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Everything you are about to read in this book is true, as far as I know. I don’t expect you to believe all of it. (Who could?)
Keep in mind that disapproving of Trump’s style and personality is a social requirement for people who long for a more civil world.
I expected Trump to rip a hole in the fabric of reality so we could look through it to a deeper truth about the human experience. And he did exactly that.
The public was about to transition from believing—with total certainty—“the clown can’t win” to “Hello, President Trump.” And in order to make that transition, they would have to rewrite every movie playing in their heads. To put it in simple terms, the only way Trump could win was if everything his critics understood about the true nature of reality was wrong.
Put a seat belt on your brain—you’re going to need it.
Keep in mind that helping the demographic group that is in the deepest hole gives society the biggest economic bang for the buck.
I encourage readers to remain skeptical and to check any of my claims on their own. A simple Google search will confirm (or debunk?) almost anything I say in this book about persuasion.
They worried that my writing would help get this racist, sexist, disrespectful, xenophobic hater elected. And they asked me how I could live with myself as Hitler’s Little Helper.
I recognized his hyperbole as weapons-grade persuasion that would change after the election, not a sign that Trump had suddenly turned into Hitler.
That is classic deal making. You start with a big first demand and negotiate back to your side of the middle.
The provocative things Trump said during the campaign shocked much of the country. But to New Yorkers such as me, talking in a way that sounds unnecessarily provocative—as Trump often did during the campaign—is what New Yorkers call “talking.”
I invite you to come along for the ride in the form of this book. You’re going to like it.
This book isn’t designed to change your mind about politics or about Trump. All I hope to do is teach you some things about persuasion by wrapping it in an entertaining first-person story. With your permission, let’s do that.
When your old worldview falls apart, it can trigger all kinds of irrational behavior before your brain rewrites the movie in your head to make it consistent with your new worldview.
I also wanted to make sure the public did not miss the greatest show in the world by looking through the wrong filter. If you watched the entire election cycle and concluded that Trump was nothing but a lucky clown, you missed one of the most important perceptual shifts in the history of humankind. I’ll fix that for you in this book. I
I do know persuasion. I know its power in a way that few people do. And I recognized that with Trump’s level of persuasion skill, he was bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight. And the poor little sticks didn’t see it coming.
One of my motivations for writing this book is that so many people who supported me on Twitter specifically asked me to write it. This book is a favor returned.
Humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors. If you want someone’s cooperation in the future, do something for that person today.
The things that you think about the most will irrationally rise in importance in your mind.
Master Persuaders move your energy to the topics that help them, independent of facts and reason.
An intentional “error” in the details of your message will attract criticism. The attention will make your message rise in importance—at least in people’s minds—simply because everyone is talking about it.
Some mistakes are just ordinary mistakes. But when you see a consistent stream of “mistakes” from a Master Persuader, be open to the possibility that some of those mistakes are about controlling your focus and energy.
It was mind-boggling. No one was quite sure if the problem was his honesty, his lack of homework, or some sort of brain problem. But one thing we all knew for sure was that it was hard to ignore.
facts are weak persuasion.
For more science on the topic of how intentional “mistakes” can aid in memory retention, I recommend the book Impossible to Ignore, by Dr. Carmen Simon. The gist of it is that you need to surprise the brain or make it work a little extra to form memories. Our brains automatically delete our routine memories fairly quickly. Most of us don’t know what we were doing on this day a year ago. But we easily remember things that violate our expectations.
Success cures most types of “mistakes.”
we humans might be chained to a cave created by our own faulty brains and senses, experiencing a shadow world that is entirely different from objective reality.
Kant uses a lot of words to say reality isn’t necessarily anything like the way we perceive it.
Philosopher Nick Bostrom takes things one step further by asking whether we are a “real” species or a simulation created by an intelligent civilization that came before. This idea comes from the simple fact that we will someday be able to create software simulations that believe they are real creatures.
Humans think they are rational, and they think they understand their reality. But they are wrong on both counts.
You know this is an illusion, and you know how they are doing it. And yet it still works.
Our visual sense changes what we are hearing in real time, even when we know the illusion.
I have no reason to believe humans evolved with the capability to understand their reality. That capability was not important to survival. When it comes to evolution, any illusion that keeps us alive long enough to procreate is good enough.
I believed everything the church told me because I didn’t see any reason they would put so much energy into a centuries-long, elaborate lie. And I assumed all those people couldn’t be wrong.
My church filter worked great most of the time. I was happy that I would go to heaven. But the filter didn’t seem to do a great job of predicting anything while I was still alive.
I explained my new hypothesis that she and all other believers were being duped for reasons I couldn’t understand, but I planned to get to the bottom of it.
I needed a new filter to describe how an eleven-year-old boy could be the only one in the world who saw reality for what it really was.
can’t say that my atheist filter ever made me happy. Nor did it do a great job of predicting the future, except that I could predict that my prayers would not be answered, and no miracles would happen while I was watching.
I started to realize that people could be living in different realities while inhabiting the same room. I knew from my own experience that I could experience two realities in the same room just by going from normal to high.
It was the best day of my life, at least in terms of pure joy. And that isn’t an exaggeration. No other experience has ever come close.
Drugs can be dangerous. I don’t recommend trying marijuana or psychedelics. You’ll get a similar perceptual shift by reading this book. I designed it to do exactly that. In other words, I took all of those drugs so you don’t have to.
filters are not about knowing reality. The role of a filter is limited to making you happy and helping you predict the future. Humans don’t always need to know the true nature of reality in order to live well.
But every now and then we get a little emotional and temporarily lose our sense of reason. That’s how most people see the world. I did too until I trained to become a hypnotist.
Evolution doesn’t care if you see the world for what it is. It only cares that you make more of yourself.
Both my friend and I follow politics. We’re both smart. (He’s smarter.)
I submit that the best filter on politics is the one that makes you happy and is the most accurate at predicting what will happen next. I used the Persuasion Filter to predict Trump’s presidency when others thought it was madness.
two concepts: cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. These two concepts explain almost everything that puzzles you about why people act the way they do. And they explain the 2016 election in a way nothing else can.
