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by
Scott Adams
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February 12 - February 27, 2018
Peale told me I could do anything if I simply thought about it the right way. It was a huge perceptual shift and it freed me from the prison I had created in my own mind.
Years ago I learned of something called reticular activation. In this context, it refers to the brain’s natural ability to filter out information that you don’t need, making it is easier to spot the things you do need.
But Trump apparently wanted to squeeze some extra juice from the word “lying” and make his branding stand out. So he insisted that Lyin’ Ted was the proper spelling, not Lying Ted. This was good branding. It was different from anything you have seen in politics and it gave you a reason to pause and wonder why it mattered if the spelling was “lyin’” or “lying.” It did matter, but only because you stopped and wondered about it.
PERSUASION TIP 18 Visual persuasion is more powerful than nonvisual persuasion, all else being equal. And the difference is large.
PERSUASION TIP 19 In the context of persuasion, you don’t need a physical picture if you can make someone imagine the scene.
Compare . . . Bad persuasion: We will use a variety of means to improve border security. Good persuasion: We will build a big, beautiful wall.
1 outrage out of 3 headlines in a week: bad persuasion 25 outrages out of 25 headlines in a week: excellent persuasion
Every decision is a comparison of alternatives. If you control how people see the alternatives, you can sell anything.
Participate in activities at which you excel compared with others. People’s impression of you as talented and capable compared with the average participant will spill over to the rest of your personal brand. In business, always present your ideas in the context of alternatives that are clearly worse. Don’t just sell your proposed solution; slime all the other options with badness.
Contrast is essential to persuasion.
It is hard to predict what one person will do with one decision at one specific time. But it is relatively easy to predict that a Master Persuader with twenty-four-hour news coverage and a massive social media following, operating for over a year, could sway enough voters to win in a country that is normally about evenly split.
PERSUASION TIP 20 People are more persuaded by contrast than by facts or reason. Choose your contrasts wisely.
people won’t always remember what you said, but they almost always remember how you made them feel.
PERSUASION TIP 21 When you associate any two ideas or images, people’s emotional reaction to them will start to merge over time.
PERSUASION TIP 22 People automatically get used to minor annoyances over time.
When we current or ex–New Yorkers laugh at “offensive” jokes, we are usually reacting to the awfulness of it. We are not laughing at the target of the joke. (Again, this is a generality.) Trump’s quip about preferring veterans who didn’t get caught is a perfect example. It’s funny because the idea is so awful. In other words, the person telling the offensive joke and the person offended by the joke are on exactly the same side. An average New Yorker thinks the inappropriateness of the joke is what makes it funny, whereas the Californian sees it as an attack on the individual—in this case, a
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What you say is important, but it is never as important as what people think you are thinking.
New Yorkers tend to say whatever they think is true to whoever is standing nearby. Not much filter. Californians say what they think will make you feel good. The California way would feel like lying if it were not so well-meaning.
PERSUASION TIP 24 If you can frame your preferred strategy as two ways to win and no way to lose, almost no one will disagree with your suggested path because it is a natural High-Ground Maneuver.
PERSUASION TIP 25 If you are selling, ask your potential customer to buy. Direct requests are persuasive.
PERSUASION TIP 26 Repetition is persuasion. Also, repetition is persuasion. And have I mentioned that repetition is persuasion?
PERSUASION TIP 27 Match the speaking style of your audience. Once they see you as one of their own, it will be easier to lead them.
PERSUASION TIP 28 Simple explanations look more credible than complicated ones.
PERSUASION TIP 29 Simplicity makes your ideas easy to understand, easy to remember, and easy to spread. You can be persuasive only when you are also memorable.
PERSUASION TIP 30 “Strategic ambiguity” refers to a deliberate choice of words that allows people to read into your message whatever they want to hear. Or to put it another way, the message intentionally leaves out any part that would be objectionable to anyone. People fill in the gaps with their imagination, and their imagination can be more persuasive than anything you say.
How will Trump make America great again? The answer: any way you want it to happen.
To be super clear, I am completely in favor of my government brainwashing its citizens, including me. The alternative would involve eventual conquest by a nation that did a better job of brainwashing its citizens.
So I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for president, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as me, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me—and here I am being 100 percent serious—that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump. So I’m taking the safe way out and endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.
humans do not see reality as it exists. We didn’t evolve to have that capability. What we do have is the ability to rationalize our observations and wrap them into little movies about reality that we create in our minds.
in 2015 that facts don’t matter when it comes to picking a president.
Humans only imagine that facts matter to our decisions. The reality is that we are inventing our own personal facts to fit the movies playing in our heads.
PERSUASION TIP 31 If you are trying to get a decision from someone who is on the fence but leaning in your direction, try a “fake because” to give them “permission” to agree with you. The reason you offer doesn’t need to be a good one. Any “fake because” will work when people are looking for a reason to move your way.