What is persuasion?

Persuasion is the art and science of influence. Persuasion is getting people to think and act how you want them to.

You persuade people by appealing to them, taking control of conversations, speaking with clear and simple ideas, implanting thoughts and ideas, and then inspiring action.

Grant Cardone says if you aren’t selling people on your ideas, you are being sold on theirs.

If you aren’t persuading people, then they are persuading you.

The art of speaking or writing persuasively is known as Rhetoric.

Learning it is critical to your success.

Rhetoric used to be taught in school. This art of persuasive argument was discovered and pioneered by ancient Greeks known as “sophists.”  Guys like Aristotle (wrote the book on rhetoric – it’s called Rhetoric) and Cicero studied it more and laid the foundation for further study.

Studying rhetoric used to be a really big deal. Kids spent several hours per day studying it. It used to be studied as a part of a normal education.

Until recently.

Now it isn’t taught anymore, and the foundation laid by those great philosophers is crumbling.

We don’t write well to each other, and we don’t speak much to each other either. Next time you are at a coffee shop, just look around. Hardly anyone is talking to each other – they’re all focused on their devices.

Just the other day I saw people jogging while heads down in their phones. “Smartphone Zombies” are such a problem in Germany, that they’re installing traffic lights in the ground.

People aren’t talking to each other like they used to. No wonder people are scared to death of public speaking. How are you going to talk to a group of people if you have trouble talking to one or two?

To illustrate how far we have fallen, all you have to do is look at what gets passed off as “debate” these days.

Come on.

Look, without knowing the devices and tactics of persuasion you are handicapping your communication skills and setting yourself up to be manipulated.

Knowing how to speak and write persuasively is critical to getting what you want out of life, and many people are becoming progressively worse at it.

The good news is that persuasive speaking and writing is totally learnable. And once you start getting good at it, it’s like having a real life super power.

If you don’t know the principles of persuasion – it’s not your fault. Blame the schools that stopped teaching it and the teachers who just don’t know anything about it (if they did know about persuasion, school would be much more interesting).

Now, I’ve been studying persuasion for a while and because it’s such a cool and valuable skill I want to share what I’ve learned with you.

Since you’re reading this website and this article, I already know you’re intelligent and well educated. You might already be pretty good at speaking and writing.

However, you probably know that you always have room to improve.

As you go through this series and practice the tools and techniques I’m going to share with you, you’ll rapidly start to see dramatic improvements in your communication skills.

You’ll be more effective at sales and communicating chiropractic.

Your kids and friends will listen to you and take you more seriously.

You’ll be able to reach your goals faster.

Maybe most importantly, you’ll be able to see when you are being manipulated.

You’ll become a creator of circumstance, rather than a victim of circumstance.

Read this series to the end and you’ll have a very solid foundation of tools and skills you can use to be more persuasive and influential.

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Here’s what you can expect from the Practical Principles of Persuasion:

In the next installment I’ll go over three criteria every conversation or correspondence must have in order to be most effective.

Stay with me and you’ll also learn how to cultivate a persuasive personality, you’ll discover the techniques and mechanics of persuasive rhetoric, and you’ll get examples of how you can use the mechanics yourself to speak better and write better advertising.

The first thing I want you to do is to get a short primer on persuasion called The One Sentence Persuasion Course. I thought about just writing out the sentence, but that wouldn’t be fair to the author, and the book has a lot of value besides just that one sentence.

The short yet very valuable essay offers a 30,000 foot view of persuasion and exactly what you need to do in order to shape opinions and influence actions.

It’s a very short book on my required reading list, and it’s a must read booklet.

It’s only 3.99 – the price of a cup of coffee, so buy it today.

Get it today and in the next installment we’ll talk about how to powerfully appeal to peoples’ emotions.

The One Sentence Persuasion Course – 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding

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