grains? Unless you were paying so much that you had your own private storage silo, this would be impossible. Your grain is mixed in there with everybody else’s. So long as you got the same weight back, you’re good.
If you deposited money in the bank and then went to withdraw it, would you check the serial numbers to make sure the cash was the same? That’d be silly! We say that grain and money is fungible. So are most commodities (oil, gold, sugar, etc.). Some things are not fungible. Like if you checked your jacket at a club or something you’d want your own jacket back, and not one that looked like yours. Grain and money is fungible. Your jacket is not.
Desire Energy Is Fungible
What, now? When you want something, it’s rare that the thing you want is the ONLY thing you want. If you are hungry, for example, lots of food will satisfy you. If you want some quick and dirty, ahem, affection, a lot of people would satisfy that urge. Most our desires are that way. You can think of food and sex as being “first order fungible.” Meaning a lot of food will satisfy our food desire, but it’s still got to be food. And a lot of people will satisfy our, ahem, affection desire, but they still gotta be people (or at least a robot that simulates a person).
Many Desires Have Second Order Fungibility
When you go shopping, sometimes buying anything feels good. You might buy shoes, you might buy a shirt, you may even by a gym membership. The deeper our desires go, the more fungible they are. The more fungible our desires are, the more things we will attach to those desires in order to satisfy them.
Your Job As A Persuader
The goal is to get them talking about whatever they want. Just keep getting them talking until whatever they want is CLOSE ENOUGH to what you want them to do. The idea is that after only a few minutes of conversation, you’ll be able to build up their raw desire so it can be effectively attached to whatever it is you want them to do.
You Have To Translate Your Persuasion Into Their Desire
The first thing you need to do is think of what you want them to do. Then take that thing, and phrase it so it sounds like they are benefiting. If your persuasion idea is in the form of, “I want you to do X, ” then simply translate it into an offer. “If you do X, you’ll get Y.”
Y is what they will want to do. Y is the benefit to them. The more Y’s you can come up with, the better. For example, let’s say you want to ask them to lunch and you have a specific idea of a restaurant. You only know you want to go there. The first thing to think of is how many potential benefits there are to going to that restaurant. For example:
- It’s close
- It’s cheap
- The waitresses are cute
- They have a nice view of the lake
Then take those four things (cheap, close, cute girls or guys, view) and then start asking your target about what they want, under any context. Keeping those four things in mind, all you’ve got to do is keep asking them about what they want, initially and with follow up questions, until you’ve got their desires, spoken in their words, pretty close to what you want them to do.
Lower The Boom
Let’s say they are talking about some vacation they went on six years ago, and it had a great view. And you’ve got them to talk about that view in glowing terms. That’s when you “remember” the restaurant.
“Hey, that reminds me of this Mexican place close by. They’ve got a great view of the lake, it looks really good. Say, I’m pretty hungry, you wanna go check it out?”
Lots Of Work!
Does this take work? Yes, it does. But it’s a lot easier than hammering them over the head with things you hope will trick them or use some magic mumbo jumbo. But the best part is they will want to go along with your idea for THEIR reasons. This is the true secret of easy persuasion. It’s not to memorize a bunch of crazy hypnotic lines, it’s to simply get them talking about stuff they want, until you find a match to something you want.
They’ll Remember You Fondly
This is also a great way of jacking up your charisma to super human levels of sexiness. If you start to get into the habit of talking to other people about what they want, they will start to associate YOU with what THEY WANT. Put those capitalized words together and you get: THEY WANT YOU. Even if you don’t have anything in particular to persuade them off, all your friends will start to fall in love with you.
Collect Everybody’s Desire Categories
Another reason to get into the habit of doing this is you’ll start to understand the basic desire categories of all your friends and family. This means whenever you do have a persuasive need, you can get them fired up in the right direction really quickly. And if you are the kind of guy or gal that knows what other people like (like the type of cheesecake they like, etc.) they will think you are FANTASTIC!
Make The Shift
This is a pretty simple shift, and that’s all it really is, a shift. Instead of coming at them from the outside in (your ideas being forced into their heads) approach communication from the inside out. Their desires coming out and getting bigger and brighter. Once you get into the habit of communication with people like this, persuasion and seduction will become second nature.
No More Rejection
Instead of seeing somebody interesting and wondering if they’ll accept your or reject you, you’ll just walk over there and start finding out what their desires are. When you communicate with others from this standpoint, they will see you THROUGH their desires. You won’t need to talk about yourself AT ALL and they’ll see you in a positive light.
Get Started Today
Instead of thinking, “How can I get them to do what I want,” train yourself to start thinking in terms of, “What do they want?” Once you start seeing people through that lens, then it’s just a matter of opening up their wants until they match your wants. Then all you’ve got to do is make a casual suggestion, and they’ll jump all over it!
Learn More
Mind Persuasion is filled with books and courses that teach you how to do this in plenty of different ways and for plenty of different purposes.
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