I’ll admit it. I cry at movies sometimes. I’m comfortable with it and not ashamed in the least. Movies are stories and stories have been used to elicit emotions (either by design or accident) since the beginning of man. Some of the most fantastic stories are tremendously moving. This emotion can be manifested as a…
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Last year I saw a documentary about the cult leader Jim Jones called “Jonestown: The Life And Death of People’s Temple”. It is the history of the murder/”suicide” of 913 members of the People’s Temple in Guyana through photos, clips, recordings and interviews of surviving members. The Reverend Jim Jones was a master at getting…
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‘Facts and figures are forgotten. Stories are retold.’ -Jeffrey Gitomer If you’re mathematically oriented then MAYBE you’ll remember the charts and graphs someone shows you in a presentation. And sometimes charts and graphs are really necessary to get to the specifics, but the real power of persuasion in presentation is the story. Not long ago,…
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Some of the best persuasion techniques have been developed from NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) methods. For example, if you hear a person saying, “I see,” a few times, they are probably processing information visually, according to NLP. To influence them then, you would use phrases like, “You can see how…” or you would actually show them…
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I love a good metaphor. An especially powerful metaphor for me lately has been that of an onion. The Cleveland Method deals with a deep understanding of our core drives and unconscious motivations. When we focus inward, only then can we genuinely understand others. In recent months I’ve noticed a tremendous amount of growth in…
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Central to understanding persuasion is the concept of neutrality. The laws of persuasion are neither good nor evil. They simply exist. Just as nuclear power can be used to create electricity or an atomic bomb, persuasion can be used to create unity or to force compliance. Whether the outcome is good or bad depends on…
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Humor’s effectiveness will always ride the emotional tides of your audience members. How well a joke goes over may depend on whose company your prospects are in, whether they are winding down for the day or still up against deadlines or other workplace pressures, whether they are awake and alert or feeling drowsy, whether they…
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I spend a lot of time thinking about persuasion. Over the last year and a half I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time thinking of self-persuasion and self-mastery and as a result have noticed some phenomenal results in my life. The only way to make progress in the outside world is to make progress on…
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Many people take for granted the powerful persuading influence of humor. Humor is often tossed off as sheer entertainment or mere speech filler. The truth is, when you engage an audience with humor, you are accomplishing much more than just getting a laugh out of them. Humor disarms an audience, making them more likely to…
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As the species whose thinking ability supposedly separates us from the animals, we really don’t spend much of our life reasoning. Most of the time our minds get stuck on cruise control. Thinking takes up too much time and requires too much energy. Imagine having to think about every decision we make. It wouldn’t leave…
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