This might sound crazy, but after watching hours of footage from the last several months
of debates and interviews, I say this with confidence, Donald Trump is a master persuader.
He gets how people make decisions and he speaks in ways that influence people without them
even realizing how. So whether you love him or hate him, there's a lot to learn from his
tactics, and if you watch till the end of this video, you'll learn a ton, not just on
how to influence other people, but on how you are influenced yourself. And before we
get started, I want to give out a shout out to Scott Adams. He's been writing about Donald
Trump's persuasion for months and I owe him for pointing out some of these tactics, so
there's a link in the description to his blog if you want to check it out. In the meantime
let's start with the double bind.
You said in September 30th that ISIS was not a factor.
Am I talking, or are you talking, Jeb?
I'm talking right now. I'm talking.
You can go back. You're not talking. You interrupted me, Jeb.
September 30th, you said it.
Are you apologizing, Jeb? No. Am I allowed to finish?
So let's take a look at this perspective on Jeb Bush. Donald said, "Are you going to apologize?
No," answering for Jeb, so that gives Jeb a couple of options. One, he can not say anything,
but if he doesn't say anything, Donald has already predicted that he's not going to apologize
for interrupting. Jeb loses, Donald wins. Okay, option 2: He can interrupt Donald again,
but Donald has already accused him of being an interrupter so he looks like a jerk if
he continues to do that. Donald wins. Or, he can apologize, in which case, Donald wins
again. All of the outs within the frame that Donald has put on Jeb lead to victory for
Donald in this exchange. That is the power of a double binder. There's no good option
here. The only way to deal with this if this happens to you is to create a new frame, which
is probably a topic for another video. I don't want to touch on it here, but let's look at
an example of another great double bind just a few seconds later.
Am I allowed to finish?
Go ahead, Mr. Trump.
Little bit embarrassing there, Donald.
Now you're trying to build up your energy, Jeb, but it's not working very well.
There you go, another great double bind. Donald has been taunting Jeb throughout these debates
for having low energy. So, in saying this, what he does is either make Jeb looks like
someone who is reacting to Donald's taunts as he tries to be more high energy, in which
case, Donald wins, or Jeb goes back to low energy saying, "No, you can't control me,
Donald." But then, Donald just gets the steam rolling in the entire conversation anyway.
These frames are constant ways that Donald was able to assert power. He doesn't give
people other options, and he's been doing this for years. Now, the double bind protects
Trump from downside, but how does he get his ideas into your head? His most basic tool is
simple repetition.
We need the toughness. We need strength.
We need strength. We need tough people. We need toughness.
We have to be much tougher. We have to be much stronger than we've been.
you're a tough guy, Jeb, I know.
When they called me today they were so apologetic. They called me up this morning, they were
so apologetic.
When they called me this morning, they were apologizing.
And then, the big granddaddy of all repetition; I have never seen anything like this in my life.
We don't win any more. We don't win any more in our country, Shawn. We don't win any more.
We used to win. We don't win any more. We don't win with trade. We don't win with war.
We can't even beat ISIS, and we're gonna win. If I win, I will tell you, if I win, we all
win because we are gonna win.
Now, you might be watching this and think this is all silly. This couldn't possibly
be effective, and, if so, only on dumb people, but it's actually extremely effective on all
human beings, that's why companies have jingles. You see, we don't consciously know how we
form our opinions, but once something gets into our head, we tend to defend it, regardless
of how it got there. So Donald Trump hammers home these very, very simple ideas, and I
know that the next clip is from a movie. I inserted it just because I think it's a fun
commonality, but it actually gets its right. We, as humans, don't have any easy time with
complex facts and figures. It's these simple ideas that take root in our brain.
We need the simplest version of the idea in order for it to grow, and, actually, in your
subject's mind, that's a very subtle art.
So there you have it. Trump is following the rules of inception and they work. Take a look
at this repetition combined with another favorite tactic of Donald Trump--social proof.
And everybody said I won at the debate, and everybody said I won all six debates, and
especially the last one, so everybody said I won that debate.
Every online poll said I won every one of the debates, especially the last one.
You get the idea, and that's just one interview. Now, the focus on what everybody says is no
mistake. You may not have watched the debates, but if you see even one interview with Trump,
you walk away with the distinct impression that everyone in the world thinks Donald Trump
won, and that's very, very powerful, because when humans make a decision, we don't gather
all the relevant information and then make a calculated decision. What we do is we look
to see what the herd is doing and then we follow suit, and we do that especially when
we're overwhelmed with information, as we are in non-stop coverage of elections, or
even sophisticated tech products, and Trump knows this, so he's very, very careful about
avoiding negative social proof, as well. Check it out.
Now, a lot of people thought when you started to run that this was a joke; that you aren't
going to get anywhere, that you were a buffoon. You know it all, but now
I don't think they thought I was a buffoon. What kind of a statement is that?
Well, some people did.
I built a great company. I've had number one best-selling books. I had one of the top television
shows in television, and nobody says buffoon.
No, they thought I wouldn't run, and then they thought that if I did run, I'd just have a
good time for a little while, and then, I'd get out. Unfortunately for them, I'm number
one by many, many points.
So, you see, Trump is very protective when it comes to what people are supposedly saying
about him, and he re-affirms his popularity there at the end, but Trump doesn't stop there.
He uses his special kind of social proof, which is an appeal to authority, and this
is, basically, when he says that someone with the prestigious title supports him. It doesn't
rationally argue his point, but the message is received, and that is that smart people
support Trump. Check it out.
Cut taxes 10 trillion dollars without increasing the deficit. Let's be honest, is this a comic
book version of a presidential campaign?
Larry Kudlow is an example, who I have a lot of respect for, loves my tax plan, where reducing
taxes to 15%, we're bringing corporate taxes down, bringing money back in; corporate inversions
So, you see here, Trump mentions this guy, Larry Kudlow, but he also throws out some
numbers. This tax plan may or may not be good. I'm not commenting on that. But what's interesting
is to see what happens when he's pressed on this. He doesn't fall back on the merits of
the tax plan. He falls back on this social proof and the appeal to authority. Take a look.
You say that it would not increase the deficit because you'd cut taxes 10 trillion dollars
and the economy would take off like, hold on, hold on; the economy would take off like
a rocket ship.
Right, dynamic.
I talked to economic advisers who have served presidents of both parties, they said that
you
That's another appeal to authority right there. This is not a rational argument against Trump.
You have as much chance of cutting taxes that much without increasing the deficit, as you
would of flying away from that podium by flapping your arms.
Then, you have to get rid of Larry Kudlow, who sits on your panel, who's a great guy,
who came out the other day and said, "I love Trump's tax plan."
And he does the same thing when attacking Ted Cruz on his ability to run for president
since he was born in Canada.
Lawrence Tribe and _ from Harvard, of Harvard, said that there is a serious question as to
whether or not Ted can do this, okay? There are other attorneys that feel--and very, very
fine constitutional attorneys--that feel that because he was not born on the land, he cannot
run for office.
So you're starting to see here that rather than putting together a rational argument,
which, by the way, the current debate format doesn't even allow for, Donald Trump talks
to the part of our brains that actually makes decisions. That part of the brain uses heuristics
like repetition, social proof, authority, and another aspect of this part of the brain
is that it doesn't like large numbers. It can't grasp statistics. Basically, it finds
anecdotal evidence like stories far more persuasive, and Trump plays this up when asked for evidence.
He doesn't give rationally compelling evidence. He gives emotionally compelling evidence in
the form of a story. Take a look.
What evidence do you have--specific evidence--that the Mexican government is sending criminals
across the border? 30 seconds.
Border patrol--I was at the border last week. Border patrol, people that I deal with, that
I talked to, they say, "This is what's happening."
When asked about his position on attacking the family members of ISIS, he doesn't come
back with the stat, he comes back with more anecdotes.
We have people that know what's going on. You take a look at just the attack in California
the other day. There were numerous people, including the mother, that knew what was going
on. They saw pipe bombs sitting all over the floor. When you had the World Trade Center
go, people were put into planes that were friends, family, girlfriends. They knew what
was going on.
And whether we like it or not, people are going to find these anecdotes more persuasive
and more compelling than statistics, because if you look at it, people lose their attention
when they're listening to someone rattle off numbers. Take a look at Ben Carson doing it
in the worst way possible.
If you're talking about a 18 trillion dollar economy, you talk about a 15% tax on your
gross domestic product, you're talking about 2.7 trillion. We have a budget closer to 3.5
trillion. But, if you also apply that same 15%...
In case you're wondering, not a single person in the audience applauded for that response.
Was it a good argument? Maybe, but it was boring as hell. So I want to wrap this up
by saying that this video really isn't about Donald Trump. All the politicians are trying
to do this. He just does it better, and the reason that they're all trying is because
this is how humans, including you and I, make decisions. The big takeaway here is to realize
that inception had it right. Ideas get planted in our heads without us really knowing how,
and then we, backwards, rationalize them.
The subconscious is motivated by emotion, right? Not reason. We need to find a way of
translating this into an emotional concept.
How do you translate a business strategy into an emotion?
That's what we're here to figure out.
So, no matter who we vote for, we are all irrational, emotional decision-makers, and
when we understand this, we can better influence others. Not only that, we can protect ourselves
from the strong personalities who influence us, sometimes, to do things that aren't good
for us. So I hope that you've liked this video and if you want to know more about the four
irrational, yet completely useful emotions, to create a great first impression every time,
anywhere, we created a video to show you those. And in that video, you'd get the emotional
blueprint for creating that amazing first impression on anybody--be it the CEO, a potential
friend, or, maybe, just someone that you're interested in going on a date with. So, if
you want to get that, you can click the pop-up, and it will take you to a page where you just
drop your email, and you'll get taken to that video immediately. Go ahead and check it out.
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