If you are relaxed and anticipating a pleasurable experience, this will communicate itself and have a mirror-like effect on the other person. One of the best attitudes to adapt for this purpose is one of complete indulgence. You do not judge other people; you accept them as they are. In the novel The Ambassadors, the writer Henry James paints the portrait of this ideal in the form of Marie de Vionnet, an older French woman of impeccable manners, who surreptitiously uses an American named Lambert Strether to help her in a love affair. From the very moment he meets her, Strether is captivated. She seems a “mix of lucidity and mystery.” She listens deeply to what he says and, without responding, gives him the feeling she completely understands him. She envelops him in her empathy. She acts from the beginning as if they have become good friends, but it is in her manner, nothing she says. He calls her indulgent spirit “a beautiful conscious mildness,” and it has a hypnotic power over him. Well before she even asks for his help, he is completely under her spell and will do anything for her. Such an attitude replicates the ideal mother figure—unconditional in her love. It is not expressed so much in words as in looks and body language. It works equally well on men and women and has a hypnotic effect on almost anyone.
Daily Law: As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people.
Use this power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them. The Laws of Human Nature, 7: Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self- Opinion—The Law of Defensiveness
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.