EP0017 05/10/26 - Scott Adam's Win Bigly Part 1

Tonight on the Persuasion Club Podcast, we dive deep into Chapter 1 of Win Bigly by Scott Adams where the real game begins.

Why do smart people see the same event completely differently?

What are “mental filters,” and how do they shape politics, media, persuasion, and everyday life?

Why does emotion often beat logic in the real world?

We break down Adams’ foundational ideas on:

* Persuasion vs. reason
* The power of emotional framing
* Cognitive filters and reality tunnels
* Why facts alone rarely change minds
* Trump as a “Master Persuader”
* Media narratives and perception management
* Hypnosis, reframing, and influence techniques
* The role of certainty, identity, and tribal thinking

We also explore some of the more controversial and fascinating side discussions from the chapter — including altered perception, marijuana, mushrooms, and how different mental states may affect pattern recognition and persuasion.

Expect:
🔥 Persuasion analysis
🧠 Reframes and life hacks
😂 Humor and hot takes
🎯 Real-world influence tactics
📚 Deep dives into persuasion psychology

Whether you love Scott Adams, hate him, or are still trying to figure him out… this episode is designed to sharpen your persuasion awareness and help you see the invisible forces shaping modern communication.

Live tonight at 6PM PST.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Government IT workers by day, persuasion enthusiasts and verbal cage fighters the rest of the time.

SPEAKER_00 0:07

If you'd like to level up your persuasion game to godlike levels, grab yourself your favorite stimulus and prepare yourself for the persuasion hit of the day. It's the Persuasion Club Podcast, and it starts out. Yeah, eventually it'll fade out properly. They're just kind of still working on that whole thing. But hey Steven, how is it going? We are uh back to occasionally we hit those rumble things. But yeah, how's it going tonight? I'll get this working while we're talking.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

It's going good, Kevin. Uh happy Mother's Day. It's a beautiful, it's been a beautiful day, weather-wise. It's been great. I feel like the overall tone of the day has been great. I got a lot of cleaning done. Got some donuts. It's been good. It's been a good Mother's Day.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Excellent. Hey, it's gonna show us in this weird split view like this today. I don't know why, but uh that's what Rumble Studio is giving us today. But um yeah, um, we celebrated here, made brunch um with my uh for my family, and we enjoyed that. Um and uh yeah, it's it's been a good day so far. But uh back on our heads tomorrow, as uh as they say, back to work. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever hear that joke? I'm gonna start the show off with a joke, okay? You ready for a joke?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Let's hear it. Let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Alright, well, there's this guy, and he dies and he goes to hell. Alright. He gets down there, and the devil's like, Alright, come on in here, you know, and he sees that there's these three rooms. So in the first room, uh, he sees that there's just people being tortured with pitchforks, jabbed, you know, ah, and they're screaming in pain and stuff like that. And, you know, he's like, Oh, that's horrible, you know. So then the second room, he sees that, you know, people are being um tortured with fire and you know, other uh devices and things like that, and it's not looking much better. And then he looks at the third room and he sees people in there, and they're standing there waist deep in shit, but they're drinking coffee. That's it. So he's like, Well, you know, of all the three rooms, you know, I'll I'll take the coffee, you know, the the the shit in the coffee. So you're like, all right, get in there, and he gets in there. And so just about the time he's in there and he's got his coffee, the devil says, All right, breaks over, back on your heads. So that's my saying, back on your heads, man. So cheers. Cheers. Uh hey, uh, I have my uh Scott Adams mug today, um, since we're doing Win Bigly. So um simultaneous sip, if we will, to Scott, um, since we're going ahead and starting this. You know, um I I've got a mug for you uh that I can give you Steven. It's um this was um the unofficial mug. Um so it's an another one and it has the simultaneous sip uh thing on there. Um that one I might be able to do from memory, maybe. All you need is a cup of mug, glass take a shelter and a candy jugger flash, a vessel of any kind. Fill it with your favorite liquid. I like coffee. And to get uh ready for the persuasion, or no, that the persuasion hit it better. Um it's a simultaneous sip and it goes now. I think it's uh something like that. Um I'm not uh maybe doing it quite justice. So um legit. It sounded legit, yeah. But anyway, uh my lovely wife had bought this one for me um here, and uh wouldn't you know it though, um it was the unofficial merchandise, um, and bless her for for trying to pick that up for me anyway. The only difference, well it's a little bit difference in size. This one here is a little bit bigger. This one's a little bit smaller than the official. Um, and then watch this. When I take my sip, did you see the bottom?

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, it looks like a barcode, or is it words?

SPEAKER_00 4:30

No, I might have to get up there a little closer. Ah, the idea of the case.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

No, it's more of a it's more of a refreshing uh, not like a screaming uh.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah, yeah. When you have that that first coffee of the morning, you know how that goes.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

It's like oh for sure, yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

So unfortunately, the the unofficial merchandise does not have the uh on the bottom. Um, and and I had to have it. So um you know, um I might scratch it um uh that in there and then give this one to you if you if you want. Um I'm not trying to give you I'm not trying to give you crap, it's actually at least a decent mug to drink from. So that'd be great.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I mean you'll learn the simultaneous sip. Yeah. What a gift. I mean, I I would I would be proud to receive this. So if you do want to give it to you, I would take it.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

I want I want you to have that uh at least um is um because it's it's not crap, it's just not official. So that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, um, maybe later on uh we can talk about where to actually get that official Scott Adams merchandise. Um I'm sure people are dying to know. So um, but anyway, uh let's go ahead and dive into the show today. We we have uh some fun on the agenda for sure. Um we are talking about, uh, of course, and I need to flip over again to this presentation mode, um, because that will give us the ability to look at this graphic here. There we go. I think that's up there on our screen, right? So this is the book we're talking about. We talked about it last week um a bit. Got into the introduction. Um got a pretty good talk about it. I thought I enjoyed it. You know, just kind of a preamble or of sorts. Um, and of course, one of the reasons why we picked this book is because so many people were saying, like, this is the one you gotta read, guys. This is you know, you're gonna read Shieldini. Um Shieldini, as we like to call him. Um and then after that you guys gotta read uh Bigley, and I'm like, okay. Um challenge me. Challenge accepted, yeah, you got it.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Um and so if you're interested in uh you can go to YouTube, you can go to Rumble, and there's six clips that we put up there that are basically just little excerpts from um the first edition, actually, because the first edition of the audiobook uh is actually Scott Adams. Second edition is uh somebody else is doing the reading. Um but anyway, and then that um just very those very short excerpts are just kind of the introduction about what you are gonna find in this kind of or in this book. Um and w without going back into all those things again, it was kind of one of the the very important things for Steven and I to actually not go political on the show, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Yes. I I feel like it everything surrounds politics, but it doesn't necessarily involve the the political stuff. So the goal is to avoid politics.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah. I mean, at least for us, we we didn't want to go go political on the show because we recognize that you know everybody's different. We want to uh appeal to all audiences, and it's just all about uh um basically uh learning about persuasion. So um, hey, we got somebody in the chat. Um I I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly, Gordians. I don't know if you see that too, Steven, but he's uh Gordians says hello. Um so but yeah, welcome uh to the show. Thanks for for joining us tonight. Um we always like new listeners uh and stuff. So anyway, yeah, check out those uh clips on um Rumble or YouTube. There's six of them there, you can't miss them. They're all Scott Adams related, and uh they're basically just like the the clips that we gleaned from the introduction of the book that that kind of resonated with us. So um, and then we discussed them um on last week's episode. So if you want to check out episode 16, then you can uh kind of see there. But now we're into and so well when we first uh started talking this afternoon, Stephen, we're kind of like, oh, well what what what part of the book are we doing tonight? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

It's kind of broken up a little bit differently.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

It is, yeah. And you may see that it um I have um in my uh description for the video tonight and the thumbnail that we were doing chapter one, but the book really isn't broken down that way. Um, and as we kind of discovered, um, and not that we just found that out this weekend, um, what I did, and I'm assuming that Steven probably did, is that you just get the audio book and you hit go before you and I don't know about you, but before I knew it, I was halfway into the middle of chapter two.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

You know, so yeah, it's like, wait a second, I I'm going too far, I think. Yeah. Then I was like, well, how far should I go?

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, I know, right? Uh it it reads very well. Um, and it's what like I can imagine if we were reading physical copies, I would have a hard time putting it down because I had a hard time stopping, you know, stop listening. I get to my destination, I gotta turn it off, and it's like, you know, so it's definitely a great book.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

It's a great list. Uh so far, uh I've been taking some notes while you know listening through it. And uh there's a lot of stuff to take notes on. Like he it's kind of packed with stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Right? Yeah, like he gets right into like I I think there must be at least four or five persuasion tips in the very beginning. Uh in so uh let's go let's go back to what we were talking about before. So instead of chapters, uh these are um what what are they called in this their section?

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Like part one, part two, correct.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

But under the parts, there's like sub subparts.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah. Yeah. So part one um is basically titled Why Facts Are Overrated. Um, and then um well, yeah, let's go ahead and uh what what's some of the good stuff you've you've found uh from your reading? I want to hear about your notes, man.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Oh man, yeah, yeah. Well, he kind of talks about cognitive cognitive dissonance and the confirmation bias. And he says he's gonna go into those things through the chapter. Uh but but just talking about why people's actions are different from their thoughts. So they're thinking one thing, they're doing another, and uh talking about how your brain should recognize that and the the the discrepancy or difference of what's happening. Uh so that was interesting. And I and I I think that uh later in the part uh he goes through cognitive dissonance deeper. Uh exactly. But but uh did you yeah, did you pick up anything about cognitive dissonance?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Well, I've been doing a a little bit of study on that kind of as a side thing, and I would say that um yeah, it's from from what I gather um and what he's talking about is that sometimes people have a hard time making um the the facts meet their um their worldview or whatever, you know, so or I don't know if the world worldview is the right word, but it's a am I I I'm struggling for the words, but it it's when your your mind can't really reconcile what it's seeing with what you know to be true. I think that's probably like uh the best way I could describe it.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Yeah. Yeah. And so your your mind makes shit up. Pardon my French. You know, and I just say the the French French really get a bad rap, right? Yeah, French, you know. But anyway, uh yeah, so we we make shit up, and then later on we come back in and we fill in the details or we rationalize later on. So yeah. Um and I guess the Scott Adams is essentially saying is that we do that more than we think.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

It's scary.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Do you even think about it? Do you realize or re-re uh yeah, how how are you even recognizing that it's happening? Uh that could be really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I see um that we've got our friend in the chat uh chatting a little bit more, and I'll I'll try to take a look at some of that a little bit later on. It's tough for me to keep uh the reading the chat and keep the the show going a little bit, but uh hang in there and know. And if you want to, you're certainly welcome to join us in the after show. We actually invite you to come in and uh we'll do uh Rumble Studio. You can come in and hang out and chat with us. So um Chuck Saden is uh I guess his real name. So um I I just don't why I I don't recognize I do it almost sounds familiar, but I don't recognize. Uh but hey Chuck. Um anyway, join us in the after show. We'll definitely chat a little bit more. Um confirmation biases, I think, was the other one you mentioned, right? Yeah, yeah. And what are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Uh uh so it's talking about how like all evidence supports your beliefs. So you're looking for something to confirm whatever it is that you're thinking. It it could even be coincidence, like something totally coincidental, and you might even know that, but you take it and make it support your beliefs and kind of use it for your benefit. So I do find that interesting. Uh that that's something that can be played to. Uh but again, it's like understanding these things and then understanding how they apply in social situations is a different different piece. But uh yeah, it it makes sense. I don't have any like super critical thoughts about it, but that's kind of what I picked up.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

I think about it um as I hear people, and I I wouldn't want to mention call people out individually, um, because I wouldn't do that. Um but let's just say it's probably more pe most people that um will be they'll hear a certain fact or uh information and then they'll totally come up with the backstories to help explain how that fact might be true. You know, like uh and they're they're like based on no evidence at all. Um they're just like hypotheticals or whatever. But those hypotheticals I think sometimes have a a tendency to become uh realities in our mind, um, especially if they are um hypotheticals that confirm our biases.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

So yeah, I think I had a thought and it disappeared for me.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Thoughts have a way of doing that.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah, we had a talk uh this last week about differences of like how sometimes people tell stories from their perspective, but then it's like really far from the action or the activity. It's like the accuracy of that. It's something to be taken into consideration. Yeah. But talking about changing people's minds is what what Scott talks about, persuasion really comes down to changing people's minds with or without facts. So you don't even have to use factual evidence or anything that's solid. You could you can appeal to people's confirmation bias or their cognitive dissonance, or you could you can apply it to uh uh person just the whole goal is to get people to change their mind about something. So uh you you want to know where the weaknesses are so that uh you changing their mind, a is more effective, and two could be quicker, so you're not using as much energy doing that. So it is very interesting to hear that fact, like hear him say it so casually is that persuasion really comes down to changing people's minds, and it doesn't matter if you use facts or not.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Right. In fact, uh from what I can tell, you're you're better off if you don't.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, yeah, but because then it just gets to the point where you're like talking facts. It's like, yes, what what what do you expect the response to be? People are gonna either disagree or agree. But if it's factual, there's not too much you can go off of. You gotta go off of the emotional side or you know, uh go to people's confirmation bias or their their need to feel part of something or whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I did something weird in my uh rumble here and that put you off screen for a second. Um yeah, totally uh what what you say uh resonated with me quite a bit, um, and it really uh is a good segue into the topic um where Scott was talking about um when Trump was running in 2015 and or I guess he announced in 2015 and was running in 16. Um and he would make statements that uh would be maybe even somewhat absurd um with regards to the wall. And he was like, we're just gonna build a wall, big old wall, frickin' wall all the way across the whole country, you know, you know, and and people would start talking about the wall and like how, oh, that's not gonna work because you really can't put a wall uh across the whole country, because there's some places where that won't work, you know, and then there's other places where, you know, and blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. And the whole point was not necessarily that he he was coming through with with facts, but the statement itself and the way that he talked about it, and even uh some of the hyperbole uh that he would use um was enough to get people suddenly very interested in border security when they weren't necessarily before. Um and that's exactly what he wanted. So it was uh you can use language um and vocabulary um just uh in itself to get people talking about the things that you want them to talk about. The things that you think about, if I remember the statement, the things that you think about the most have the most power in your um in your life.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So no, definitely talking about people's reality shapes everything for that. But oh I'm getting distracted. The person in the chat made sure to say that the I'm double broadcasting. There's an echo coming from me. It's not coming from you. So I'm I'm I'm like, well, I don't know what to do. I'm only using one microphone.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

But there's a there's an echo obviously happening.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Strangely, yeah. I am not hearing that, but you might try a refresh um and see if that helps you real quick. Okay. Just in case. Thank you for alerting us to um that issue. Um, hello, hello. And I hear you there, but let's see, you did it correct?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I can still hear myself.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Oh. Well, it's um yeah, Steve, it doesn't have locals or rumble open. If you have a double browser open or anything like that, it might do it, but um I don't. Does it sound any better, um Chuck? I d I don't know if that's it.

SPEAKER_01 21:01

I can still hear myself echo.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

You can you can hear it, boy. What a pain in the butt. Um there is that uh control uh that I think we can try to echo cancellation and see if it for us.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

But it's been it's been on for me. Echo cancellation is on.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Okay. I think it's at a podcast level that I can maybe turn that on and off and stuff. So I was trying that just to see if it would let me do that for you. But um uh anyway.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Yeah, your audio did change a little bit, but I don't hear myself as much or at all.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Oh, so that might have helped you a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah, there's like a little uh like techno sound, like a little blip, but sometimes when I talk, but that's it.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Yeah. I uh yeah. He does say it's better, so that we we could probably at least uh keep going and at least uh it'll be a little bit more than that.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

We can move on. We'll clip that out. Clip that part out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

No, not That was such good stuff, man. Um, but we'll let you see what the video sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Uh yeah, hopefully the audio can be cleaned up a little bit post production.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Right. It's magic that we somehow uh have to come up with to see what we we can do. But uh yeah, for um the let's go ahead and uh we were talking a little bit about facts. Um I'm gonna read a little something here um that kind of just goes along with what you were talking about. Um uh it says facts are overrated and often irrelevant to persuasion, right? What we're just talking about. Um people notice and remember exaggeration or intentional wrongness. Do you do you remember what he was talking about intentional wrongness?

SPEAKER_02 22:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

A little bit you can you can actually you can actually make a yeah. Um you can make a statement that is directionally correct, but has a blatant error in it.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yes, okay. That's I do remember that whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah. Um, and authors uh sometimes Scott has said he even uses it in in his book. Um, so the you'll there'll be an error, and it'll like you're like, you what's that an error that does that doesn't read right? And it's like and it's like he did it on purpose because he wanted you to focus on that very thing where he put the the in the intentional error. Um that's clever. Uh that is very clever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

So the the the note that I took was exaggerate your guess or opinion in a factual direction, and then you let it sit with people, they work it out. They it's almost like you throw them this huge thing and let them eat away the fat that that they don't want, basically, and they'll work it out for you. But you you at least got them all talking about it, and because you exaggerated your opinion or the factual uh direction, you uh you just uh took it to the maximum degree and uh put it in front of everybody, and then they uh have to kind of chew on it and talk about it. So that that is very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

I would have never thought of that as uh you know on my own. Um and that's what's amazing about um when you when you read a book like this, you you learn things that you just never really even thought about before. And yeah, people who know it uh are and do it, it's trick of the trade. They they know exactly what they're doing when they do it, and most people don't even even know it's happening.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

It's crazy. It's it even it happens at work where people like uh leadership will say we have to do this thing by this date, otherwise it's drop dead. It's gonna die. And then that date comes and it's not there, and they're like, Oh, you know what? We have another year, we'll give it another year. Okay. Wait, what? Wait a second. What happened to this huge drop-dead date, and everyone was stressed out, and then all of a sudden, oh, don't worry about it. We have a year then in a year, we'll talk about if it's still not real yet. Uh then we'll talk about it in a year, but like we have a year. Like, oh my goodness. Well, good thing everyone lost 10 years of life because of the stress it created.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

They burned their lives out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

But but everybody knew that it wasn't like that that deadline or whatever wasn't gonna stick, but they pushed it that way. And it can it's like, okay, well, that's their persuasion to get you to do everything you can to move the milestone closer, knowing that the milestone will move, and you'll st but you'll still be pushing as hard as you can in the right direction. And right uh so there's different ways to do it. That doesn't feel the best, but it's no, it feels like manipulating persuasion we usually try to avoid, right? You you don't want things to backfire. Yeah, yeah, you want to be careful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah. Well, um, yeah, that's um, and I know the situation that you're talking about, very frustrating, uh, of course. Um, but um I guess yeah, and it can happen all the time.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

You know, it's there is a very real one happening right now, but you know, uh but it it'll happen again and it's happened before. So it it's this thing where you know you push, push, push for something that you know uh if you miss it, it's okay, but everybody's gonna push, do their best to hit the you know, the original goal. So exactly it's just it people can get burned out if you do it too much, but every once in a while you have to test yourself to see how good you are. But the but then it's like, okay, let's take a let's take a while to not do that again. Let's not do that too often.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

So uh I have to admit that it I was one of those people that just like it's never gonna happen, we're never gonna make it. I didn't push myself too hard.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

I think yeah, that there were people that kind of knew that, people that that didn't uh either didn't know it or didn't pay attention to that fact. But uh, you know, uh there's people that are just wired differently, and I think that uh uh some of this stuff, even at work in real life, everyday work everyday life, we're we're faced with things where we're gonna be persuaded potentially. Uh and it talks about uh Scott talks about that uh even people that know that we're are being persuaded, uh like it's totally okay. Like uh people can totally know that they're being persuaded and let it be done, let themselves be taken away, you know. It's like that's okay. But there's uh there's other times where uh you end up being swayed because of an emotional fact or something that uh is attached to maybe a close personal issue or a close personal uh event that happened in your life, and you might be persuaded because they play to that. And you know, so it it's all over the place and we deal with it all the time. It's just how do you react to that? Uh can really uh define your outcome. Like, how do you react to being persuaded? If you maybe you don't know, but uh it's more of like, well, how are you reacting? Something to definitely definitely keep in mind.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

So isn't that almost kind of like a hidden thing? We don't really talk about it because um you know, we're we're just always talking about how we want to learn persuasion, but isn't the other uh half of that um also knowing uh when we're being persuaded? Like yeah, so I I'm finding that part interesting because and we we did touch on this the other day, how like now that we're starting to read about and study some of this now, we are finding ourselves more in tune um with with those techniques, and we can spot them when we see them.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Yeah, yeah, definitely being made very aware of situations where persuasion or influence or leadership things are happening. You know, like, oh, I I can see this happening, it's happening right now. Like I'm living through the whatever I'm identifying, whether it's someone's being persuaded or they're trying to influence me a certain direction. Like, do I say yes? Do I resist? Do I ask questions? You know, you're right. Uh I can see that happening more in real time now, and I feel like I don't I think it's been helpful, it's helped me react better, although there are times where uh you know I might be stressed or thinking about something else and caught off guard, so that still happens.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Gotta be careful.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

I I I would say like um I enjoyed our our discussion a little bit on last week's show when we were talking about the different class of persuaders, because um uh we're we're at this very entry-level stage that I consider ourselves at, which is kind of uh the category of almost everybody else. Um in other words, you don't know a lot about persuasion. Um and then yeah, then there's like the well, okay, so we're we're more in the class of we're we're getting there.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

We're getting there.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

We're persuasion enthusiasts. That's uh what what we call those, right? And that's we we aspire. That's rung one on the on the ladder, right? And then you know you go to these other levels, and um I think um so the top level I I remember pretty easily because that's the master persuader level. Um and we talked last week about you know Madonna for whatever the the reason I have no, you know. Um and then there's the yeah, yeah. So and then what what was it? Uh it was a consumer commercial grade level persuasion or something. Do you remember commercial grade or yeah, that Scott put himself at or whatever. You know, um I all I could say is that um when when you get started, you're you're you're never gonna be like that high-level master persuader. Very few people ever get there. Um you might get really good at it, but it'll take a long time. I I expect it'll take us years before we would ever consider ourselves commercial grade or whatever that that level was. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, I kind of think about it in like sports terms where there's a lot of people that are really, really good at basketball, but there's only so many people in the NBA. And even within the NBA, there's only so many superstars, and it's just like no matter how good you get, there's only so few people who are these like masters of their craft, and and it's really hard to get there no matter what you do. But you can still be really good at several things throughout life. But uh, you know, hopefully those things get you somewhere, like socially or professionally. But you know, hopefully what hopefully what you choose to be good at gets you somewhere or you want to be, wherever it is you want to be. But uh I feel like influence and persuasion, this kind of stuff is definitely something that can be taken anywhere. It's not just like, oh, this gets me to a certain specific place in life. It's like, no, this can be used so many different cases. So it's more of like a life skill that you can put in your toolbox and pull out, you know, hopefully all the time.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Or uh it's part of your talent stack, right? Yeah. Yeah. So have all of the things that you can stack in there with your other things, uh, your social skills, your uh soft skills, things like that. Yeah, your um your talent or uh persuasion abilities. That's that's kind of what drew us, I think, is that we we kind of recognize that um it's kind of one of those things that would help no matter what job you're doing, um, or even it doesn't even have to be your career, but just an understanding how persuasion works is an excellent uh skill to have.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

So for sure. Yeah. Um it comes in handy all the time.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah. Um I didn't want to uh um put you on the spot. Did you have anything else from your notes that you thought might be uh fun to share?

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Uh I think we got through everything. I think the one thing we didn't talk about was that humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors. And he talks about in this first part, kind of between the pieces we've talked about. He talks about reciprocation, how people are just like uh uh hardwired to not be in debt. We've gone over reciprocation quite a bit, so I feel like it felt it felt very like okay, yeah, like I agree. It felt very factual. Yeah, he reinforces the uh the the ideas that we have talked about quite a bit extensively with the last book. So it was like, yeah, okay, cool. I can just roll with this. Like I know exactly what he's talking about. Uh it so I didn't take a ton of notes because it was reciprocity, like we talked extensively about that. So uh I didn't I didn't know that's the only thing I had. Otherwise, we we hit everything uh that I had notes for.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Um yeah, that's cool. Um, and I'll share um at least a couple of things that I had on my list too. Um so kind of at the end of the chapter, uh, there's about a five-minute uh and I whoops, not chapter, um the um uh the end of part one. About five minutes where he talks about persuasion vocabulary, and uh that uh so a couple of the things that he mentions are the persuasion uh filter, how people actually see events um through um influence techniques and not facts, like we were talking about. Um, and then um you mentioned the reciprocity um part of it, that was uh a piece of the persuasion vocabulary actually. Um and then the the human uh the humans reciprocate favors, uh, they trust confident people. So um that was a takeaway I actually remember um because even in uh if you um are not a confident person, um work on pretending to be confident, if that makes any sense. Because if you pretend to be confident, then you'll become confident, and people tend to trust confident people. Um so it's part of your persuasion and part of that stack, I think, that if uh if you're going to be effective at persuasion, then you have to also kind of build up those other skills. Um learn to speak, learn to you know debate, whatever you have to do, um join Toastmasters, um, come to do a persuasion duel with us sometime, maybe, you know. So um because uh those those are the kinds of things that are that are gonna help build that confidence, and people can tell when when you know another person is a confident person.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

So um yeah, yeah, I I feel like uh people respect uh even even if you're just quiet, sometimes people take silence as wisdom, a deep, deep thinker. And it's like, well, I don't even I just don't want to talk. But like I you you you get viewed as uh like this like wise person who's not being loud and and not uh being overly uh some people believe that the loudest gets the the loudest is best, the louder the better they get their way if they're loud. But some people have a confidence and it well, yeah. The the squeaky wheel definitely gets the grease or whatever. So uh you know there is behind that.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

The comp quiet confidence. What were you gonna say about that? That uh I understand what you're I think you're going with that.

SPEAKER_01 38:09

I I I just feel like uh there was someone there was a CEO of Nike wait back in the day, not that long ago, but back in the day, named Mark Parker, and he was super quiet, and it he never he didn't really like speaking, and it was kind of known that he didn't really like to do public speaking, but he was like a good leader, people really, really respected him, like people who knew him were very like uh super respectful, and uh the business did well when he was at the the head of the business, so that's also a good thing. But he was he was just someone who didn't really like to talk much, so and and like knowing that and then seeing how much he had to go talk and like watching him represent and speak, he came across very thoughtful and like you know, but but also quiet. And I think it's okay to be timid and quiet, and you can still lead like a boss, and you can still be effective and have influence, and you can have people's respect and and and lead it and influence that way by gaining the authority kind of piece of it, or you're the authority, even if you're not like this loud, crazy, eccentric person, you're just a normal, quiet kind of person, but uh you just have this uh amazing level of leadership or whatever it is that you do. So there's a lot to that. I always have respected that when people are kind of more of the quiet confidence, they listen, they don't overreact. Those kind of things have always been, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

Maybe more thoughtful, um, because they don't just open their mouth every time they get a chance. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe some microphone. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

I I I like I need to make sure I don't do that too. Which is why I respect it, because it's hard to it's hard not to run your mouth, it's hard not to say something. Like uh, especially when people are being stupid, you know, it's hard not to like just be a little bit toxic back and like somehow say something yeah ridiculous, you know.

SPEAKER_00 40:12

For sure. Um well uh I'm looking at the clock and I can't believe that we're so far into the show here. Um we'll probably just save any uh gameplay for after the show. Um but so far, um um I only had a few other things that I wanted to throw in there. Uh this conversation is fantastic. That's why I almost like I was wondering, are we even really going to get through this part um in one episode? We we could talk about this uh for a whole nother episode. So the takeaways um for for this would be um everything that we talked about tonight, and this would be the takeaway from uh part one um of this book is that that we have to first of all shift our view um from assuming that people are rational to assuming that people are mostly irrational. Um when once you do that, everything makes more sense. So right? Um yeah, um, and that's that's kind of scary because you know, we were talking earlier about how people um will have this cognitive um dissonance uh where they make things up in their minds to kind of fill in those gaps that don't uh align with you know and reconcile with their their worldview. Um but like you imagine like uh you know if if we're 90% irrational, then that means that most of the time the decisions that we make are just without thought. And and maybe we don't even justify them in the end. So how would you like your surgeon uh making 90% of their decisions based on rationalize that later on, man? Um so then the next uh thing was that persuasion beats facts. You talked about that, um, Steven, and from your notes, uh facts essentially are um actually essentially uh could work against you. Uh so yeah, really. So as you mentioned, use use emotion, um, use visuals. People um like visuals, um, that helps a lot. Um use simplicity. Um the simpler that you can make things, the better. Um once you start to over-explain um those kinds of things, uh just complicate and people shut down. So you want to keep it simple. Repetition is another thing. Um, and then repetition is another thing. Um so sorry. Wait, what was that? Wait, wait, one more time. Oh sorry, I had to go for the joke there. Repetition. Yes, you gotta use uh sometimes if you want to make a point. So, you know, like um, I don't know, Scott would do this one all the time. And uh if it could becomes a natural uh part of your speaking, then it can work because you can say when you really want to emphasize a certain point, um, when you get to that point, then you you say the point, and then you stop, and then you say, I'll repeat it again. You can even say, I'm gonna repeat it again, and then you make your point. Um when you do that, it's that pause and that repeat, people take notice. And so you can use that to you to your advantage. Um, it's a way to to bring focus to a certain part of uh your conversation. So um, okay, and then intentional wrongness. We talked about that, and then we also talked um, we didn't talk too much about two movies on one screen. Um, we did the other day um at work. We were we were kind of chatting about how that whole concept works.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Um I guess I could maybe but it didn't come up tonight, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yeah, it's it's definitely uh he introduces two movies on one screen in this part. Um so maybe I'll go ahead and touch on it real quick. Uh, but it's that whole idea that essentially um for any two people um that are given a a set of facts, um people will view those facts in different ways. And so it's and based again on their filters um and how they see the world, and the the filters could be their news, their friends, their so you know, whatever uh that influences them in their lives. And so you could with the very, very same exact same effects, you could have two different exact things going on in people's minds, two movies on one screen. So um, and that's true most of the time. Most of the time, like just Steven and I sitting here and and talking to each other. Um we're probably watching a lot of the same movie, hopefully, because we're doing this podcast together, right? But you know, like later on when we go to think about it, how that how did the podcast go, you know, and or whatever. And when we might have two different movies in our minds as far as like how this podcast went, you know, and then the same goes for for for life, and then recognizing that as a superpower, I think. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Yeah, I I feel like uh that that's a great it's a great concept, and it makes a lot of sense. When you apply it to things in your life, I feel like it will make a difference about how you see things. Uh they always say see it from another person's see it through someone else's eyes or whatever, walk a mile in their shoes. This is just an another way of doing that where you're realizing that, like, hey, we may be watching the same thing, but we have different trauma, so we're gonna process it differently. Like you know, like you and I have not been traumatized in the same exact way. So and and usually how we process things comes a lot from like either the really good moments in our life that where something went so well that we always recognize that kind of event as a positive thing, or it was so traumatic that anything related to that trauma is a super negative thing, you know. It's this balancing act of what's the mix of that. Is it all negative? Is it all positive? Uh there's a lot to consider. So sorry to go too far off the rabbit trail.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

No, that's not off the rabbit trail at all, it fits right in. Um I I would say the in addition to um two movies on one screen and understanding that being a superpower, um, you can take that a step further um by trying to uh if you're if you're looking um and want to change somebody's opinion, or what we're calling persuasion now, right? For changing somebody's opinion, then um the the thing that you want to do is you want to get and start figuring out what movie um is on their screen, you know. Like try try to just to get a yeah, what what is it that you're seeing there, you know, what's on your screen. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Yeah. When you see a crow, what's the movie that plays in your head? Is it the birds or or you know what plays, you know, what kind of thoughts do you have go through your head when you see a crow?

SPEAKER_00 48:01

So uh the practical tip for tonight then would be display confidence. Do that when you can, try, but I like the quiet confidence that Steven talked about. That can actually be effective too. Uh so they I appreciate you talking about that tonight, actually. Um leverage reciprocity, right? Because it works. It really does. Um and be genuine, of course, with your reciprocity. Don't just do it so that you can manipulate people into get getting what you want.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

But yeah, be people can sense a greasy salesman. So don't be don't be too greasy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Um, and let's see, make your messages simple and visual. Um, is the probably the other takeaway. So um, some simplicity rules in a world full of chaos. So um your persuasion um will definitely be stronger if you can keep it simple.

unknown 48:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Um great tips. Great tips. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Uh this was a fabulous uh first dive into part one. I don't know what you think.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Um yeah, this was really fun. It was a good conversation that somehow an hour just disappeared. It's gone.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Disappeared, yeah, just like that. Yeah. Um, so if you if you want, then we could go ahead and call it a show. We'll do a little after show. I don't know how long you have, um, but um I can guarantee people that if you stay for the after show, you'll get uh at least uh a good laugh by the time we sign off. Um I'm planning to debut. Oh, and Steven knows what I'm talking about here. Um do I?

SPEAKER_01 49:41

Oh, I'm just saying guaranteed a laugh. Better stay.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Guaranteed a laugh, yes. Um, maybe even kind of ties in with that that shitty joke that I told at the beginning of the the show. Um so yeah. It's um it's a reframe, it's a way uh it's a uh a way. Let's just put it this way you need to get inspired about life. Um, I have a song. It's even now you know the you you know the song.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

I know where this is going. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

Yeah, not not many people know, but that's for the after show. That's not an official part of Persuasion Club. This is just the fun. Stick around for that. Um, yeah. Um anyway, we'll go ahead and play off um and then hang out for the after show uh next week. What part part two? Part two.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

Uh yeah, we can if there's anything left in part one, we can finish that up and start part two. All right. Sounds good. Yeah, let's go through it.

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Yeah, uh, you know, there's only like four parts. Um, but I will tell you that I um was looking, uh I got a couple seconds here. Well, let me go ahead and do this uh for for folks. Um, just so you know what you're getting into with this book. Part one, um let's see, roughly about um I don't know, 50 minutes uh uh of the uh audio book. Part two, I think, is almost two hours. Um part three, I think, is almost it's longer than that, I think. So um part one, we uh it was pretty light. Uh it's yeah, as the book goes on, it uh building. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just just know that you're getting a lot, a lot of stuff. We we covered um and an hour was probably not even uh doesn't do it justice uh to talk about part one. But yeah, so we may camp camp a little bit more in some of the other parts, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

So okay, cool. We could always revisit parts of part one. I'm sure there's different things that'll come up.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah. I I was going to do, but uh because things were a little bit looser tonight, he actually I think does four four persuasion tips in part one. I didn't list them out. I think we covered some of them in some fashion or another, but I might actually come back next week and just make sure that we cover because like he has a whole set of persuasion tip. One, two, three, four, you know. Um, and we didn't we didn't call them out specifically like that, but um, I'd like to keep a running list and make sure people are getting all of the persuasion tips.

SPEAKER_02 52:23

Um yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Yeah. All right. Thank you folks for hanging out with us tonight. Uh, excellent show. Most of the stuff worked for the most part. Uh, we enjoyed our guest in the chat. Thank you, Chuck. Um, hopefully you join us in the after show, some fashion or another. Here we go. Playing off.

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Thank you all. Have a great night. Thanks, Kevin. I need just a few seconds, I'll be back.