The One Sentence Persuasion Course - 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding

by Blair Warren

You will have discovered that the most magical things in life, on and off the stage, are often the result of the correct application of the most basic principles imaginable.

People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.

That, in a single sentence, contains five of the most important insights I have learned in all my years of studying and applying the principles of persuasion: encourage their dreams justify their failures allay their fears confirm their suspicions help them throw rocks at their enemies

They are the most important because they are simple, they are immediately useful and they can be frighteningly powerful.

The sun rises in the east, and people resist pressure. But one thing people rarely resist is someone trying to meet their needs. And when ones needs have been met, a bond is often forged and a natural desire to reciprocate has been created.

Like it or not, the duration of our relationships is nothing compared to the depth of our relationships.

The time to focus on your own hopes, dreams, and desires is when you are alone. This is when you should get clear on what you hope to accomplish, on what you would like to occur, in any given encounter. But once you get to this state of clarity and find yourself face-to-face with another, place your attention where it can have the greatest impact. Place it on the person. Don’t be afraid that your wishes will go unnoticed. On the contrary, they will find a way to express themselves in your encounters, whether they arise spontaneously or the other person solicits them, they will arise.

If I had to boil down the strategy behind One Sentence Persuasion even more than I already have, it would be this: Validate and fascinate.

So being told that we are wrong about an issue often becomes far more important than the situation actually calls for because once again our sense of stability is threatened.

This need to be right often overtakes our desire to be well thought of, and even our desire to be treated well.

Every moment of every day, we want to be engaged in something. It often doesn’t matter what it is as long as it can gain and maintain our attention.

Unless our current thoughts or activities are sufficiently engaging, the next best thing that comes along will pull us away. And since it’s through engagement that we experience and through experience that we are changed, those who engage us hold the keys to our hearts and minds, and from there, our actions.

As powerful as the two-word strategy “validate and fascinate” is, the next strategy is even more powerful. But in a negative way. This two-word strategy is: Correct and convince.

If we insist on correcting people before we convince them, we might as well accept the fact that we’re never likely to convince them of anything.

I want to acknowledge that there will be times that we can’t in good conscience validate these needs for others.

Sometimes, we may not be able to bring ourselves to encourage another’s dreams. Especially if we feel the dreams are particularly harmful to them. Or, are very unlikely to happen for them.

Sometimes we may need to encourage others to accept full responsibility for their actions. To do otherwise might...

Sometimes we cannot allay another’s fears because that person might be, in fa...

Sometimes we may not be able to confirm another’s suspicions because their suspici...

And finally, we may not be able to help them throw rocks at their enemies because they ha...

Instead of validating the specific needs they’re trying to fulfill, we can address and validate the more universal needs and motives underlying them. For example, if we can’t encourage a specific dream a person may have, we can certainly acknowledge the importance of having such dreams, and then attempt to move them in a more positive direction.

If we can’t justify their failures, we can at least acknowledge that there are many contributing factors to any situation and then suggest that, right or wrong, sometimes the most effective way to get out of a situation is to act as if one is completely responsible for it.

we can’t allay their fears, we can at least assure them that it is okay to be afraid. To tell someone who is already afraid that they shouldn...

If we can’t confirm their suspicions, we can at least acknowledge the possibility of their suspicions being correct and let them know that we understand how they could have come to such a conclusi...

If we can’t help them throw rocks at their enemies, we can at least acknowledge the universal desire to seek revenge bef...

Perhaps the greatest irony of all when it comes to validating these needs is that when we are allowed to have these needs and even indulge them, we often don’t. The very fact that it is okay for us to feel a certain way encourages us to stop fighting to maintain and justify our feeling that way. When we’re told it is okay to dream, we tend to be more flexible with our dreams. When we’re told we’re not responsible for something, we often find that we’re more open to accepting responsibility for it. When we’re told that it’s okay to be afraid, we often feel less afraid. When we’re told that we’re probably justified in being suspicious, we tend to become less so. And when we’re allowed to throw rocks at our enemies, we often tire of it very, very quickly.