If you want to learn how to manipulate others into doing things that aren’t in their best interests, or sell a faulty argument, you’ve come to the wrong place.
You may have heard the saying: “Sell the sizzle, not the steak.” It’s not a bad approach, but you’d better make sure the steak is good quality. Any persuasive attempt is like a chef putting together a meal: Flavoring and presentation are important, but your ingredients must be healthy (true), fresh (new information or insight), and nutritious (useful).
I am definitely not against using emotion to help you sell your ideas, but remember that often decisions are made some time after your meeting; while the emotion may wear off, the logic and hard facts remain true. Especially persuasive is deep content, which withstands drill-down questioning.
Five ways to ensure your content remains king:
Be absolutely sure of your facts, even the “minor” ones
Really learn the material, so you display effortless command of the facts
“Get your hands dirty” by going to the scene to see for yourself
There are four key principles of Practical Eloquence which I will be stressing repeatedly in episodes to come. They are:
Outside-in thinking
Content is king
Preparation, preparation, preparation
Be yourself—with an asterisk
In this episode I share the story of how I learned by accident about the most important principle of all persuasive communication: it’s not about you, it’s about the other person. Continuing our cooking analogy from Episode 1, the chef prepares what the diner wants, not what he or she likes to make.
Three key points, borrowing from what others have said:
Seek first to understand; then be understood (Covey)
“Don’t think less of yourself; think about yourself less.” (Green)
Platinum Rule (Alessandra)
This means you have to trigger and strengthen your natural ability to take another’s perspective, to put yourself into their minds so that you can get them to do things for their own reasons. Before every important communication, ask yourself:
When your leadership moment comes, will you be ready?
The goal of the Practical Eloquence podcast is to help you express your full potential, through improving your skills of persuasive communication.
Throughout your career you will have moments where you have a chance to lead others, and your ability to inform, influence or inspire them to action can have a huge influence on your career success. These are Leadership Moments.
But you also have countless micro leadership moments every single day, moments that accumulate over time and build—or erode—your personal credibility and leadership potential. So, if you want to “express your full potential”, you have to strive to be at your best in all aspects of persuasive communication, including face to face conversations, sales calls, presentations, or public speaking.
Persuasive communication is not an ability that you are born with or not, it is a skill that can be learned, improved and cultivated over time.
In future episodes I will share the best lessons in practical eloquence from science, history, business and my own personal experience.
If you want to do your best possible work on an important presentation, start early. Don’t wait until the last minute and then cram; cram early then refine.
Imagine how much better your presentations would be if you had your own staff of brilliant but undisciplined and overly enthusiastic speechwriters to help you. You convene a meeting and lay out your overall message and an outline of your key points, then leave them to keep working on it while you do other things. While you’re doing something else, they continue working on it 24/7, dredging up long-forgotten information, making connections, and searching for new information. They may throw out dozens of ideas in rapid fire, most of which are bad or so-so, but occasionally one which is brilliant. The more time they have, the more ideas they come up with.
The catch is that whenever they come up with something they think is really good, they have to tell you immediately, even if you are in the middle of an important conversation, and more often than not they will actually walk in on you while you’re in the shower or wake you in the middle of a deep sleep.
That, in essence, describes the relationship between your conscious mind and your unconscious. Your conscious mind is the CEO of your thoughts, and the only part of them of which you’re aware. The vast majority of our “thinking” is taking place in our unconscious mind. Our unconscious mind is far busier than we know. By definition, we’re not conscious of its thoughts, but it’s always working even if we’re not aware of what it’s doing.
I’ve always understood this via my own practical experience, without having a clear grasp of the neuroscience behind it. It happens to me all the time. I outline my presentation or blog post, wrestle with the first draft, then set it aside. But then, I will get a flash of insight—a fully-formed thought that makes perfect sense, or maybe just another way of saying something, or a fresh angle on the problem. It happens most when I’m in the shower, driving, or sleeping. I can’t will it to happen, but it happens so regularly that there must be something going on.
There’s a lot of fascinating material in the book, but the key point relative to presentations is that when your mind wanders it’s not aimless or random—it’s actually very goal-directed. It hates leaving things undone. What’s fascinating is that when you consciously think about a problem certain regions of your brain are activated. When you think you’ve stopped thinking about it, those same regions stay activated, indicating that your mind is still working on the problem. That means that while you can’t control your unconscious, you can direct it.
And your unconscious is so much more powerful than your conscious in several ways, all of which can improve your presentation if you give it time. It digs out stuff you forgot you knew; it makes unexpected connections; processes infinitely faster; and it tunes your attention to relevant information in your environment. (Like when you’re considering buying a certain car model, you suddenly notice so many more of them on the road.)
Here are a few suggestions for tapping the full potential of your unconscious:
It works best when you have a clear goal. For a presentation, deciding on your theme is a great way to plant a flag to inspire it to action.
Put in some good hard quality time up-front, thinking carefully about your points and supporting evidence.
Don’t overdo the early cramming. Your unconscious works best when the job is incomplete.
Write it down ASAP, or your unconscious will think you don’t care and forget about it. I’m old school, which is why I carry a Moleskine with me everywhere I go.
Give your mind room to roam. Put down your phone once in a while and get comfortable with your own thoughts.
