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December 18, 2012 - January 4, 2013
“Stop hitting your head against the wall and look for the loose brick.”
The most critical step in persuasion—the step I refer to as “buy-in”—has begun. That’s the step where a person goes from resisting to listening and then to considering what’s being said.
Almost all communication is an effort to get through to people and cause them to do something different than they were doing before.
To take people from the beginning to the end of the Persuasion Cycle, you need to speak with them in a manner that moves them: ■ From resisting to listening ■ From listening to considering ■ From considering to willing to do ■ From willing to do to doing ■ From doing to glad they did and continuing to do.
is not what you tell them, but what you get them to tell you—and what happens in their minds in the process
To reach someone, you need to talk to the human upper brain—not the snake brain or the rat brain.
when you undergo an amygdala hijack, your emotional intelligence goes out the window.
Understanding a person’s hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you’ll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet
how to be in control of your own thoughts and emotions—because most of the time, that’s where successful communicating starts.
the first and most important rule for taking control in a stressful situation is this: get yourself under control first.
“Oh F#@&” (The Reaction Phase): This is a disaster, I’m screwed, what the hell just happened, I can’t fix this, it’s all over. “Oh God” (The Release Phase): Oh my God, this is a huge mess and I’m going to get stuck with cleaning it up. Sh#%—this stuff always happens to me. “Oh Jeez” (The Recenter Phase): Alright, I can fix this. But it’s not going to be fun. “Oh Well” (The Refocus Stage): I’m not going to let this ruin my life/my career/my day/this relationship, and here is what I need to do right now to make it better. “OK” (The Reengage Phase): I’m ready to fix this.
When you become consciously aware of these stages and can mentally identify each one as it happens, you can manipulate your emotional response at each stage. As a result, you can speed shift from start to end in minutes.
One absolutely crucial element in moving your brain from panic to logic is to put words to what you’re feeling at each stage.
THE “OH F#@& TO OK” SPEED DRILL
“Oh F#@&” (The Reaction Phase):
Do NOT deny that you’re upset and afraid. Instead, identify your feelings and acknowledge them, silently using ...
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do not talk to anyone else during these first few seconds.
“Oh God” (The Release Phase):
breathe deeply and slowly through your nose with your eyes closed and let it go.
“Oh Jeez” (The Recenter Phase):
Keep breathing and, with each breath, let yourself go from Defcon 1 back down to Defcon 2, 3, 4, and 5. It may help to say these words as you go through this transition: “Oh f#@&!” “Oh God.” “Oh jeez.” “Oh well. . . .”
“Oh Well” (The Refocusing Phase):
Start to think of what you can do to control the damage and make the best of the situation.
“OK” (The Re-engagi...
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If you’ve had your eyes closed up to now, open them. Then do ...
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The stuff you think you already know about someone—“lazy,” “loser,” “whiny,” “hostile,” “impossible”—is, in reality, blocking out what you need to know.
The problem is that while we think our first impressions of people are grounded solely in logic, they’re not. In reality, they’re a jumbled mix of conscious and unconscious truth, fiction, and prejudice.
we put people in mental boxes before we even know them.
The sequence goes in this order because we see a person’s gender, generation, and nationality first, hear the person’s education level second, and feel the person’s level of emotionality third. Keep
Think about what you’re thinking. When you consciously analyze the ideas you’ve formed about a person and weigh these perceptions against reality, you can rewire your brain and build new, more accurate perceptions.
you probably know a lot less than you think you do about the people you want to reach, whether they’re new in your life or people you’ve known forever.
Open your own mind and look for the reasons behind the behavior, and you’ll take the first step toward breaking down barriers and communicating with an “impossible” person.
Making someone “feel felt” simply means putting yourself in the other person’s shoes. When you succeed, you can change the dynamics of a relationship in a heartbeat.
When people feel felt, they feel less alone, and when they feel less alone, they feel less anxious and afraid—and that opens them up to the message you’re trying to send.
1. Attach an emotion to what you think the other person is feeling, such as “frustrated,” “angry,” or “afraid.” 2. Say, “I’m trying to get a sense of what you’re feeling and I think it’s—————. . .” and fill in an emotion. “Is that correct? If it’s not, then what are you feeling?” Wait for the person to agree or correct you. 3. Then say, “How frustrated (angry, upset, etc.) are you?” Give the person time to respond. Be prepared, at least initially, for a torrent of emotions—especially if the person you’re talking with is holding years of pent-up frustration, anger, or fear inside. This is not
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Inside every person—no matter how important or famous—is a real person who needs to “feel felt.” Satisfy that need, and you’ll transform yourself from a face in the crowd to a friend or an ally.
BE MORE INTERESTED THAN INTERESTING
If you want to have an interesting dinner conversation, be interested. If you want to have interesting things to write, be interested. If you want to meet interesting people, be interested in the people you meet—their lives, their history, their story.
Jim Collins
the way to truly win friends and influence the best people is to be more interested in listening to them than you are in impressing them.
trying too hard to be interesting . . . and as a result, they come off as annoying jerks.
think of it as a detective game, in which your goal is to learn as much about the other person as you can.
Go into the conversation knowing that there is something very interesting about the person, and be determined to discover it.
ask questions that demonstrate that you want to know more.
“How’d you get into what you do?” (I credit Los Angeles super mediator Jeff Kichaven with this; he says it never fails to start and keep people talking.) ■ “What do you like best about it?” ■ “What are you trying to accomplish that’s important to you in your career (business, life, etc.)?” ■ “Why is that important to you?” ■ “If you were to accomplish that, what would it mean to you and what would it enable you to do?”
Another way to show you’re interested is to summarize what the person is saying.
(Another good move, if the conversation offers an opportunity, is to ask for advice:
People love offering advice, because it makes them feel both interesting and wise.)
one of the best ways to get through to a powerful person is to be the first one to ask a question after the person speaks to a large audience.
The measure of self-assurance is how deeply and sincerely interested you are in others; the measure of insecurity is how much you try to impress them with you.
People who complain and cause problems typically have a serious mirror neuron receptor deficit, and the more other people avoid or ignore them, the worse it gets.
