August 19 - Let Them Win On The Minor Points

In 1782 the French playwright Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais put the finishing touches on his great masterpiece The Marriage of Figaro. The approval of King Louis XVI was required, and when he read the manuscript, he was furious. Such a play would lead to a revolution, he said: “This man mocks everything that must be respected in a government.” After much pressure, he agreed to have it privately performed in a theater at Versailles.

The aristocratic audience loved it. The king allowed more performances, but he directed his censors to get their hands on the script and alter its worst passages before it was presented to the public, To bypass this, Beaumarchais commissioned a tribunal of academics, intellectuals, courtiers, and government ministers to go over the play with him. A man who attended the meeting wrote, “M. de Beaumarchais announced that he would submit unreservedly to every cut and change that the gentlemen and even the ladies present might deem appropriate. . . . Everyone wanted to add something of his own. . . . M. de Breteuil suggested a witticism, Beaumarchais accepted it and thanked him. . . . ‘It will save the fourth act.’ Mme de Matignon contributed the color of the little page’s ribbon. The color was adopted and became fashionable.” Beaumarchais was indeed very clever. By allowing others to make even the smallest changes to his masterpiece, he greatly flattered their egos and their intelligence. Of course, on the larger changes later requested by Louis’s censors, Beaumarchais did not relent. By then he had so won over the members of his own tribunal that they stridently defended him, and Louis had to back down.

Daily Law: Learn to lower people’s defenses by agreeing to matters that are not so important. This will give you great latitude to move them in the direction you desire and get them to concede to your desires on more important matters.

The Laws of Human Nature, 7: Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self- Opinion—The Law of Defensiveness

August - The Master Persuader

Softening People’s Resistance

We humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions. As social animals we cannot avoid constantly playing the game, whether we are conscious of this or not. Most people do not want to expend the effort that goes into thinking about others and figuring out a strategic entry past their defenses. They are lazy. They want to simply be themselves, speak honestly, or do nothing, and justify this to themselves as stemming from some great moral choice. Since the game is unavoidable, better to be skillful at it than in denial or merely improvising in the moment. In the end, being good at influence is actually more socially beneficial than the moral stance.

Becoming proficient at persuasion requires that we immerse ourselves in the perspective of others, exercising our empathy. The month of August will teach you the maneuvers and strategies that will instruct you on how to create a spell, break down people’s resistance, give movement and force to your persuasion, and induce surrender in your target.

I’m often asked why I talk to the reader through stories.

I’m very focused on the reader. I’m always thinking when I’m writing, how are they going to absorb this information? There’s a problem that psychologists have noted. If you’re a teacher, you assume that your students have the same knowledge you have. This makes them bad teachers. I know that my readers don’t necessarily know what I’m talking about. If I’m talking about Carl Jung, for instance, and I just throw out jargon, the reader is not going to get it. So I have to make it understandable to the average person.

In The Art of Seduction, I talk about how telling a story lowers people’s resistance. Stories make the mind open up.

From the time we’re kids—being carried by our parents or playing peek-aboo— the sense of not knowing what comes next is very deeply ingrained in human psychology.

So if I tell a story about Rockefeller to illustrate aggression, I know that as the reader is being pulled into this story, they don’t know where I’m going, or who the aggressor is in this story, or the lesson that I’m trying to derive. So they’re going to want to read. They’re going to want to go further and further and further. I’ve tricked them into coming to page eight. Whereas if I immediately hit them with Jung and this or that study and some sociology jargon, their minds close off. They’re falling asleep.

That’s the mistake 98 percent of people who write books out there make.

They don’t think about the reader. They assume that the reader is as interested in the material as they are. You have to seduce the reader. You have to persuade them that what you have to say is worth the time. That’s why I tell stories.

People make the same mistake in the social realm, in trying to persuade or influence others. If you want someone to do you’re bidding, to help you, to finance your film or whatever it is—if you come at it only thinking about what you want or deserve, it has no effect. But if you think in terms of how they think, the stories they want to hear, what will please them, what will interest them—the game changes. You have the power to influence them.

Just as I have the power to influence the reader when I start thinking about what the reader wants, you have the power to influence people when you start thinking about what they want.