How to Influence People, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 6Tool number 6: positive, positive, positive — negative

The next tool of influence that I want to share with you is my favourite. I call this tool the greatest tool of persuasion. It is a tool that gets other people to commit to taking action towards a desired result. It is a language tool that works on the premise of the pleasure–pain principle that everything you do in your life is for one of two reasons:

• to gain pleasure
• to avoid pain — or negative consequences.

It is pretty amazing when you begin the process of workshopping this tool. Every single thing you do every day is for one of these two reasons. Some people go to work because it truly gives them pleasure, while others simply show up in order to pay the rent. Some people love exercise. They wake up in the morning and go for a run, which gets the endorphins going, and they come back energised and excited for the day. For many other people the only reason they would ever go to the gym is to avoid getting fat. They show up to try to avoid a growing beer gut or dress size.

I am blessed. I love what I do for a living. Getting up on stage and being able to teach people about communication and influence gives me a charge. Recently, there was a $100 million lotto draw. Of course, it is always fun to discuss what you would do with $100 million, and there were plenty of light-hearted conversations in offices around the country that day. People were dreaming of leaving their job forever and never working again.