Author: Parsing Persuasion

Recently, Kanye West created a stir when he retweeted several clips of one of Scott Adams’ periscope videos. This caused a huge amount of cognitive dissonance (i.e. “heads exploding”) in some circles and the anti-right twitter trolls went into overdrive attacking Adams and West.

Some of them screwed it up because they don’t understand persuasion.

For example, take this tweet by Jules Suzdaltsev:

Clearly this is an attempt to ridicule and discredit Adams. But look at the tweet and think about what you experience.

You see a 60+ man with a better physique than 90% of young men these days. Humans, like all social primates, respond unconsciously to displays of dominance because position in the social hierarchy determines mating opportunities. Alphas are particularly considered more credible and worth paying attention to than those lower in status. In the retweeted pictures Adams comes off as physically superior, one type of dominance display (others include displays of talent, wealth, wit, and authority). So by Suzdaltsev retweeting the pictures, Adams’ message of dominance and credibility has now been spread to Suzdaltsev’s 58,000+ followers.

Think about that again: Suzdaltsev got persuaded into spreading Adams’ message, while all the time, thinking that he was making Adams seem weaker.

Who was more persuasive here?

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If you came here from Twitter, feel free to go back and like the Twitter post because that lets others know what value you found here.

Via Scott Adams I recently learned of a new smart phone app that connects experts and those seeking expertise via live video. The app is named “Interface.” Adams is an investor in the company that makes Interface, and as a master persuader, I think it makes sense that anything he is involved with should have his persuasion fingerprints on it. And it does. Here are four ways the name is persuasive.

1. The app’s name is a verb and a noun at the same time.

You can open up Interface, and you can Interface with someone. This enables the app to occupy more “semantic positions” in people’s speech and in their thoughts. They can think about it, and they can talk about doing it. You can Google at Google.com. You can tweet on Twitter. You can Interface on Interface.

2. The verb describes in one word what the app does.

Minimal description is required, because the name itself provides a summary of its function. Interfaces connect things. In contrast, does anybody know what Zelle does? Or Bebo (what is that, a jazz music app?) Or Redfin ( … tuna?). A few early apps like Google defined their industries with nonsense words, but the days where that can happen are long gone.

3. The name has an existing usage, and the app’s usage leverages the existing connotation.

Interface is a business term. It is not slang or a nonsense word, or something odd. In the corporate world, people interface with customer liaisons all the time. The app will eventually take on the additional scope of the dictionary word already in use, leading people to think of the app for any interaction that could reasonably be called interfacing.

4. The name of the app has the potential to appropriate the generic term for the entire category of similar functionality.

This works because Interface is, as far as I know, the first app to offer this function, and has the previous three boxes checked. This makes Interface the default app for its function – the one people think of first. The semantic dominance wins market share in people’s minds.

So we can see that Scott did indeed make sure the name of his app was highly persuasive.

How can we use this information? DuckDuckGo.com, if you are reading this, you need to start popularizing the term “D-Go” to refer to searching on your site.

The Paraliminal series of personal enhancement sessions (which it’s no secret that I recommend) always consist of 4 tracks:

1. Intro and setting intention
2. Induction
3. Sleep Learning Track
4. Conclusion

Let’s walk through this format to understand better how it effectively engages our whole mind and body to make welcome changes in our lives.

Intro

To start, we bring our attention from wherever it was, to the subject at hand. The topic is introduced, with a lot of pacing, and a question is often asked to bring to mind what you want from this particular learning session. Doing so sets the intention and framing for the change work that follows, and allows a single paraliminal to be effective for many different aspects through repeated listening. Paraliminals usually take you through a process, so it is often useful to go through that process several times with different intentions. For example, the New History Generator takes you though a review of a past series of events to neutralize their negative emotions, so you could listen once for sad events, again for negative internal dialogue, a third time for when your parent did that thing that still affects you, etc. Each listen of Letting Go you can release a different burden. So each listen of a paraliminal should effect change and resolve a new aspect.

Induction

During this track we are comfortably led to a state of mind and body where our attention is highly focused, our body is relaxed, and our entire mind is engaged. This feels good!

Sleep Learning Track

Once we are experiencing a proper state, the sleep learning track uses that state to effect change. During this session, multiple voices will weave stories together. Each voice might have a complete metaphoric journey embedded with trance language, belief change work, resource gathering, positive suggestions, and other process language. One fascinating aspect is that the stories often converge and cross over, so instead of 2 sessions, we get 3 or more. The multiple voices can overload our conscious mind, which engages everything else available to us.

Here’s an example I just made up. First let’s read them one at a time.

L: “Once there was a traveler… who knew just where to go… to get the most benefit… for this time that you’ve set aside… now.”

R: “When you think about a special place… a place of relaxation… of healing and rejuvenation… a place you can go… now.”

Now let’s read them together.

Left voice	Right voice
Once there was a traveler…
	When you think about a special place…
who knew just where to go…
	a place of relaxation…
to get the most benefit…
	of healing and rejuvenation…
for this time that you’ve set aside…
	a place you can go…
now.	now.

Both voices say “now” at the same time, because when you give the mind instructions by this, you often need to tell them when to do it.

All of this works together, and it tends to feel fantastic!

Conclusion

This track comfortably and smoothly brings us back into a typical waking state. We integrate our new internal environment and come back “refreshed and ready to go!”

Nearly all of the paraliminals follow this structure, and by understanding the structure, we can better understand how they work to bring about changes you desire in your own life.

Now.