A few weeks back I started seeing this new book pop up everywhere on social media (through the power of the Meta ad pixel)
It was for a book about being able to control your life with the power of being able to persuade others.
I liked the ads and after seeing it a few times I bought the book and the ebook.
As a man in this massive competitive world I figured If I could get even one extra hidden insight the book would be well worth it.
That was the right decision.
To start much of what is inside the Puppet Master’s bible is part of a few other persuasion books but it is always nice to get a refresher.
And particularly I learned quite a few new things as well that have made me look at the world in a different way.
Seeing how we humans are motivated to do really anything comes down to a chain of neurochemicals that act like strings, pulling us in certain directions.
Knowing this is key to being able to recognize this within yourself, and incredibly important if you want to make any impact in this world.
If you want anyone to buy what you’r selling, follow you, or listen to you at all you need to be able to stimulate the parts of people’s brains that can release these chemicals
There are a several ways to do this that the author Tom Walker goes into
- Storytelling. Stories release dopamine and give us the anticipation of waiting until the end. Humans learned to pass down information for thousands of years through stories. It was (and is!) how we have stayed alive. If you can tap into the power of your story, people will listen.
- Emotion. When you are talking to people you are rarely just dealing with the logical side of someones brain. Humans are emotional beings and such it is worth getting into the emotions of why you sell what you sell or what people need to understand about your product. Vulnerability here helps too, it can cause people to emotionally bond to you and your story and align everyone to the same mission.
- Leveraging the drivers of human behavior. We people have many motivations for doing stuff but they all boil down to just a few. Autonomy (control over our own lives), Love and connection, Status, Security, Survival, self actualization, and validation. Everything comes back to these primal desires. Study them and learn how to use these to be a more effective pursuader.
I am still only halfway through the book but it has given me a lot to think about these last few weeks.
Already I’ve implemented some of these techniques to telling better stories that have helped me sell a couple thousand extra $ for my own software, ebooks and videos.
Also to be clear, persuasion isn’t necessarily about manipulating people (although many entities do such as the news, politics, and such)
It is about aligning your people and yourself on the same mission and be able to help as many people as possible.
The best example was Jesus Christ himself.
Instead of telling the people “most people don’t listen to the good word when they hear it”
He tells the story of the sower of seeds.
He scatters many on a field. Yet some fall on the path and the birds ate them. Others fell on rocky ground where there was little soil and the seeds sprang up but quickly died becasue they had no roots.
Other seeds fell among the thorns and were choked out.
While a few seeds fell on good ground, and these seeds grew and multiplied, producing thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times more.
This story is about spreading your words, and that many people won’t listen or if they do they will become distracted.
Only a few will listen but those ones might be even a hundred times more valuable than the others.
Stories educate because they give us a mental picture which we can SEE and this anticipation spikes dopamine and a host of other things where we remember the story and the teachings much more than if we had just been told what to do.
So, if you are looking to understand human nature on a more primal level and learn what truly motivates people, this book is a must read.
Get better at telling stories yourself and bring your people along for the journey.
That’s it for now.
Until next time,
Your man
Spencer Claeys