THE HARDEST PERSON YOU’LL EVER SEEK TO PERSUADE

Someone asked me recently about the newest Neuro-Semantic book, Inside-Out Persuasion, “Why did you write about that?” I asked, “You mean about the subject of persuasion?” “Yes, why persuasion? You already wrote Mind-Lines: Lines for Changing Minds, so why another book on persuasion?”

Now because the questioner was a Meta-Coach, I said “Because I want you persuasive. Then I added, “And I want you to be persuasive in a respectful and ethical way.” After all, that is a win for you and a win for me. As you enhance your skills of persuasion, you will be much more successful in getting clients, getting into organizations, and influencing the people that you need and want to influence. And that will open many doors of opportunity for you to make a difference for individuals, families, companies, etc. And that’s a win for me because your success is my success.

That immediately brought up another concern and the person’s second question, “You know I think I have a problem with persuading myself. There’s still some things that I know and believe in— things that I am still not doing.” My comment to that was, “Well, welcome to the club! You now know the hardest person of all to persuade!”

Strange? Well, let’s explore this idea. How are you at persuading yourself? How are you at getting yourself to do and follow-through on what you want to do? Ah, yes, the old knowing–doing gap again! We know what to do to improve our health, our fitness, our business, our relationships, our finances, our wealth creation, and on and on and yet how many of us also have a challenge in actually doing what we know we should do?

The principle here is this— if you can’t persuade yourself to do what you want to do—how will you be able to persuade others? How will you be able to positively influence those who you want to touch with the value that you can offer? In terms of persuasion, the first person to persuade then is you. So, how are you at that?

This also has other multiple applications and implications. One of the things that I found in modeling highly persuasive people is that the ultimate form of persuasion is character— and specifically being authentic. As examples of that, I wrote some brief descriptions of John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Winston Churchill. And yes, while they all also were skillful in their language skills, elegant in communicating inspiring ideas, and inspirational— they were best at persuasion because they were authentic. They were totally convinced about what they were saying.

“All of these masters of persuasion also operated from a solid ethical character. While they

had sweet words and elegant ways of speaking, they source of their influence was the character of their person— they lived in an inside-out persuasion. ... They persuaded by being an example of the meanings that they communicated.” (p. 17)

Here’s what I wrote in the Foreword of the book: “... self-persuasion comes first and perhaps I the most challenging form of persuasion. Self- persuasion also comes before self-leadership because if I cannot lead myself or manage myself about what I’m not convinced of, I will not be able to influence others.” (p. 7)

Yes, the hardest person that you will ever attempt to persuade is probably you! This explains why it is easier to intellectually know and understand something and to make a decisive commitment to act on what you know. “Knowing” is easy compared to acting. At the point where you act— consequences occur. Now you could not succeed, or you could find out that you were wrong, or you could not do it well. Maybe you will discover that you are incompetent. So it is very human to procrastinate, to put off, to study more. Questions: Given all of that, how are you at truly persuading yourself? Do you know how to best influence your own thinking, feeling, deciding, and acting? Are you actually persuaded about what you “know” you should do? If you are, then are you now acting on that persuasion? Would you like to be?

Interesting enough, the very term “persuasion” has within it the idea of thoroughness, “to thoroughly urge” someone to do something. Persuasion implies action and commitment. When we say that we have persuaded someone or that we are persuaded about something, there’s no longer any doubts or questions. We are sold on something. The communication process has reached a conclusion. When you persuade someone about the value of coaching, you know that they are ready to sign up. When you persuade a manager or leader in an organization, you know that you are getting in.

An interesting exercise for yourself, or for someone you wish to influence, is to make a list of the things that you know but do not do. You can even do this with an organization. We have had trainers go into companies and, using the whiteboards or flip charts in the training room, start making a list of all of the things that they have learned from trainings that have not been transferred to the work place. With a list of things that you know but do not do — you can now ask the persuasion questions: Are you persuaded about the value of this idea? How persuaded are you? Gauge your level of persuasion from 0 to 10. What doubts or questions do you have about this thing that you know? What stops you from making a decisive commitment to act on it? What do you need to persuade you to take effective action on it?

Now you know why I called it, inside-out persuasion. That’s where it starts.