My Essay Blog

What we want changes overnight; what makes us want it hasn’t changed in thousands of years, nor will it change in thousands more. The serious student of marketing can learn much from early analysts of motivation. Here is a bit of George French’s “The Art and Science of

“A great title is a work of genius,” said E. Haldeman-Julius in the 1920s.

Haldeman-Julius sold 200 million (really) of his “Little Blue Books.” His headlines were his product, because he sold his books by the title. About halfway through his brilliant marketing career he wrote a book called “The First Hundred Million,” in which he shared some of his secrets…

EHJ had a system.

Change is the key to our success and to our financial future. Often in our own lives, however, change is something we fiercely resist. Even when achievement sits on our doorstep, we’re still too comfortable to make an adjustment. The very first place to look for transformation is within. When you take ownership of yourself, your life and your income, you are on your way to harnessing success.

I learned early in my life that if things needed to change, it was up to me to change them.

I have had the great pleasure of working with Jim Rohn, who inspired me to new levels of success and happiness. When I first met Mr. Rohn, I was sitting at a dinner table with ten other people. I grabbed a seat near him and just wanted to listen to his words of wisdom and conversation. When a lull in the conversation arose, I was caught off guard when Mr. Rohn asked me about my goals, dreams and aspirations. In response, I began to talk about many of the roadblocks I had experienced in my pursuit of success. I listed all the reasons why I wasn’t able to achieve my goals and dreams. I let him know who was to blame and insisted none of it was my fault. I thought I had made a pretty good case and then the hammer dropped. Jim looked at me and said, “Kurt, for things to change, you must change, and for things to get better, you must get better.” That brief moment in time changed my life forever. It was then that I realized that everything I wanted in life is on the other side of change, not the other side of excuse. I also realized that no matter the excuse (good or bad), it would not produce results.

If you want to make the same kind of transformation in your life, the first thing you have to do is take an honest look at yourself and where you are. You can’t make changes if you won’t acknowledge what needs to be changed. Where are you starting? What is your current situation? If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be? It is only from honestly assessing where point A is that you can develop a well-defined, well-planned route to point B. Then the next obvious thing to determine is where or at what point B is located. In other words, what exactly are you aiming for? What do you want?

Now is not the time to be timid.

Don’t shortchange yourself because you want to be “careful” or “reasonable” or you don’t want to “rock the boat.” Shoot for the stars! You’ll define the path to get there, but first you have to know what exactly you’re even trying to reach. In other words, you must begin with the end result and then work your way backward. You have to know exactly where you want to go and what you need to change to get there. Sometimes, people are actually afraid of being “too” successful. To be brilliant or amazing might actually be a scary proposition. As success comes into sight, you might feel a lot of responsibility weighing down on you. So, how successful should you be? How healthy should you be? How wealthy should you be? How strong should your relationships be? Consider the following powerful quote from Nelson Mandela:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the World.

There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.”

&ndash 1994 Inaugural Speech

We are unique creatures. In spite of the seeds of greatness that lie within us, we seem to program ourselves to do the least amount possible to get by. That is, we often do only what is necessary to survive. I see this tendency with my students at the local university all the time. Their mentality is: What is the least amount of work I can do to pass this class? They are paying top dollar to get their education yet rarely do you see a student take advantage of all the learning that is at her/his disposal. We see symptoms of the same mental laziness, lack of progress and resistance to change in the workplace, too:

What is the least amount of work I can do to get a paycheck and not get fired? When we are in this lazy mindset, we can’t find happiness, and as a result, our souls start to rust.

The challenge is that we often don’t see the consequences of our behavior fast enough.

Time ticks by, and by the time we’re even aware of how off course we’ve gotten, years have flown by. We live in a society where we want the quick fix, the easy way out.

Unfortunately, however, that is not how life works. If it takes someone five years to gain twenty pounds, why does someone else think he can completely lose it in a couple weeks? Another example is fast food. We know it’s not good for us, and yet hey, nothing bad happened today after I had that super-size order of fries. The consequences of the unhealthy food will take time to manifest, but in the meantime, the instant gratification of a fast and delicious meal now overpowers concerns about the future that, in the moment, seem immaterial. Imagine if every time you ate at a fast food restaurant the consequences were immediate. You took a bite and felt a bulge near your midsection. If that were the case, it wouldn’t take long before you changed your ways.

There are thousands of habits and patterns in our lives that fit the instant gratification scenario. Another example is debt. So what do we do when we’re constantly confronted with such difficult choices: immediate pleasure versus future gain? What do we do about it? You would be very wise to make a habit as soon as possible of analyzing your life on at least a weekly basis. Determine what you want to change now, not after years of reinforcing the wrong habits. The saying goes, “Old habits die hard” and it’s really true.

Stop destructive cycles now before the strands that bind you become impenetrable rope.

Without changing your action, your wishes and hopes will only be whims that never go anywhere. It’s time for you dreams to start to bear fruit!

So, are you ready to welcome change into your life? Good! Remember, as Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Once you have recognized the need to change and have embraced the opportunity to change, then you will need to start organizing your plan of action. Think backward. What is the big picture? What are the major phases within that big picture? What are the steps within each phase that will move you from one point to the next? It is worth pointing out here that you must be careful not to let the opinions of others dissuade you. I’m sure you’ve experienced this before&ndashyou’ve gotten yourself all excited and pumped up, you tell someone you really care about all your great plans and they barely listen or care. Or worse, they start pointing out all the reasons why your plan isn’t going to work or why it’s a bad idea. Crash! You can’t remember the last time you felt so deflated.

I’ll admit that it is hard to stay focused and persistent when people spit on your dreams. Fear of failure, fear of what others will think&ndashthese are totally normal feelings. But you can’t let them debilitate you. Napoleon Hill said, “The fear of criticism robs man of his initiative, destroys his power of imagination, limits his individuality and takes away his self-reliance.” You are destined for greatness. Follow your heart not the useless criticism and discouragement of those who have forgotten how to live and dream.

So many people assume that if they don’t try, then they can’t fail. If they don’t try, no one will criticize them either. The tragedy of this mindset is that they will fail by virtue of never having even attempted to succeed. George Shinn once said, “Growth means change and change involves risks, stepping from the known to the unknown.” I have always loved the phrase “jump and the net will appear.” Consider the fact that most of the fears we face in life are not life-and-death matters. And yet, we are so gripped by our fears that it’s almost as though they were life-and-death matters.

The next time you feel yourself paralyzed by fear, stop and honestly assess your feelings.

What is the worst thing that could really happen? Are the possible setbacks really life-or death situations, or are they just opportunities to learn and grow, even if they are sometimes unpleasant or painful? Reflect on the fact that almost all successful people have their stories about where they came from and what they had to go through to achieve success. What’s more, it’s rarely a rosy picture. It might also be worth asking yourself what the worst thing is that could happen if you do nothing. Chances are the consequences might be more severe in the case of inaction versus action. Either way, there is a price to be paid. Do you want regrets or do you want results? We say no to some things because we are saying yes to other things. You just need to be sure you know what hangs in the balance either way. Sometimes it is the realization of the imminent, stark reality hitting us in the face that provides the momentum for change. Whatever the motivator is, just don’t let fear stop you from forging ahead.

You’ll find that most people are in some way irrational, even superstitious. They may be “superficially” superstitious and base their behaviors on things that have no basis in reality. They may be literally superstitious and think that some action or inaction will irrationally effect their desired results.

Uncovering someones irrational belief is easier that you might think. Simply observe and you’ll see it.

You can also test it out.

What would happen if you could uncover their irrational belief and use it as a tool to drive their thoughts and actions? You would be using their “map” of the world to influence them. That’s true mind control.

To influence someone in this way, it’s important to just assume that people have some irrational fear, belief or superstition. Then uncovering those fears, beliefs and superstitions is all a matter of just observing and asking yourself “Does this persons response have a logical origin?” What you’ll find is that answer is almost always “No.”

Most people will in fact behave according to events based on automatic reactions that are completely irrational. They often do this because that reaction has worked for them in the past… sometimes only ONCE, but it’s enough for them to conclude that it’s the best response they have.

Other people will be more overt with their superstitions and demonstrate what Karl Jung called a “complex” in which strong emotions are triggered automatically as if they were programmed to respond this way by trauma. Guess what? It’s very likely they were!

Begin to look at peoples behaviors and run them through the “irrational belief” filter and you’ll see just how often this behavior occurs.

You can test it by simply asking their opinion in a “what would do” type of fashion. Most people love to believe that you value their opinions and will tell you eagerly.

To take advantage of this new information see what you can do to use it to influence them your way. You can do this by presenting them an two options one of which would trigger this irrational belief.

In most cases it’s always best to only point out the irrational belief to them as a last resort of influencing them.

Regardless of how you use this new insight you’ll always seem much wiser than you are if you act unaffected and “above it all” as if you are wise, compassionate and filled great wisdom based on a rich life experience.

For the most part, we are all conformists. We will do what the crowd does. We might not like to admit that, but it is true. Only 5 to 10 percent of the population engages in behavior contrary to the social norm.

We see this law operating in groups, in organizations, in meetings, and in day-to-day public life. In all of these circumstances, there is a certain standard or norm. In churches, the moral code determines the standard behavior acceptable for the group. In organizations, the bylaws and years of tradition establish a standard operating procedure. Because we want to fit into these groups and maintain our membership with them, we conform our actions to the norm.

We seek to find out what others are doing as a way of validating our own actions. This method is how we decide what constitutes “correct” behavior. We see the behavior as more correct when we see others doing it. The more people do it, the more correct it becomes. Professor Kirk Hansen of the Stanford Business School demonstrated this when he boosted downloads for best-selling files on the Web by downloading those files over and over himself so the counter was artificially high. He and his team then observed that these boosted downloaded files were downloaded even more frequently. The high number on the counter indicated popularity, and people were most interested in downloading the files that were already ranked the highest. Whether the question is what to do with an empty can of soda at the park, how fast to drive in the city, or how to eat the soup at a restaurant, the validation of others give us our answers and therefore guides our actions.

We feel validation when we see others do what we want to do. We learned early in life that we make fewer mistakes when we follow the social norm. There are two types of norms: explicit and implicit. Explicit norms are openly spoken or written. For example, road signs, employee manuals, or game rules are all examples of explicit norms. Implicit norms are not usually stated openly. For example, you usually don’t have to be directed to say hello or to smile when you see someone, but you do it anyway. Or, somehow you know better than to put your feet up on the dinner table when you’re a guest in someone’s home, even though your host most likely will not request that you refrain from doing so.

If we don’t know the norm, we look around and find it. The Law of Social Validation becomes a way to save time and energy in figuring out what is correct. We use others’ behavior to guide our own actions, to validate what we should or should not do. We don’t always have to look at the positive and the negative in every situation. This automatic trigger saves us from thinking. We compare what we do against the standard of what everyone else is doing. If we find a discrepancy between what we observe and what we do, we tend to make changes in the direction of the social norm.

Social validation compels us to change our behaviors, our attitudes, and our actions, even when what we observe doesn’t really match our true feelings, style, and thoughts. We go against our better judgment because we want to be liked, accepted, and found in agreement with everyone else. When we are part of a crowd, we “no longer feel individually responsible for our emotions or actions. We can allow ourselves to shout, sing, cry, or strike without temperament imposed by personal accountability.”

We seek out social norms to help us know what we should be feeling or doing. For the most part, this is not a conscious process. We subconsciously accept many ways of behaving that are determined by our surroundings and the actions of others, such as raising our hands to speak in class, tipping in a restaurant, or how we behave at a concert. When we become part of a group, our once divergent emotions and feelings tend to converge.

When we find ourselves in a foreign situation where we feel awkward or unsure of how to act, we look for those social cues that will dictate our behavior. This could be at a party, during freshman orientation, or even while attending a family gathering. When the social information we are seeking is at all ambiguous, we don’t know how to respond and thus continue seeking out social clues. Imagine if you were sitting in the movie theater enjoying your show when somebody shouted, “FIRE!” Do you think you would jump up and run for it? Well, if everyone else did, you would, too. If everyone remained seated, you would remain seated also.

Making a character out of the advertiser brings the message alive. Maxwell Sackheim is most famous for inventing the Book-of-the-Month Club. But before that, he invented some dramatic, and dramatically successful, advertising.

One of his patented techniques was to make a character out of the advertiser, writing ads as if the clients themselves were actually talking. One Sackheim client was Frank E. Davis, “The Gloucester Fisherman”.

There’s only one way to know if your advertising copy is any good. It’s the same way that your customer knows it&ndashit sells!

We are not all born copywriters, but we are all born customers. As a natural born customer, you can recognize good copy…

Step outside yourself and read the copy fresh: does it reach out and connect with you, does it hold your interest, does it promise something real that you really want, does it convince you?

“It has been said that advertising space without good copy is like the wooden Indian in

front of a cigar store:

So the concepts behind NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) sound interesting to you and you’re wondering where to get started with implementing such strategies. You will probably face the question as to whether it might be beneficial to your life and business to hire an NLP coach. Each year there are thousands of people who benefit from scientifically based coaching programs, and a coach can help you design a specific plan of action using proven techniques. Sure you might be able to pull together a plan on your own, but this article will share how a coach might have the expertise and experience to help you shape your future and live life more fully, and right now.

Coaching has become a widely popular service and is familiar both to big business through corporate coaches and to television audiences through the popular show “Starting Over”. Coaches who utilize NLP concepts believe every person has the potential and ability to realize their dreams. An NLP coach can help you understand what you want from your life and what you will do to get it. A coach can help you clarify your goals and remain focused until you achieve them. While you build your confidence, improve your skills and achieve your goals a coach can guide, encourage and instruct using proven neuro-linguistic practices.

An NLP coach isn’t going to do the work for you, but will help you design a plan to achieve your own success. As you already can guess, a professional coach is likely to have an arsenal of proven techniques, tested and perfected through their own practice. Aside from that, a coach is going to have the advantage of being a neutral third party who has no emotional attachment to your past failures or successes. The observations of a coach are more likely to be clear, and the insights could possibly be more accurate, because they are in a position to view your behaviors more objectively than you, a friend or a member of your family could ever do. A coach is also more likely to be up on the latest techniques and advancements in NLP practices. All of these advantages can be combined to help you fully realize your potential, achieve higher levels of personal effectiveness and self mastery.

Since the premise behind NLP technique is that you can recreate success by doing what the successful people do, why not consider following what thousands of other successful people have done and get the outside assistance of a trained and professional NLP coach?

Your first clue to the truth about advertising was written more than 100 years ago.

Let me tell you the story of a young, confident copywriter by the name of John E. Kennedy. Early one May evening in 1904, Kennedy, a former Canadian Mountie, sat in a New York barroom.

He sent a note upstairs to the office of A.L. Thomas, the head of the Lord and Thomas advertising agency. “I’m in the saloon downstairs,” the note began, “and I can tell you

what advertising is.

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 us much time to accomplish anything else, would it? Most of us have a systematic way of looking at the world. When this mode is operating, our minds are perfectly primed to automatically respond to persuasion triggers. I call these triggers the Laws of Persuasion.

The Laws of Persuasion operate below our conscious thoughts. When employed properly, your prospects don’t even realize you’re using them. On the other hand, if you blunder your way through a persuasion situation, your audience will be totally aware of what you’re doing. It’s like seeing a police car on the side of the road–it jars us back to reality. If the persuader is skilled, he or she will use the Laws of Persuasion so the message is delivered below the radar.

Understanding the Laws of Persuasion involves understanding the human psyche. Such knowledge empowers you to improve your persuasive abilities. It magnifies your effectiveness in relationships, improves your parenting skills, enhances your leadership ability, and helps you sell yourself and your ideas. In short, it maximizes your influence.

In his book Triggers, Joseph Sugarman estimates that 95 percent of the reasoning behind a consumer’s purchase is associated with a subconscious decision. In other words, most buying is done for reasons a person hasn’t even fully formulated. Dr. Gregory Neidert estimates that our brains actually run on idle 90 to 95 percent of the time. Let’s face it, thinking is hard work. It is human nature to conserve cognitive energy. Thinking burns three times as many calories as watching TV. Those who use their brains for a living have traditionally been among the highest paid professionals. Consider the incomes for doctors, lawyers, and engineers, just to name a few. Most of us feel we don’t have the time or even the desire to think on the level that these professionals do each day.

What are the main reasons we choose not to think? First, sometimes the amount of information available is so overwhelming we don’t even attempt to digest any of it. Sometimes our decisions simply aren’t weighty enough to warrant the effort of researching all the available information. Consciously and subconsciously, from the bombardment of information we receive, we selectively choose what we will acknowledge and what we will ignore.

Whether we realize it or not, we love shortcuts to thinking. When we buy an item, we don’t always take the time to research the product or read the latest consumer guide’s ratings on the product. Instead, we often rely on the salesperson’s advice. We might just buy the most popular brand, or we might bring a friend along for his opinion. Although we would never admit it, we sometimes even buy an item just because of its color or packaging. Certainly we know this is not the best way to make decisions, but we all do it anyway, even when we know we might make a mistake or feel regretful afterwards. If we thoroughly considered every single decision, we would constantly be overwhelmed and we’d never get anything done.

Recall a situation where you where persuaded or acted without thinking?

The Laws of Persuasion are so powerful because they capitalize on two very predictable things: one, what we expect from human nature, and two, how people will respond in certain situations. People react predictably under a given set of circumstances. If we learn to recognize how the Laws of Persuasion work, we will know how to use them in our interactions with others. We will also become more aware of how others will attempt to use them on us.

There are two paths to persuasion: the conscious and the subconscious. Both paths can persuade others to your way of thinking, but each path uses a very different means of processing information.

In the conscious path, both you and your audience make an active or conscious attempt to understand, define, and process an argument. A person who is interested in your persuasive attempts will be highly motivated to listen. As such, she will also be able to consciously evaluate your message by carefully weighing the pros and cons of the evidence you present.

On the subconscious path, the listener spends little or no time processing the information. This approach results in those automatic triggers we previously talked about. These knee-jerk reactions happen when you follow your intuition or use a mental shortcut. Your mind reaches a decision without doing any logical processing. These subconscious decisions are largely driven by instinct and emotion. Individuals who spend lots of time on the subconscious path do so because they lack the time, motivation, desire, or ability to really listen to your message. They’re not really involved in the subject. They use their instinct or emotions instead of their intellect. Passive processing and automatic decision triggers rule their decision making.

Our minds are programmed with automatic persuasion triggers. Most of us experience persuasive situations without realizing or thinking about it. Master Persuaders know what these triggers are and how to utilize them to their advantage. Understanding the Laws of Persuasion helps us become aware of how we are influenced without having conscious knowledge of it.

Learning to influence and persuade takes time, skill, and experience. What most people don’t realize is that we already instinctively use many of these laws in our daily communications. The same Laws of Persuasion that we unknowingly use every day are the very same ones Master Persuaders use deliberately, consciously, and consistently. Master Persuaders make persuasion a habit. Think about how conscientious you were when you first started driving. Now, after years of practice, driving a car doesn’t require as much thought or focus. Master Persuaders understand the rules of persuasion and practice them constantly. They can apply the techniques subconsciously, without even thinking about them. For them, the application of persuasion has become second nature.

Application Questions

1. Why do you think most decisions are made on a subconscious level?

2. Can you think of a time when you bought something and rationalized it later with conscious thought?

3. How can you use this information to benefit you in your ability to persuade?