E202 | Why Facts and Logic Don’t Change Our Minds

Why would someone continue to believe a false or inaccurate idea when you are presenting them with plenty of facts and logic? You could not have presented your points more clearly!

Your rationale is sound but perhaps it’s not the lack of supporting evidence failing to shift their point of view, but rather how you presented it…

On today’s episode, Brett is joined by Ali Kershner in-studio for a deep dive into the tactics that will help you get your point across more effectively and give you the best chance to change their behavior. 

Grab a pen and a notebook because this episode is hands-on and loaded with tactical information and strategies you can implement at work, home and anywhere you deal with people.  

You’ll learn:

• How to identify the areas you’re stubborn in and need to change
• The different types of persuasion and the impact of each
• How time can impact a person’s decision making 
• Gaining perspective through role playing
• The tactics and strategies behind our popular online courses and in person events that you can use to relate to the drive of the individual you are trying to convince 

Right now I’m offering signed and personalized copies of my book, Conscious Coaching for just $10 (50% off the Amazon price). Go to artofcoaching.com/book to get yours (supplies are limited)!

Quick shout-out to our podcast partner LMNT. LMNT is our go-to hydration product. With no sugar and no additives, LMNT is how I manage to maintain my voice when speaking for 16 hours and traveling every other weekend of the year. Right now, they are offering you a free 8-flavor sample pack (just pay $5 shipping) if you go to drinkLMNT.com/aoc!

You can see the full list of Art of Coaching Sponsors and find exclusive offers from each at https://artofcoaching.com/partners/

Brett Bartholomew  0:07  

It makes us feel anger, frustration, guilt, sadness, and sometimes even regret. Or put more simply, sometimes you just feel like banging your head against the wall is somebody you care about won’t change a behavior that is costing them their health, professional opportunity, or maybe even a valuable relationship. You know, there’s a fact of life here that at some point, almost all of us, I’m going to say all of us are going to try to get somebody to change their mind about something, literally. And if you don’t like that phrasing, okay, maybe you’re just trying to get them to consider an alternative perspective. You’re not shooting for foolproof behavior change, but just the consideration of an alternative issue. 

 

Now, sometimes we’ll be successful at this, but the majority of the time we’re going to fail, even if no, especially if we lean on logic or facts to reinforce our points. Why is that? Oh, part of it is personal change is difficult and rare. For example, 2015 article on Forbes mentioned that US dieters spend $40 billion a year, but 19 out of 20 of them lose nothing but their money. Two years after a coronary bypass surgery to save their lives and 90% of patients are back to their old health behaviors and a personal favorite that the article adds two out of three people cannot even get themselves to floss. Now you might be looking at yourself I know I certainly do. There’s plenty of behaviors. I’m not perfect. And that’s not the point today. Today’s episode is all about why logic, information, facts and other forms of rational persuasion often fail when you’re guiding, leading coaching somebody, and more importantly, what can you do about it. So whether you’re a teacher, a manager, a coach, and IT professional doctor, or lawyer, our conversation today is going to have something for you. Now, I want to start off with this as well. These are things that we specialize in at art of coaching, we’ve learned a lot of this stuff the hard way, a lot of it is the core of my doctoral work, and my next book, so if you are interested in these things, make sure you go to artofcoaching.com/events that is where you’re gonna see our upcoming workshops, both domestically and internationally, they’re added all the time. So you want to be on our newsletter. But specifically, we have an event in Cranford, New Jersey coming up January 22, and 23rd, we are going to be other places in the US we have a tremendous event going on in Atlanta, if you’re somebody that is interested in building your brand, or your business or your coaching profile, and you’re somebody that wants to help somebody with this. But if you are frustrated about these kinds of things at all, and you’re trying to change behavior, please please, please go to artofcoaching.com/events. Check out the dates, check out what we’re doing, we are all over the globe. 

 

Also, we are in the final days of our promotion where you can get a signed and personalized copy of my book conscious coaching for just $10 plus shipping. That is a reduction of Amazon’s price of $25 depending where in the world you are. So go to artofcoaching.com/book and we’ll get one out to you. This is December 31. And yes, it is signed by me. There’s no stamps. If you follow my instagram at all, you’ve seen pictures and videos of me my wife, Ali Kershner, our colleague, and even my son is signing books, putting the addresses on the envelopes go into the post office. That is something that we’re super overwhelmed by your support. And we appreciate you guys and we love doing this. I also want to thank our sponsors today, make sure that you go to drinklmnt.com/aoc for art of coaching, to learn more about our primary sponsor now LMNT, this is really simple guys. You know, I speak all around the world all coach, I sweat a lot, I fly a lot, I am dehydrated a lot. And I was always very frustrated with a lack of healthy hydration options on the market. And that is something that Rob was the co founder of LMNT talked about as well. So LMNT has more of the good stuff really just what you need sodium, potassium, magnesium, and a lot less of the dodgy stuff. There’s not a whole lot of us that need more sugar in our diet. And no, I’m not some weird like person that’s on some hyper restrictive diet. But we all need to be mindful of what we’re putting into our body. We’re big about cutting the BS at art of coaching LMNT is big about cutting the BS with their products. So check it out, you take these pouches, you throw them in your travel bag, super easy, no mess, no fuss, anything like that. And this discount is exclusively for the art of coaching community, so make sure to check them out. For the rest of our sponsors. Make sure you go to artofcoaching.com/partner and you can learn more about what all of our great sponsors allow us to do, which is bring you guys this kind of information for free. Alright, without further ado, let’s get in today’s episode.

 

Welcome to the Art of coaching podcast, a show aimed at getting to the core of what it takes to change attitudes, behaviors and outcomes in the weight room, boardroom classroom and everywhere in between. I’m your host, Brett Bartholomew. I’m a performance coach, keynote speaker and the author of the book conscious coaching. But most importantly, I’m a lifelong student interested in all aspects of human behavior and communication. I want to thank you for joining me. And now let’s dive into today’s episode.

 

All right, everybody, welcome back. Ali Kirschner, welcome back.

 

Ali Kershner  5:54  

I’m live in studio today 

 

Brett Bartholomew  5:56  

live in studio we are doing at the time of this recording, at least I don’t know when you guys are listening to it. We are doing our year end reviews. So Ali, who lives in Palo Alto is down in Atlanta, Georgia for some year and meetings, reviews. Basically trying to figure out our lives for the new year. Anything I missed there?

 

Ali Kershner  6:15  

No, that’s, that’s about it. But it’s super fun to be doing it live.

 

Brett Bartholomew  6:19  

For sure. And for those of you interested in kind of, we definitely have a nerdy audience in a good way. They always want to know, how do you structure this? How do you structure that. So maybe we can do a future episode on that, like, give you a little bit of a glimpse, we always start these things with themes. And these themes could be performance reviews, they can be really understanding wins and losses from the previous year, what we want to do the next year, but what we do is we always try to break up the day, we always try to make sure that there’s some kind of leisure something that if you guys haven’t heard my previous episode, values based productivity, you know, I always talked about instead of this big to do list or this big calendar, I always try to cover something physical, spiritual, whatever that means for you financial relational. So tonight, we’re actually because it’s been such an intense week of meetings. Tonight, we’re going to go see an improv comedy show downtown. While in downtown Atlanta. Have you ever been to an improv show?

 

Ali Kershner  7:10  

No, I’ve been in a comedy show. Are we going to be up on stage? Are they going to invite us up?

 

Brett Bartholomew  7:14  

Depends if it’s amateur night, I mean, you’re definitely going to be up on stage. We’ve already called them ahead of time and let them know that we’ve said that it’s your birthday, and all that kind of stuff. So they’re going to bring you up. I don’t know, I shouldn’t have told you that. 

 

Ali Kershner  7:24  

But we aren’t amateurs. We’re professional. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  7:26  

We are. We are professionals. All right. Diving into it today, guys, really straightforward. Hopefully, this is one of the most tactical shows you have. I understand some of you might be used to the NPR narrative, where cue the music, and then cue this and cue that and there’s some enticing story to kind of bring you into it. Not that kind of episode. Because we have so many people that reach out to us that say something along the lines of, hey, I’m trying to help blank, do blank so that they don’t blank. And even when I give them the facts, or I try to coach them, or I try to use reason and logic, it just doesn’t seem to work. What I do, we also get people that talk about somebody difficult that they might work with somebody they might love. We had somebody recently that even told us about, hey, I work with my father and my father coaches this way. And I believe in coaching that way. And no matter what research I try to show my father, it’s just creating more of a rift between us. So the overall theme today is centered around why logic doesn’t change somebody’s mind. Why reason? Why expertise, why credentials, why research, why facts tend to not change somebody’s mind, and also what to do about it. And that’s where Ali and I think that we really are we strive to differentiate ourselves. I think many of us can relate to podcasts or articles, we read that tell us about all these forms of biases, all these other things, but then you kind of get done listening to it, or reading it and you think, great, so what do I do? I mean, can you relate to that? Ali?

 

Ali Kershner  8:54  

Yeah, I mean, so it’s funny, I was actually gonna tell his story, but I was conditioned to use logic growing up, because my family, if you have a decision coming up, you have to make a spreadsheet of pros and cons. And if you don’t have a spreadsheet, well then you can’t propose your decision or you can’t ask for help from you know, your parents. And so I was always like, I was armed and ready to go I had my evidence. I had my citations for why I needed the car this on Saturday night to take out my friends. And so it’s funny that Well, I don’t know why all coaches are like this, but I know why I’m like this why I try to use rational persuasion and logic and all my arguments is because that’s how I always was successful as a kid if I wanted something I knew I had to come with facts.

 

Brett Bartholomew  9:44  

Yeah, well, I know that you’re alone because when I dove into you know a lot of research about this stuff and it could easily be a three hour episode but don’t worry guys, we’re not going to do that. Ali’s not alone in that are most of our traditional schooling and I guess I shouldn’t say most of ours. This is an international we generally up People that tune in for more than 200 countries but in the West, in America, a lot of times you are taught and whether it’s in speech class or language arts or something like that, or even mathematics, this whole idea of show your work, prove your logic, get up there and explain it create a persuasive appeal. I think I had one course on that in college, and it was all about state your case. I mean, this is debate class, this is all these things. And and the issue is, is more than 70% of decisions are made on emotions alone, I think, you know, a great resource for those of you if you haven’t read it is De Cartes error, Antonio Damasio, Dr. Demacia, is somebody we cite frequently in our research, for his work on drives. And this idea that all the way going back to prior to me writing conscious coaching, I had a presentation called the impact of influence. And it goes into this idea that, you know, most people thought that when we make a decision, it’s the prefrontal cortex. It’s the rational part of our brain to oversimplify. But in reality, it’s the limbic system that is always whispering subconsciously. And there’s, there’s entire books written about this. But the bottom line is, most people in real life tend to make a decision with their emotions, and then they back it by logic 

 

and your right Ali. A lot of people that gravitate to analytical science based fields or even leadership based fields, because they love facts, they love logic, they love learning the why, right, we’ve all heard this, start with why start with why start with why then they do it to other people. But the golden rule is horseshit. Frankly, like you, you do not treat other people how you want to be treated. Because just because you’re analytical, just because you might like facts and logic, and you’ve been brought up, not everybody’s like that, you know, can you think of a friend or an example or an athlete? I mean, you were national championship award winning strength coach, can you think of somebody you’ve worked with, or even a family member where no matter what kind of logical appeal or research you gave them, that just wasn’t the case?

 

Ali Kershner  11:58  

I mean, I think I can probably, I think it’s better if I just share an example of a time that logic didn’t work on me. And I’m one of, if not the worst offenders of using logic to try to convince somebody. So like you, but in a different way, I also struggled with an eating disorder. And, you know, as a coach, you’re the one that’s supposed to be super knowledgeable about nutrition and exercise, and the right moderation of each, right. And I found myself in a really horrible position where I let that get the best of me. And I can tell you, bar none, if somebody had come to me and said, Hey, this is, you know, like, I can tell, I can see you’ve trended down and weighed and, you know, this is not healthy. And, you know, the facts and eating disorders and all that stuff, I would have laughed, I would have looked at them uncomfortably, and I wouldn’t have believed them, I certainly wouldn’t have changed my behavior. But the person that ended up first identifying this and getting me out of it appealed to my emotion. And that was, I think, in that will be something we’ll talk about is like, the key to getting somebody out of this is understanding that what got them into the place that they’re at is a combination of many things, baggage brought forth, right? The stories you tell yourself about what’s actually happening to you, you know, all the things that are happening in your mind that are not public knowledge that nobody else can tell you. And so if they just see this very, you know, they look at you on paper, and they’re like, why see this, and this, and this, cause this, they’re not in your life. And so trying to use logic to convince you to change your behavior when they aren’t in your head is not going to work. And so the person that, like I mentioned, got me out of this basically just called me on my bullshit and said, Look, I’m your friend, I know you’re not okay. Let’s talk about this. And even though she was a registered dietitian, and very knowledgeable about the subject matter that we were talking about, she did not use that at all. And that’s exactly why was effective.

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:04  

Yeah, and I appreciate you sharing that story. Because even, that’s an example of, you know, storytelling. And examples are a piece there that we love stories, because they appeal to our emotions. There’s a sense of cognitive ease, and it surprises me how many people have read books, you know, they’ll always be like, Oh, have you read Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow system one, system two, but then these are also the same kinds of folks that say, why won’t somebody listen to me when I’m doing I’m like, listen, because the way you convince somebody if something has to be easily digestible, and communication already starts from a place of misunderstanding, and people already are gonna follow this path that they’re down, right? We know, confirmation bias, my side bias. And for you guys, even as listeners, you know, even when we contemplate of how to do these episodes, because understand that there’s a lot of degrees of freedom. I have an entire online course that talks about influence and persuasion and bought in, we teach workshops on it. So what I’d asked you to do is I could sit there and go through all that information, or I could give you a great example by doing this, 

 

Think of something right now in your life that you know you should do, whether it’s getting more sleep, or even if you’re somebody that’s followed us and you’re like, Oh, hey, man, I want to get to one of your events, I want to do this. Or maybe you should exercise more, maybe there’s somebody that you know, you should say sorry, to, maybe you should say I love you, whatever it is, guys, I could care less. But there’s something you know you should do. And there’s many reasons, logical reasons and facts in which you should do it, say saving for retirement, and you do not. So I would say, if Ali and I sat here, and we told you all the reasons you should do it, let’s just pick an example. Like, maybe you should get more sleep than we tell you. Hey, did you know sleep does this and if you do that, and you could lose fat, and you could get stronger? Guess what? If those things don’t matter to you, you can make better decisions, you’ll be cognitively just sharper, is that automatically going to make you change your behavior? 

 

An example that I share is my mom will call and she’ll say all your uncle’s out this again, he’s doing this and he’s doing that. And I go, Well, Mom, you kind of complain about him a lot. Well, yeah, he won’t change his behavior. And I go, Well, Mom, is there anything you’re really stubborn on? You know, what are you not doing? And she’s like, well, that’s different. I go, is it? And she’s like, Well, yeah, I know, I need to get to the gym. But he needs to cut these kinds of people out of his life. And I go, no resistance to change his resistance to change. Right. And if you guys have listened to the podcast for a while, we have previous episodes all about that. We also have it on brettbartholomew.net, the reasons why people don’t change, brief reminder, right? There’s, tradition, some people just believe what they’re doing is working, there’s suppression people can feel threatened by the individual that’s asking for the change to happen. There’s suspicion, you just don’t believe that. And maybe in that case, you do need more facts. There’s perception. There’s all these other reasons. But the point is, is if you just keep coming out these folks, it’s not gonna matter. Most people don’t change until they have to now relax. We’re gonna give you ways that you can alter this, but I just want you to look inward as a listener, and think, where am I being a pain in the blank? And why won’t I change? Why am I not doing this? What convenient excuses are you making for yourself? Because that, and your inability or unwillingness to change, even if somebody gave you logic is a key example. Ali, I’m going to turn that to you. Where is something that you know you’re stubborn about and that you need to change? And that really, you’re not even changing right now?

 

Ali Kershner  17:26  

So that’s a great question. I think there are a number of things, I think one is I’m not super forthcoming, I tend to listen and wait and just kind of bide my time. And almost to the point where I’ve had friends literally say to me, Hey, we want to hear about your life. And I think I wasn’t raised this way. But I internalized this message this way, which was that to be humble, people shouldn’t hear from you. You should just ask people about themselves. But really, I’m kind of doing everybody a disservice by not sharing anything about myself. Because then one, as we’ve talked about, it kind of comes across as like conniving or sneaky sometimes. And that’s certainly not my intention. And even when I know that I need to change, I know the good reasons about sharing more about myself and how that’s actually a way to gain influence and gain powers by actually speaking up more and sharing and being a little bit more vulnerable. I still don’t do it just because it’s super uncomfortable. And it’s just not natural. And I think that’s the probably the easiest thing, the easiest example I can think of I mean, there’s certainly many, many things more than I should change. And if you asked my family members, I’m sure they would have a whole laundry list. But that’s the one that comes to mind first,

 

Brett Bartholomew  18:41  

yeah. And I think that’s, I think there’s gonna be a lot of people that can relate to it. And for those of you that have read conscious coaching, you know, one thing we talked about in the book that can help you orient yourself is central versus peripheral routes of persuasion. Now unconscious coaching, I use the term talking in color to speak to the use of metaphors and analogies and and some easy homework for you guys to do. And Ali and I are gonna do this again today as well is watch a commercial, listen to a commercial pay attention to things that you see on TV, and think about which ones are trying to convince you to buy something because, oh, it’s the best or they’re trying to tell you about you know, all the other reasons it will save you money it will save you this and then think of the ones that are trying to convey emotion. You know, a popular example that I’ve mentioned, I think on a previous podcast is apple at a commercial for an iPhone at one point in time, and what it showed was a teenager and it was during the holidays. And instead of being with family he was he was sitting there on his phone videotaping everything or texting it looked like he was texting. And you know, it showed a snowball fight. It showed them eating dinner. It showed them wrapping presents. It showed them unwrapping presents, rather. And eventually they were you know, they’re all just like, Oh, he’s not paying attention, put the phone down this and that. And at the end, he had basically air played a video to a screen in there, and all this time, they thought he was texting all day, it’s time they thought he was being detached from family. And then he had created this really intricate and ornate video of everything that was going on during the holiday. The snowball fight, he captured his sister doing it, everybody smiles when they’re unwrapping gifts. Apple never talked about the iPhone, they never talked about a feature, they never talked about the price, but they hit you right in the heart. And that is an example of a peripheral route of persuasion. 

 

So just to stay on that track, right a central route. And that is when you have an audience member that is very motivated and analytical. Right? These are people that they’re, if you want to say their communication, love language, right is yes, I want facts feed me facts. If Ali and Ali, we are both like this to a degree, right? We enjoy the research, we enjoy detail. So I’m going to say that. But this central route, this logic base route, from a processing standpoint, requires high effort. And that’s why they have to be motivated. Think of it like a satellite Tower, or like you guys are trying to get a strong signal. And you have to tune into just the right frequency get to the top of the hill for that sound wave to come in. This is higher cognitive processing, going back to system and one two you know, and then the impact on persuasion. Well, I mean, that’s usually lasting change in attitudes, right? Like, it depends on the individual and how motivated they are to change. But generally, those people are more motivated. A peripheral route, is how you can kind of convince somebody or engage them or start to get them down that path of persuasion. If they are not motivated, they are not highly analytical. I think about this with certain athletes that I’ve coached, they didn’t want to hear about the joint or the shin angle, they didn’t want to hear about the biomechanics of a lift, they had just come off of injuries. And they wanted to know how is this going to help me make more money? How is this going to keep me from being on the IR for those of you that aren’t strength coaches, that the injured reserve less, right, like everybody knows an example of this, you might be in the medical field, and a patient doesn’t really want to know, hey, you have a 72% chance of this or that? When am I going to be able to pick up my granddaughter again? When am I going to be able to get out and walk and rake leaves? So anyway, you peripheral is more efficient when you have somebody that wants, you know, big picture relational metaphors. And you know, this is a lower effort because stories and metaphors and analogies, that doesn’t require a lot of right, a higher level reason. 

 

And this is why even it’s been around for 1000s of years, humans have not always been so cognitively evolved. So stories and nursery rhymes and all that was an easy way to inculcate those examples. Now, peripheral can Some research suggests, be more of a temporary change in attitude. For those of you that are nodding your head before I turn it back to Ali, and you’re like, Oh, yes, yes, yes, I’m going to challenge you again, because many of you are analytical. But if I told you to stop right now, right now and take the most stubborn person, you know, who is not responding to logic or reason. And then think of at least five examples of peripheral routes of persuasion? How you could stoke their emotions, a story, you could tell them four or five different analogies related to what am I trying to say? How could I say it differently? Talking in color, I bet you’d struggle. And that is not myself, nor Ali, saying that you’re not good. As a communicator, we’re saying this is hard. But I need you guys to quit pointing the finger at why somebody else is not convinced or change and actually look at yourself of why you’re not being as strategic or the effective of communicator as you could be. 

 

Now, Ali, I know you, you talk about this a lot at our clinics. We talked about the 3000 year old kind of Aristotle principles of persuasion, right, the higher level category things now there’s three that are famous that I’d love for you to go into. And then what’s one that he never really mentioned? That is another thing that most people kind of forget about whenever they’re trying to convince somebody.

 

Ali Kershner  24:06  

Yeah, well, it’s interesting. I think you’re referring to like social proof and those kinds of things. Is that correct?

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:13  

Yeah. Well, like the whole idea of social proof you’re spot on, like ethos, right? That is or that that is a part of, or sorry, pathos, that is a part of pathos that emotion social proof when we see other people that are doing something that Stokes our emotions because we want to be like them, we have a sense of belonging. Right. So we’ve already tipped the audience off on one logos. And then of course, the emotion piece which social proof is a part of that pathos. And then what’s the one for credibility that we know people lean on a lot as well? 

 

Ali Kershner  24:44  

Oh, ethos,

 

Brett Bartholomew  24:45  

Right. And that is like, Hey guys, which is very much tied into Logic still, right? That is, hey, I’m an expert in this or hey, this person played in the NFL or this person is as a medical resident here or this person is a five star general or this person, whatever. For some people, it doesn’t even have to be a title. Some people, especially in the social media era, are given this kind of ethos based credibility, because they have six pack abs, right? And then we have people that don’t even know anything about the body or training and everybody’s listening to them, because they have six pack abs and all these things and they think, oh, this person because they’re ripped, you know, they may be able to tell me that, what is another one that you think people always forget about? Even if they were to knock it out? And they say, Oh, Breton Ali, you know, I do appeal to emotion. I do appeal to credibility. I do appeal to logic, I try to kind of mix and match because I know that some people want a variety. What’s another one that people tend to forget about? Even if they get all those? Right?

 

Ali Kershner  25:40  

Well, the one that I didn’t even know about until we talked about it was Kairos, which was timing, which is and I think this came up because somebody asked us, do you think that everybody is coachable? And you said, well, that reminds me, we don’t often talk about this one. But it’s Kairos. And which is, you know, like, yes, everybody’s coachable. But in the right time, everybody’s receptive to some sort of change, or some sort of suggestion towards change. If it’s the right time, the right context, right settings, the right person. I mean, I think that’s, I think everybody can think of an example of a time where I’ve literally it’s the phenomenon of if your mom says something, if your dad said, suddenly, you should do this, you should do that. They’re not gonna listen. But if your uncle cool, Uncle Bob says something, then you’re suddenly like, Yeah, I’ll do the dishes. That seems cool. And Uncle Bob says to do it,

 

Brett Bartholomew  26:26  

cool. Uncle Bob is always very persuasive. And another example of guys of where I even I fail at this is, here’s an example of where logos fails for me, right? Going back to conscious coaching. I wrote this book in 2017. And the goal was to teach people a little bit more about human behavior. And, you know, in that I talked about, you know, what is buy in? Because we had some curmudgeons that were like, Oh, why don’t you just say trust. And we talked about buying as trust plus commitment. But when it comes to building trust, when it comes to removing obstacles, so people will change their behavior, and they’re more likely to listen to you and all that, we said that, listen, there’s a couple of things that you need to understand, as a leader, as a communicator, First, understand what goes into trust, understand what goes into human relationships, the complexity between them, humans are complex adaptive systems, right, we can never really predict them. And then social intelligence. Well, we call now social agility. 

 

But to go back to Ali’s point, Kairos. The other part of what I told people, right then was time, and if you have the book handy, it’s right there on page 10. I told people, literally, you can do everything under the sun, right. But there are certain people that will only change on their time, it is not under your control. And that’s why Ali and I have no tolerance for people out there being like, I’m gonna give you the six principles of this is the seventh, this is the magic trick for that. I know, there’s gonna be some people that your dad might not listen to you, unfortunately, until they’ve had a stroke, the an athlete might not listen to you until they pull their hamstring. Sorry, I just pumped Ali, if you’re watching us, I tend to shove her and we get in a little boxing match. There might be somebody that doesn’t save for retirement until finally, I don’t know unfortunate, maybe their significant level other left them, their significant lover, their significant other left them because they were putting them in tough financial constraints. Guys, once again, just think right now be self reflective. When Was there something that you thought was no way? No chance couldn’t be? I don’t believe it, you’re full of it. But then as time passed, you matured. You learned some hard lessons. And you changed, right? That’s that whole idea of preach the gospel, use words if necessary. 

 

What that means is, there’s sometimes nothing really needs to be said, you just need to wait. And you need to pick your shot Ali. Are there examples of things that I can think of one and I’m not looking for you to read my mind? But are there things either in our relationship how even felt about selling more in art of coaching when he first came from strength and conditioning? Were just things feel free to use any example of your life where time made all the difference? Yes, like this change me. There was no magnificent rhetoric somebody gave me there was no magic word. It literally was just time.

 

Ali Kershner  29:15  

Yeah, well, I think the clearest example and one that I was actually going to bring up even before you suggest that so I think our minds are finally in tune after spending five days here, but it was I mean, I was conditioned again by the environment in which I grew up in. And probably also the environment of strength and conditioning contributed to this, which was I always thought of selling as a bad thing. And just the word selling like, you know, I think selling is very similar to well, a lot of things that we do but when it’s called selling for some reason I had this like negative reaction to it. And it wasn’t didn’t you know, even when you said Well, hey, now like listen, like selling is, is really just providing a solution to somebody that needs something right, especially if you believe in what you’re selling. I think that’s ultimately What drew me to the sales of what we do is because when I pick up the phone, I’m not trying to sell a scrubba. I mean, I’m not sorry, a scrub daddy, which is the, the little sponge that looks like a face. We love scrubba, by the way, if you guys haven’t heard of us already rave about them scrub us amazing. But like if you’re trying to sell a product, which to me has no emotional resonance. That’s different. But the sale of something that you truly believe in is so different. And it took me a while and I had to actually do it, I actually had to get on the phone and be like, You know what, this actually, this doesn’t feel so schemee It doesn’t feel so kind of gross and slimy as the picture that I had in my head, right, Brian and all this baggage. You saying? Hey, well, you know, listen, sales is not that bad. Oh, still like, okay, whatever, dude. And then when I actually got on the phone and did it, and I was like, Oh, that wasn’t it wasn’t so bad. That’s, I think a perfect example of experience and timing come into play when it’s changing in terms of changing somebody’s behavior.

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:57  

Yep, spot on. And I think you know, another thing that one that I think of in particular is, and this is a sad one is we had created a product that, you know, we would get all these trainers, coaches that would say, Hey, I don’t know what to charge for my time. I don’t understand why I’m struggling in this. I feel burnout. I love what I do. But I don’t feel appreciated. I feel undervalued all these things. So we created a resource for that, right? You guys have heard me talk about it enough. You probably want to punch me in the face. It’s called valued. And it was basically this sonnet of saying, like, hey, if you’ve ever felt taken for granted, and you feel like you’re in this field, where you can grind, grind, grind, but you just struggled to kind of ever make it to the top. And sometimes you’re not even sure what you need to improve in, because you’re not getting feedback and all this, what do you do, and despite people saying they wanted it, you know, at first it kind of sold in a pretty underwhelming fashion. But then COVID hit. And when COVID hit a lot of these folks got furloughed, a lot of people started thinking about other things, they were asked to do things that their job they weren’t comfortable with. We had streamed coaches being like, Oh, I kind of want to do this. But I don’t want to do digital courses. I don’t want to do digital, this I don’t want to do online programming will COVID hit and then they’re asked to do those things for their job, you know, because these athletes couldn’t come in. And so now they had to work on digital resources. And then they realized, hmm, this isn’t so bad. And then sales spiked. And I asked some folks, I said, Listen, you were a heavy critic of me in the past, and I welcome that. But what made you all of a sudden take to our stuff now and they’re like, You know what, I just realized that I was kind of blindly loyal to an organization that wasn’t really loyal to me. And that is not something we take a lot of pride in. That’s something that you just kind of feel like to me, I think of my son, I’m going to tell him don’t drink and drive don’t do these things. But unfortunately, there’s going to be a time where he’s going to have to get really scared, he’s going to have to get really scared and that’s what’s going to change it. 

 

And for those of you that don’t know about it, I have an entire presentation that’s free. It’s a 60 to 90 minute presentation, I gave it the old Kobe Bryant, you know, recipes not not being funny, very serious, right? He owns something called the mamba Academy. And I spoke on creating the optimal coaching environment. And this applies whether you’re a CEO, a dad, anything like that, you just have to be somebody that learns laterally. If you just go to artofcoaching.com/optimal, you’ll see it, but we talk about how to coach teenagers. And this goes back to again, the prefrontal cortex, rational logic seeking part of their brain isn’t really developed until 25. And so we have a slide there that you can tell a kid not to climb a fence and a no trespassing. And then there’s an alternative slide. And there’s research. This is an extreme example. But there’s research that shows other examples where it says, Hey, high voltage area, no trespassing, you will die and you will, this will hurt the entire time you’re dying. The point the researchers were making is the more extreme the messaging the more that emotional piece, right, that pathos, the more that you continue to, like, that’s what’s going to hit them because they’re already risk seeking highly confident little in grades. And you look like you have some of that to share some here.

 

Ali Kershner  33:55  

No, I have a great story. And I hope, I hope my brother and my dad are listening to this. So on that point, exactly. As I mentioned, my parents were the my parents wants an engineer. And once Well, they’re both entrepreneurs, but once a software engineer, once a consultant, and as you can imagine, the spreadsheets were all over the place, and especially when it came to learning about saving money.

 

And I remember, this one day, my dad, you know, he had this like whole, you know, like, it was like a wooden board and it had like, it was like an adequate. What’s it called abacus or an atom? You know, I’m talking about like, where Yeah, Abacus, I think where you can like, you know, show the the change in money and all these things. And he was trying to show us the importance of saving. And you know, my brother who’s two years younger than me, and he was uh, he was a little shit when he was younger. But he would totally agree with that, by the way. He was like, yeah, yeah, whatever my dad had like this elaborate plan where if you save $20 By the end of the month will match it and all that. Anyway, that’s just context for the story that I’m about to tell, which is that one time we were on a family vacation, and my dad and my brother were walking by this lagoon And in the middle of it lagoon, which for those who don’t can’t picture a lagoon, right? It’s like this marshy, disgusting. There’s like algae completely covering the top. Like just like gross mud that your foot would sink into. There was a soccer ball out in the middle of the lagoon, and my brother goes, betcha 50 bucks, you won’t go get that soccer ball. And my dad was like, all right. But before even the bet term was popular. My dad takes off his shoes and his socks very deliberately crawls over the fence, goes out into the middle lagoon gets a soccer ball brings it back. My brother goes, Oh, my God did it Oh, my God, he like reaches for it. My dad says, Oh, no. So he comes back, the next day pulls out the spreadsheet that he had created for about saving money. And he goes, crosses out all the money that my brother had earned, put a big red 50 and said, Here you go, you’re working backward from here. And suddenly my brother was like, I get it, and I get money. And I get saving and the emotional, just like storytelling of that was so ingrained in his brain, that from now, like up to this day, we still tell the story about my brother, betting my dad $50 to get the soccer ball. And that is the change in behavior. And now my brother’s obviously very smart with money. But, you know, that was I truly believe that that was what got him to change his behavior more so than any amount of you know, facts and figures my dad could have ever presented because

 

Brett Bartholomew  36:27  

your dad could buy him all these books. And that’s a great example of that, that, quote, experience isn’t something you get till just after you needed it. And that goes back just you know, reiterating the classics of and something even Aristotle knew persuasion cannot occur in the absence of emotion. Because even if those facts are kind of hanging out there, it’s emotion that encodes it, right? And think about guys, when you’re intimate with somebody, think about all these things, think about what the effects songs and lyrics have on you, right? Those invoke emotions that give you know, stronger, more vivid memories. Now, I want to just talk to you guys real firm, in a very frank way for a moment. This is why we teach improv and role playing at our apprenticeships. And you know, most of you, followed us for a while some of you might take this as a sales pitch, it’s just really not, we can tell you, we can do a million episodes, I can do a million tweets, a million Instagram posts, I wrote a whole damn book on it as to why facts don’t change behavior. And you’ve got to be more flexible. But there are some of you that will not change until you’ve had an experience like Ali’s brother, some of these other things. So role playing allows us to create low stakes situations in a practice environment around other peers, where you can get that perspective proactively. I think of the one we did in Boston, somebody wanted to ask for a raise, they had never been on the other side of the table. So they were now the quote unquote, boss, and somebody else said the workshop was asking them for a raise and giving them the usual pitches, most rational, hey, as you know, I’m married, and we’re having a baby and living expenses. Now, that’s still them trying to play on the emotional. But you know, the whole idea, the fact that the core of the argument they’re making is I’m gonna need more money. And they played this out a number of different ways. And I remember that individual said, I’ve never been on the other side of the table. 

 

And Ali, that’s almost like a marketing, we should put that on, on the website, like be on the other side of the table, where you guys will get better at convincing and building buy in when you’re on the other side of it. And that’s why we do roleplay. So for anybody that thinks, Oh, I’m scared of improv, and I’m scared of this, you don’t need to be scared. This is a welcoming environment where you’re supposed to fail. Because you’d rather learn the lessons with us in an environment where the games and the odds are already stacked against you, then learn it the hard way in life. And there’s just no practice for that. And that’s, one thing that even I tried selling people at the beginning. I’d say, hey, yeah, you don’t have to come, that’s fine. You can just follow me on Instagram, you can listen to the podcast, but you’re not having the experience where you have to kind of swallow your pride get up there and feel silly. And that’s the issue. I mean, I know one thing that made me a better coach is when I just did strength and conditioning. I had two coaches of my own. I had a boxing coach. And at the time, I was learning to switch from a southpaw to Orthodox, and my wife and I were also doing salsa lessons. And I remember we had gone to the salsa dance class, and I had taken dancing lessons in college before. And the gentleman would explain it. You know, it’s kind of a fun night, we went out there. But then we’d start doing the steps. And he’d be like, No, and he’d clap twice. And he’d be like, stop. And he’d come over, and he’d be like, you’re doing this wrong, and he’d kind of, you know, explain something to me, and he goes, now, watch me dance, and he’d do it. And I’m like, Dude, I’m watching you dance. And I’ve told this story a lot too. And it went and it went and it went and I just, I’m looking at this and I’m like, I would never coach somebody like this and I probably have right but at the time, the guy didn’t allow me to be part of the learning process. He didn’t even. So he could tell me everything, show me the steps talk to me about the history of salsa and all these things. But he didn’t allow me to be a part of the process. 

 

So the point being is I took things from my boxing coach, I took things from being bad experiences I had as not as just an athlete, but even a customer. Because think we even tried to do that at art of coaching. If you had a bad customer service experience, being in that situation, now gives you the perspective, you need to do it better on the other end. So that’s why I tell you guys to take stock of saying, Where are you being a pain in the butt? Where would facts in law? I mean, think about it right now, for those of you, there’s no way you’re going to come to any of our things, and I love you regardless, you don’t need to explain yourself. But for those of you the number one thing you’re gonna say is time and money. But if I were to tell you, Well, hey, if you make a mistake in your life, or your, your personal or professional life, that could cost you X amount more, right? 10 times the time and money. You know what, you’re still gonna say, Yeah, but I’m just doing this other thing. That’s where you’ve got to be really, really, really real with yourself, where are you not being convinced. And then you’re Don’t be surprised, then, if somebody’s not paying for your stuff, if they’re not buying into what you’re selling, because the same excuses, you’re gonna give me an alley, are the same excuses somebody else is gonna give you, and then you’re gonna reach out and wonder why. And it’s because you’re not taking your own inventory, taking stock of yourself, and being really confronting what we call sorry, kids in the car, your blanket of bullshit. And it’s a really tight snuggie based thing that people like to wear. But it is a blanket of bullshit. 

 

Ali, before we get into the really tactical, okay, Brett and Ali, I get it, I get that I need to look at myself, I get that I need to try to use analogies and metaphors and think of the timing of things. Before we get to the other pieces where we can give them some other influence tactics that they can use. Is there anything else kind of crawling around in your headspace that you’d like to mention around any of these lines?

 

Ali Kershner  41:57  

No, I think like, if you take nothing else from that first part, just think of, this can be like the quote that summarizes that that first part, in my opinion, is don’t try to use logic for an illogical being which all humans are. And so just if you remember, don’t try to use logic with an illogical human, then you’ll probably remember Oh, okay, I need to change my approach here.

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:22  

Yeah, and I think that’s perfect. And believe me guys listening to this will not do anything for you. If you do not do what we’re asking of saying, Where are you being stubborn? Where are you not seeing kind of where you’re, where are you not practicing. And when we encourage you, I just want to make sure that you feel comfortable with this. There is this misnomer from somewhere they think here are the only people that come and practice this stuff with you guys. Extroverts, like I’m so at the point in my life where I clam up. No, like, that’s why people come, that’s why people come because we got to get better. Okay, so the big, so what and Ali and I are going to trade off. And this is where I’m going to ask for some understanding and some compassion on your guy’s end. And these things that we go through, they are a part of our workshops and our paid materials, I understand many of you want to print out of everything. I need you to just respect two things. One, this is our intellectual property. And I can’t give everything away for free. You know, we try to give a good amount away for free. We’re happy to do that. But we can’t give everything for free. So no, this doesn’t come with this printout. Yes, we do have resources that say you list all these out, give you the definition, tell when they might be most effective when they’re ineffective, because everything’s got a double edged sword. We do have those things, but we politely ask you just to consider coming and being a part of our live events are our courses to get that that said, we’re not going to hold anything back. So Ali and I are going to go down a list and give a brief overview of other strategies. You can use disclaimers, no one strategy is best. It’s the laziest question we get asked, admittedly, I understand it. Okay. There’s never a one size fits all method here. The combination of approaches, the things that you utilize are going to depend on your skill. They’re going to depend on the power dynamics that you wield. 

 

So for example, and I’ll just be very brief. Let’s say you try to convince somebody using an exchange tactic where I say hi, Ali, what if I give you five bucks to do blank for me, right? Well, if Ali knows I don’t have any money. I don’t have what we call reward power. Go back and listen to our episode on power dynamics. Just google search art of coaching power dynamics, and it will come up. But if Ali knows that I lack reward power, then that exchange tactic fails. One other example and again, we’re going to explain these just stay with me with the disclaimer, if I offer a personal appeal or Ali does to me and Ali says, Brett, listen, you’ve known me for a long time. You know, could you help me out with blank? You know, I got your back if you ever need the same, right she’s a personal appeal. She’s calling upon a history. Well, if I only have known an Ali for like, an hour or Let’s say I’ve known Ali for 30 years, but she has low referent power, meaning she’s not very likable. Maybe she hasn’t been very loyal in the past, that personal appeal fails. So there is no best even if there was an man Oh, man, shades of strength and conditioning, training athletes, what’s the best drill for this? What’s the best exercise for this? The same audience will ask those questions, there’s no best, it depends, like it’s something that works in the eastern side of the world may not work in the western side, vice versa. That’s why you need to practice, come to the apprenticeship, get a feel for him. But so we know that there’s no one size fits all method, you guys know that this is an abbreviated explanation of these things. And you know, that it’s never about just using one of them, it’s about using many of them, and aligning them with the drives of the individual and the timing and all those pieces. In other words, it’s really hard. Ali, I’m gonna have you start, feel free to take one that I already talked about, or a new one.

 

Ali Kershner  45:58  

Well, what I was gonna say is like to those who are listening, while we’re gonna give you a lot of information, a lot of terminology, we still can’t tell you how to use it. And that is something I’ve heard Brett, say mostly on the workshop, right, unless they come to the workshop. But what I mean is, no matter how much free stuff we give away, I mean, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter, because this is going to change in your life, we can’t tell you how to go out and apply it to every single situation. But yeah, to kind of go into some of the influence tactics that have which rational persuasion is one, right. And that’s what we’ve been talking about this whole time. 

 

Another one is a pressure tactic. And this is one that I use all the time on you, right? I’m totally messing with, you know. So pressure tactic is basically do this or else, right, it’s a very hard tactic, which is we define a hard tactic as there’s not really any given take, I’m not really appealing to a, maybe a softer, maybe just more friendly emotional approach. This is I need this done. Do this or else another way of, you know, kind of approaching this is, you know, when you see a deadline for something, we had a deadline for when our sale ended our Black Friday sale, we said two days left to get 30% off all of our courses. That’s also an example of a hard tactic or I’m sorry, a pressure tactic.

 

Brett Bartholomew  47:13  

Yeah, and again, guys, we the last thing we want to do is confuse you with terminology, you’ll hear Oregon abstain from using too much around hard soft push pull, we’re just going to give you the name of the tactic know that they are categorized, we do have hierarchies. This gets very deep, this is just a brief 101. All you should worry about is having a yellow legal pad or your phone out. Of course, as long as you’re not driving, listening to the tactics, getting a base example and thinking, Hmm, whenever I use that, when is somebody use that on me, you should also understand that all of these can be used when an Ali did a great job exam. Give me an example of this. Any tactic can be good and bad. If I say Ali , you better do this, or else you’re fired. Right? That’s, that’s abrasive. But if Ali’s got a deadline, that’s a healthy use of a pressure tactic. Right? All of these are good and bad. They just depends on the wielder, right? Like a hammer weapon tool, whatever. 

 

So Ali mentioned a pressure tactic, something that there is a very strong kind of end, it’s this or else Or there’s a clear cut deadline. One that I’m going to talk about is the one that I mentioned first and exchange tactic, one of the most common ones. Hey, Liz, that’s my wife. If I do the laundry today, would you mind mowing the lawn? Or hey, Liz, if you go and take Bronson this morning to daycare, I’ll do it on the backend with my athletes. You know, even if somebody was complaining about something, I’d say, Listen, man, just cut me some slack, pay attention to the warmup. And you know, all hear you out or I’ll let you kind of give your thoughts on this on the back end. A lot of times athletes wanted to choose conditioning, right? So I’d say I’ll tell you what, all let you do this today. If you go all out in the weight room, now we’re not going to get into Whoo, you know, somebody you shouldn’t give them that much power. You shouldn’t let them dictate it guys relax. Alas, exchange tactic could be simply saying, hey, here are some incentives for the end of the year performance review, Bob, you know, if you are able to meet your quarterly numbers, you could choose essentially between working from home one day or a kicker some kind of bonus, or whatever there’s bottom line is here’s one thing if you meet these demands and demands healthy demands, right here is something in exchange Ali, you’re up next.

 

Ali Kershner  49:34  

All right, so the next one that I’m thinking of is the coalition tactic. So a coalition tactic is you think about coalition of people which we actually have a coalition which is our kind of mentorship group and if you’re not a part of it, I mean, honestly, I don’t really know what you’re doing but

 

Brett Bartholomew  49:48  

tactic are using right now before

 

Ali Kershner  49:51  

Well, I think it’s several different tactics, but guilt is definitely one of them.

 

Brett Bartholomew  49:56  

Alright, so coalition tactic what is it? How do I use it? 

 

Ali Kershner  49:58  

Oh, I thought you were gonna jump in. I was like, what Oh, c’mon. Coalition tactic is the use of others. group of people think of like peer pressure, right? This could be an example of it use of others to show what how the way that you want something to be done as an example, for somebody who you want to change, you know, I think the, the classic coaching example would be like, hey, the freshmen don’t get it, they don’t, they don’t know how to do it the way we do it, or they’re not bought into conditioning or whatever. So the senior well seasoned athlete, you might bring them to the site and be like, Hey, you mind getting, you know, Billy over there to kind of step in line? And so then they would go over and kind of use a little bit more of their power to influence that other individual?

 

Brett Bartholomew  50:37  

Yep, perfect example. So let’s say, you know, I think of my my Father, right now, a very real example, is he just had surgery, and he told my mother, that, you know, he wants to cut it down from three days a week to two days a week? Well, you know, we can use a coalition tactic, kind of saying, hey, I can call my brother, I can talk to my uncle, we can all kind of hit him up and just be like, Hey, listen, we’re worried about, you know, some of your health related behaviors. And this is kind of intervention style coalition tactic have led to this and you know, really, you being less active is certainly not going to help you stay down that path. So we’re able to use that emotional appeal within that to that coalition tactic. But Ali’s example, for those of you that are like strength coaches, others perfect, having some people that have already accomplished what somebody else who’s maybe not on board with everything, go over and kind of influence them indirectly as a group, especially when they’re an aspirational, other is massive Ali also hit the nail on the head with this earlier, you guys can kind of collectively think of this as social proof. Now, this is where we take a little bit of liberties, because there’s varying research in this area, and none of the researchers agree, imagine that. But if all of a sudden, you know, you see, the All Blacks are promoting a product, and you’re like, Oh, God, I need that kind of deodorant or whatever, you know, that or the Avengers use if there’s a commercial for kids, right? The Avengers always brushing their teeth, you know, that is a coalition tactic as well, because there’s social proof. Anything else you want to add on that one?

 

Ali Kershner  52:07  

No, you got it 

 

Brett Bartholomew  52:08  

Cool. And there’s a couple of them, we’re gonna skip because they can kind of get into the weeds. And as your collaboration and consultation tactics, I’ll mention them in brief collaboration, and don’t get confused on the terminology. I said, we’re gonna skip them, but I can’t collaboration is when you offer your own advice. So if Ali’s struggling with something, I say, hey, may I offer a suggestion, right, and I’m not gonna give too specific of an example, because I don’t want to lose you guys. A consultation tactic is the opposite. Think of this where I’m actually reducing my power to increase Ali’s power? In other words, trying to like make it feel like she’s the expert. She’s the idea. So I might say, hey, Ali, I’m struggling with blank, could you guide me on this, and maybe it’s a way for me to kind of coach her or put her in a position where now she can kind of show her expertise. And we can see that I’ll give another example. 

 

A guy that I loved coaching, he was trying to get down in weight. And I could tell him about, hey, you shouldn’t eat this, you shouldn’t eat that we could use rational persuasion. It wasn’t working. And so we’re going over his meal plan. And I just said, and I’ll make up the name, Henry, you barbecue four times a week? Is there maybe a day that you might not do this? Or where do you think that you could improve? You know, with what you’ve listed out here in your food log? What are some of the suggestions you might give to yourself or somebody like you, I’m putting them in a position of power, so they feel less threatened. So for that, coach, that DM me, if your dad is behaving in a certain way, and you feel like I’ve told him best coaching practice, I’ve done this, I bought him your book, he’s still not listening, you know, invite him to kind of explain his rationale, say, you know, Dad, you don’t seem like you want to change in this area. And, you know, you tell me what you think is best, what do you think would like giving him a chance to explain himself, because then within that self disclosure, you’re getting an idea of what he thinks what drives him, and that’s giving you more anchoring in order to refine your appeals. So remember, collaboration is I’m offering my support my advice, consultation, right, I’m seeking somebody else and putting them in a consulting capacity and making them the expert, because that is one of the best ways to influence people make them feel like it was their idea all along. Okay, Ali back to you.

 

Ali Kershner  54:27  

So the next one, the list that, you know, that I’m thinking of is aporia. And I think you actually mentioned this in an episode not too long ago, but it’s this idea of kind of introducing doubt into somebody’s psyche a little bit and I think you can do this really well by asking very open ended leading questions. My mom is amazing at this, so shout out mom. My family’s getting a lot of play on this episode, so they better be happy. This is their Christmas present. But anyway, she might she knows by now that I’m not going to change based on logic based on rationality, all those things but she knows that I love to think through things. And if I’m challenged to think through things, she like plants a seed, and then she leaves, and then I’m gonna have to go and go through the weeds and do the research. And then I’m gonna question everything I’ve ever thought never known. And then I’ll probably come to an answer. And she, I think she does this on purpose, because she kind of knows she wants me to do the work to convince myself. And I think this is actually one of the sneakiest most effective things you can do is just introduce just a little doubt. So if somebody’s super convinced of something, I might just be like, Hey, how are you so sure about that? And if it’s the right person at the right time, like we’ve talked about, that might lead them to go convince himself?

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:40  

Yeah, I think that’s an, and if you guys sometimes it helps me, because I’m a little dense at times, to have a pop culture example. A great example of this is the Dark Knight where the Joker Heath Ledger’s Joker is trying to almost it’s the interrogation scene where he’s talking to Batman. And he’s like, you know, don’t talk like one of them. You’re not, you’re a freak, like me, you know, he’s kind of telling them when the stacks are down, or the when the chips are down, they’ll turn on you. He’s trying to get Batman, to question his whole ethos, his way of operating this idea that, like, he thinks that, you know, Batman thinks that he’s operating from a place of moral superiority, and the Joker is trying to get him to question that he goes, Do you really think we’re that different? Do you really think we’re that different? Because I’m telling you, to them, you’re an outsider, and he just starts messing with his psyche. Now, you wouldn’t be wrong, excuse me, to confuse this with gaslighting. And it could be right gaslighting would be a very extreme example of a Pouria, where you’re always making somebody feel like they’re the problem. They’re the issue. And of course, we’re not condoning any of that. Hopefully, that goes without saying, this is just like, hey, it could be as simple as an Ali alluded to this. 

 

Ali says, Hey, Brad, I think we could teach a course on this. And I can be like, Okay, do you really think that’s the right approach? Or, you know, do you have any backup to kind of give me an idea of why you think that would sell? Now Ali? Would? There’s doubt there, I’m introducing doubt. I’m basically saying come to me with facts. Now Ali could come with rational persuasion. And you guys could say, but you said logic didn’t change minds. That’s not what we said. We said logic alone will not change the minds of others. Right? Just like adding salt alone does not make every dish better, right? Or just like getting more money does not make your life more fruitful. Always. It’s Yes. And so wonderful job with aporia guilt, I think we can skip by I think everybody understands that. There is a weaponization of guilt episode, I would very much recommend you go you guys go back and listen to I think of all the times that I use, somebody asked me to speak. And this doesn’t really happen when we speak for medical field or the military or corporations. But man, did it happen a lot in strength and conditioning, because many strength coaches didn’t really position themselves or know what to charge for their time. You know, somebody would get I remember, somebody asked for three days of speaking, we gave them a quote. And they said, Well, you know, if you were in it, we just feel like we respect your work. But if you were in it for the right reasons, you know, that wouldn’t happen. Or this particular person said, Well, we thought you come in to speak for us would kind of help your brand, right? Because there’s this big university and all this. And what they’re trying to do is just guilt me into like giving a lower number, you know, and so everybody knows guilt. So I’ll skip past that. We will also skip past storytelling, we have an entire episode about storytelling. And by the way, if you want the weaponization of guilt, that’s episode 56. Thank you, Ali. 

 

And if you want the one on storytelling, let’s see which one was that that we did. I think it’s one of our best episodes today with a gentleman, Michael Tucker from lessons of the screenplay. We also had Kendra Hall. So Kendra halls is 178. Michael Tucker’s we’ll put that in the show notes. But you absolutely have to listen to it. I’ll make mine quick here personal appeal. This one hinges upon a history with that individual. So as I gave him the early example, Hey, Liz, we’ve been dating for 10 years, you know, and blank, or, Hey, I thought about gentleman in the military that I worked with that. Tremendous injuries to his back and he was going through a reconditioning protocol. And we eventually got him cleared to do deadlifts. And RDL is again, very hesitant as he should have been. I mean, these were things that he couldn’t do for almost two years, without wincing, and just tremendous pain and issues, but he was clear now, he’s going to have to pick up things off the ground, we needed to do a modified deadlift. And he hesitated and hesitated. And this was the moment and I had to say, and again, I’m changing names. Brian, you’ve worked with me now for over three and a half years. Have I ever hurt you? Have I ever displayed any kind of tendency to not think through this? Have we not worked through this together on a systematic approach? Right, like I want what’s best for you? We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs together. Just trust me on this now right then you’re seeing a combination of rational persuasion and personal appeal. But what is the most prominent one? I’m talking about our history working together so there’s always bleed over. But where would be rational persuasion is? Brandon, the research shows that deadlifts are gonna help you with blank. You see all the notes from the doctor, you saw the stats here, you’re good to go, but I’m not gonna, how long have we worked together? What have we been through together? All that so you have to look at what’s the predominant appeal? There. Okay, Ali back to you.

 

Ali Kershner  1:00:29  

Alright, so the next one would be rational persuasion, but I think we might have beat that horse just a few times. ingratiation is is next one, and to me, this is one of my favorites. Not because it’s my favorite to use, but it’s my favorite because the second you hear about, you’re like, oh, yeah, well, I use that pretty much every day. And two, I can see where that would be super annoying. So ingratiation is the act of getting somebody to feel good are kind of think of it as like buttering them up to change their mind. Or, as we’ve kind of talked about a lot recently, it’s also the use of humor, right? It’s anything that’s going to get that person in a good mood, more in the mindset that will get them to do something for you get them to change. 

 

So the example that we give a lot of times is, you know, the sales, the car sales man, or woman at the used car lot, they might, you know, clap you on the shoulder and say, you know, Hey, you look like you’re a strapping young woman, and you might look really great. And this foreigner, and to that, I would say, You know what, you’re damn right. And I’m gonna take it, but it’s, uh, you know, just like if you’re meeting somebody for the first time, and you do this really well on podcast, so I’ll give you a compliment there. But 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:01:40  

That’s ingratiation, 

 

Ali Kershner  1:01:42  

right, there you go. But also you, you strike up a conversation, usually have done some work and you know, tell something that you’ve learned about that person, you might crack a joke. But that is all very purposeful. And it’s not in a bad way. But you’re trying to get that person in a good mood so that they’re more apt to feel uncomfortable and your podcasts are telling a better story, etc, etc. And I think this is something that if you just think about it, you do probably 50 to 100 times a day. If you know that you have to go make a big ask of your parents. You’re not going in there cold and being like, Mom, Dad, I just need $100 Right? You’re the mom. You remember how much I love you. Right? And then you ask for the $100

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:21  

Yeah, yeah. And and ingratiation and rational persuasion have been shown in the research of individuals like Gary UKL, to be the most frequently used ones. And these are in sample sizes of hundreds of 1000s of individuals in the corporate world. You know, there’s always somebody that’s like, Bob, hey, great job on that quarterly review. Listen, I have a purge pros proposal for q1 of next year. This is why I think it’ll work right. So this is very corporate ease type stuff. And Ali hit the nail on the head to about we talked about all of these have virtual virtue and vice. ingratiation can sound bad or you’re trying to get somebody in the good mood, you’re trying to flatter them? No, no, just humor is a great use of ingratiation. If I reach out to a friend today and I say, I’ll think of a great example my friend Cory Beasley, gave me some phenomenal advice the other day, and I just texted him and I said, I want you to know, that advice was super helpful and made my day and I really value you never holding anything back when I asked you for advice. Now that comes from a sincere place, right, all this insincere. But it’s ingratiation like I wanted him to feel good, I wanted him to know he made a difference in my life. And that’s what Ali and I are really trying to inculcate. Before we give you this last one is that nobody’s saying these things are gonna blow your mind. We’re saying these are things you already do. But you’re not taking inventory of right you guys many of you are trying to build buy in with people that you don’t know what’s in the cupboard. It’s like you’re going to the store, but you don’t know what ingredients you need. So that’s why we’re telling you to take inventory, you should be paying attention, whether it’s listening to my podcast, or listening to commercials or listening to Spotify ads, or whatever you listen to, then you should think about what is this influence attempt, but more importantly, you should be video recording yourself. And if you’re gonna videotape or record other people, of course, get their permission. But if you are not doing the work on yourself and saying, Oh, my God, and that 30 minute conversation I had on Zoom, I use coalition tactics twice rational persuasion 15 times to exchange tactics, you’re not doing it right. You have to look at yourself, you have to ask, Where might you be the issue. It takes nothing to record a zoom. It takes nothing to take out your iPhone and use a Voice Memo app. It takes nothing to do these things. If you come to our workshops, we get the whiteboard up. And we put you in a situation like little Jimmy where you’ve got to do a written attempt to the school board because that’s another thing you can do. You can look at your emails and say where are they this is multimedia type stuff. And we will put up little tally marks of how many different kinds of tactics and what kinds of each tactic you use. Because then you get an idea of your conversational DNA, you or your conversational thumbprint if you’d like and that’s that’s what we’re are doing your conversation of snowflake.

 

Ali Kershner  1:05:03  

Everybody’s different just like DNA.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:05:05  

Oh my god. Yeah, that’s kind of such a bad term. But yes, we’ll do snowflake and it’s December. All right, Ali gets to take, I’m gonna let her because I’ve talked enough take the last one is well and there is a, there’s a couple, we’ll give you a bonus one at the end. So stay tuned on this because it’s one that’s pretty common and, and we’re always kind of tweaking this, the majority of this, I would say 99% of the ones we’re talking about are validated in many various types of peer reviewed research. Some of them that, you know, we’re kind of adapting because the research isn’t clear the research wasn’t practical, but you will see it in everyday life as well. So, Ali, you hit this one and then I’ll close it out now that you reminded me of the other one that we need to hit.

 

Ali Kershner  1:05:49  

Yeah, so an inspirational appeal is I feel like another coach classic, but it kind of the name explains it right? If you know what somebody values, you know, what their goals are, you know, what is really meaningful and important to them. You can kind of use that to inspire them to change. So I think a classic example well maybe this one’s not so classic, but it’s a classic take so when the Bucs won the NBA Finals, you know, everybody all strength coaches were on Twitter screenshotting or, and on Instagram showing pictures of Yiannis as a you know, first year NBA player when he was like this scrawny scrawny little kid and then they showed the glow up where he was like this like buffed out just like freak of a human, the Greek freak. And I remember, like, literally all the capsules were like, see, if you just remember, if you want to be like Yiannis, you’d have to stay in the weight room. And you have to, you know, just look what can happen if you just, you know, consistency over time. And this is what the weight room can do for you. And, and I think, you know, the goal there well, whether that was effective or not, was to use inspirational appeal to show somebody, Hey, don’t you want to be like Yanis or, you know, as I would say to my athletes, so, if you want to be a professional, do X, Y and Z. And you know, I think there are many examples of inspirational appeal. I think actually, you gave me a really good example one time whenever a have an apprenticeship, because this can look many different ways. Do you have an alternative example or a way that you can use inspirational appeal?

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:07:21  

Yeah, I mean, lots and to give you a pop example, you know, any given Sunday, the whole Al Pacino thing you have one inch footballs game of inches, I think of a way just to use again, the case study of the gentleman that reached out on DM and an example of how you stack these because everybody will stack these. He’s trying to get his dad to change his coaching approach. You can be like, listen, dad, like I love you, you made a huge difference in my life. You inspired me to get into coaching and collectively I think that we can change a lot of lives. You know, but I just like you to consider trying this other method and here’s why. So I lead with a combination of inspirational appeal and ingratiation. Right. And then hopefully you’ve led into the facts right, you’re priming that, I think that’s a huge piece. It’s why I tell you guys like, there we are a small family owned business. But I you know, that that in itself, you could say as a tactic, like, you want to support small businesses on Main Street, you want to support small. The bottom line is there’s so many of these things, you know, I think of somebody that was really critical in my work probably still is, I never really know what he’s thinking and, but whenever we’re in person, we have good conversations. 

 

Andy Galpin, you know, when I asked Andy Galpin, when we were looking at some of the reasons of like, where might we be missing, touching on some audience, and I said, Andy, you know, we’ve talked a lot, you’ve heard me talk about training, I know you’re very interested in muscle physiology. You know, what do you know, what do you think about our work? And what do you think? And he said, listen, admittedly, you know, I haven’t seen that much of it, he goes, but if I had to be hypercritical, because I was asking him, like, tell me all the reasons you wouldn’t come? Well, it turns out, you know, and I appreciate Andy’s audience. Honestly, for this, a lot of people that had heard about my work is mainly either from my work with athletes early on, or my book. And in the book, one of the most popular parts of the book was the archetypes. So Andy’s like, listen, and these aren’t really even real archetypes that he mentioned. But he said, I don’t want to, you know, learn more about the lion and the hippo and I want to do this and want to do that. Yet, if Andy’s discerning which he is he’s incredibly discerning. And Andy heard this episode that talked about all these influence tactics, any discerning individual could say, Oh, my God, I can think of at least three areas of my life where I cost myself a relationship, a job, an opportunity, or even a credibility or whatever, based on somebody’s perception. Because I misuse this influence tactic. I didn’t know about power dynamics, and I didn’t know 

 

nobody’s perfect in this game. So I could sit here with you guys and logic, my way into why you should come to our workshops, why you should buy my book, why you should support our business, it won’t matter. So what I’ll do is use a simple inspirational appeal that’s backed in rational persuasion. You know, here’s the thing, you can absolutely choose to not do any of these things to not pay attention to them to not train to them, train them to not do to unsubscribe to this podcast, but here’s where you’re screwed. One way or another, these things and your inability is going to understand them, recognize them and leverage them will cost you, you will use ingratiation poorly at some point, I will and I teach it, you will use a consultation tactic when you should have used collaboration, you will lean on rational persuasion, when you should have used pressure, you will probably use too much exchange when you should have used a different appeal. And that is just a basic reality. That’s why we teach communication. And so, you know, I think about those things, and you think about the ways that you try to convince people, you know, I could tell somebody, and this was unfortunate with training and strengthing conditioning, I can tell an athlete Listen, by you choosing not to strength train or not to add weight to the bar, you know, you’re increasing your risk of injury because muscle stronger muscles and ligaments, right help support joints. But we know that there are athletes that go on, and they win World medals, gold medals, and they win championships. And they’re great at their sport, despite what they eat, despite how they train, despite all those things. I don’t know that many people that live a long, happy, successful, fulfilling life, surrounded by people they love, that are really poor communicators that are abrasive and non self aware. And you could be a devil’s advocate and say, Well, yeah, unless they get around other people that are like that, well, if you consider that fulfilling, and maybe they do, but poor communication and poor use of these tactics and poor recognition of power dynamics, will absolutely cost you 

 

the final bonus one Ali, I’m going to have you take this one as well. And I should qualify because I made a mistake. And I apologize. This is also up there with rational persuasion and ingratiation with the most commonly used in the corporate world. And you’ll all recognize it, the minute Ali explains it, Ali, take it away.

 

Ali Kershner  1:11:56  

So the last one that you want me to mention is legitimating. And that’s basically using think of like the rules, the the culture, the standard of replace an organization. Maybe even just using something that somebody has told you is like the way that they operate, it could be an extension of this, but I’m using that as a way to bolster your ask and showing, basically, it’s almost like a form of social proof. But it’s like using the rules of a place or using the beliefs of the culture in which you are asking for something to make that suggestion. So I think of the great example that you’ve you’ve used is  we were at a hotel, I can’t remember, I’m not gonna bash a hotel chain, just because I don’t remember what it was. But it was some pretty crappy customer service, you know, we were overcharged. And we were down at the front desk. And there was a sign behind the front desk that said, like, you know, blank hotel brand believes in customer service, that’s our number one value. In fact, we have, you know, the, the gold star to prove it. And I remember this was like, genius. I was like, I’ve never heard that phrase that way. But you turn to the guy and you’re like, hey, look, I see on that sign behind you that you guys really value customer service. 

 

In this situation, I didn’t feel like that. Your response to what I asked for was up to standard with what you guys believe in. And that right there made the guy stop in his tracks. And he was like, Oh, I just got played. Because I mean, it’s true. Like you can, like I In another example, for coaches. In our weight room, like we didn’t, I didn’t establish the rules of our weight room. But  we weren’t allowed to have gum, you had to have your shirt tucked in everybody had to match if you’re on a team. And so without even me having to come up with this statement, I basically could say to my teams, Hey, guys, I need you to do XY and Z, because that’s the standard that we hold here in the weight room.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:14:01  

Yeah, excellent examples, rule using rules, policies, procedures, or long standing cultural kind of themes and motifs to really reinforce what you do. And you’ll see this with reasons people don’t change. A lot of times the people that fall into that tradition category, love legitimating, because they won’t even give supporting evidence, they’ll just say, these are the rules. This is how we do it here.

 

 I’m gonna give you some other examples. That, for example, and we talked about this in our speaking School, where we help people that want to be better at presenting or maybe just even less socially anxious. So but in the context of when we coach people about creating a speaking career, we teach them to put together a speaking agreement. So for example, if somebody books myself or ally to speak, there’s a basic agreement that holds true right of saying, hey, there’s a retainer, just like if you’re going to reserve a hotel or anything like that, you pay a certain percentage up front. Of course, you don’t need to pay the other part of that until the back end. And I remember when I got pushback on this, somebody’s like, well, I’ve never had another strength coach do this and I go, I mean, really put and deposit down is pretty standard. I’m like, Have you ever stayed at a hotel? And, and done this? I mean, generally, have you ever gone to a restaurant where you gotta pay? I mean, I can go to Chipotle I gotta pay before I can take that food to my table, then they will Oh, well, I never really thought about it like that, you know, we there are certain times you don’t want athletes to wear earrings or certain kind of footwear in the weight room. And no, that’s not a cultural thing. That saying an earring can get caught on something or if you’re not wearing appropriate footwear, you’re gonna drop, you know, a 35 kilo thing on your toe and your foot, you know, I mean, and you see how that’s then backed by rational persuasion. We do the same thing with our apprenticeship. If somebody offers to host they sign an agreement that says, hey, we’re gonna be, we understand that you have a minimum of 10 signups necessary. And if we don’t get the minimum amount of signups within a month, you know, we’re on the hook for blank. So just look at anything like an NDA, anything that’s basic around you just trying to give you guys as many examples as possible.

 

 Listen, to wrap this in a bow. Communication is all about sharing information in commonly comprehensible ways. And what is commonly comprehensible to one person is not always the same to other people. There are many issues that color our perception, there are many things that take what you think you said you thought you said or even what you meant or your felt. And then you put it out into the world. And somebody receives that in a tremendously different manipulated way. They misconstrue your intentions, they misconstrue your advice. They misconstrue everything. And  that gap cannot get bridged if you do not understand influence. 

 

Influence is not about social media, though that might be involved in influence. Influence is your ability to create change in somebody’s psychological environment. And when you’re trying to get somebody to change their behavior, when you’re trying to get somebody to listen, when you’re trying to get somebody bought in, it’s what you need to know. So two places you can work on this, right? If you’re the online type, and you’re constrained by travel and all that, you can go to artofcoaching.com, click on the Online Courses tab and look at Bought in. As I always say if you’re not a strength coach, guys, please do not get sidetracked by the coach athlete terminology. I have bookshelves on my I have books on my bookshelf, from folks in the military and the medical world, I am not a doctor, I am not a soldier, I still learn from them. This is for everybody. If you’re a live in person, hands on interactive type of individual go to artofcoaching.com/apprenticeship.

 

I don’t have a sales pitch. I’m just saying if you want to learn more about it, and more importantly, you want to practice it, you want to practice it in a non judgmental, safe environment, where we train you on these things we get involved with you, you can laugh, you can be you can struggle, all these things. We do these all over the world. But I encourage you because we only do a certain amount per year 10 to 15 Do not just wait until we come to Nantucket or Schenectady or wherever get involved. They all have early bird discounts. Ali, I’m gonna give you the final word, if there’s anything else you want to say, and then we’ll let them go.

 

Ali Kershner  1:18:12  

Yeah, and what I was gonna say is, if you want to go in person, and you want to practice, but you can’t get there just yet, one thing you can do today, take a pad of paper, go into your next session, go into your next conversation. And just take note, like a little tally, like Brett alluded to earlier of which ones you use throughout the day. And you can do that over the course of four days, five days. Just give yourself a sense of picture of which of these influence tactics use most and then which ones you think would be useful on you. And that’s one way without interacting with any other human, you can get a sense of get an inventory for what you use.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:18:52  

Perfect, guys. Well, thank you so much for your time. We know this is a longer episode, but we promised you tactical and we wanted to do it. If you could help us out and send this to four or five people you know, we’d really appreciate it we’re I mean, think about what tactic This is now I know I’m gonna be judged every time they listened to us. Or reviews on iTunes really do help. And we’re just small podcasts where a small business word of mouth is everything to us. We think this is helpful. We always want to get better. We’re an unfinished product. But think about it, leave it, leave a review send it to people we’d really appreciate it for Brett Bartholomew, and Ali Kershner This is the art of coaching crew signing off