Afford Anything - How to Master the Psychology of Persuasion, with Michael McQueen

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

#510: Maybe you’re trying to convince: – Your spouse | to embrace the FIRE movement. – Your teenage kids | to invest some of their summer job money in stocks. – Your neighbor | to sell you their house in a private, off-market deal. – Your boss | to give you more vacation time. – Your client | to pay you more. Today’s episode is about how to change minds, build trust, navigate conversations, and influence and persuade others. We chat with Michael McQueen, a social researcher, strategist, and the author of 10 books. He’s spoken alongside Bill Gates, Apple co-founder Steve Woznick and Dr. John C. Maxwell, and was named Australia’s Keynote Speaker of the Year. His latest book, Mindstuck, focuses on how to be more persuasive. Here are some of the ideas we cover: Stubbornness: We tend to be stubborn because of our inherent desire to protect our existing beliefs and identities. This is partly due to the fact that the human mind has a tendency to make quick judgments and resist challenges. Logical Fallacy: People often rely on confirmation bias and tribalism when evaluating information. We tend to favor information that aligns with our existing beliefs and groups we identify with. Complexity over Extremes: When presented with opposing viewpoints, exposure to extreme viewpoints can – counterintuitively – make people more entrenched in their own beliefs. Introducing complexity and nuance can foster a more open-minded approach. Here are some of his tips: Uncover the Hidden Fear Address the Loss Aversion Use "Right and Reflect" to Get People Talking Build Rapport and Choose the Right Moment Frame Your Message for Impact Move Beyond Persuasion and Focus on Progress McQueen elaborates on these tips in today’s podcast episode. Enjoy! For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode510 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are times in your financial life when you need to get other people to see things from your perspective. So maybe you have a spouse who is reluctant to invest because they are highly risk-averse and you're trying to get them to invest more or you're trying to get them to up the risk profile of their asset choices. Or maybe you have a client or a boss or a colleague or a business partner and you're trying to persuade them to try some new project or see things from your point. of you. How do you do that? We're going to tackle that in today's episode. Welcome to the Afford Anything Podcast, the show that understands you can afford anything but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade off against something else. And that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention to any limited resource that you need to manage. So what matters most and how do you make decisions accordingly?

Answering those two questions is what this podcast is here for. My name is Paula Pan. I am the host of the show. And today, Michael McQueen joins us to talk about lessons from disciplines as far ranging as neuroscience and behavioral psychology and behavioral economics, lessons that we can draw from a disparate set of fields to learn how to talk to people about your ideas, even if the people that we are talking to are entrenched in theirs. Now, Michael McQueen has worked for the last several decades with Fortune 500 companies helping the teams in these major companies solve exactly this problem. They say that you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. How do we encourage that horse to take a drink? To answer that today, here's Michael McQueen.

Hi, Michael. Hello, great to spend some time chatting. Oh, it's so good to talk to you. Let's dive right in to why people are stubborn and what we can do to understand that phenomenon and then to help persuade people. Well, I think stubbornness is one of those things, isn't it, where we can see in other people super clearly. Like, you can spot it a mile off when we think someone else is being stubborn, but we can very rarely see it in ourselves. The reality is we're all a little bit stubborn, like in terms of just the way we approach the world. and there's a reason for that, that often increases with age as well, because once you've got things that you've made a decision about, I think X, I believe, Y, whatever it is, you know, as you accumulate these ideas and philosophies over the years, you can become more stubborn

with age, not always, but often. But the reality is we are seeing this modern age where we're exposed to so much information, so rapidly, and really expected to pick aside on any number of issues that 30 years ago, people didn't even like know about, much as Phil they had to form an opinion about. Now you have to. And so I think that's led to a greater rise in that sense of stubbornness. We pick that up online. You see that in social media, that sense of really dogged determination to fight for our views, the polarization that comes along with that. So it's always been there and we see it in other people, but it's in all of us. We're all inherently just a little bit stubborn from time to time. How do we begin to recognize that in ourselves,

particularly when the ways in which were stubborn impact how we invest, how we make career choices, there are some consequences with many zeros at the end for being stubborn, holding on to an asset for too long, putting everything into crypto or putting nothing into crypto. How do we recognize stubbornness within ourselves? And how do we differentiate that from what we think is rational thinking, but may actually be rationalized? Yeah. God, that's a good question. I think the reality is, Pete, you look at Fording yourself when you feel uncomfortable or unwilling to consider an alternative. You'll read an article, you'll have a conversation that challenges something you've assumed is true. Instead of being curious, you become defensive.

For all of us, we've got our own tells, our ways of figuring that out. I noticed for me over the years when the hair on the back of my neck goes up and I start to feel that flushed red, hot feeling around my throat and my face, it's actually, that's the amygdala response. That is the fight and flight part of our brain kicking in to defend. our views. And sometimes, you know, you're having a conversation with someone, and it's actually a really casual conversation, but they butt up against something that you feel strongly about. And instead of being able to honestly and objectively have the conversation and remain in

that posture of curiosity and humility and open-mindedness, you slip into defensive mode. And here in Australia, we have this word in the US, you call it rooting, like rooting for a certain team. Like, we call it barricing. So that's like the British sort of word. And so the question I often ask people is, in any situation, who is your brain barricing? for or rooting for because even if you're reading, let's say an article watching an interview and you've got two different sides putting their arguments forward, even if you're approaching the interview telling yourself, I'm very open-minded about this, I bet there'll be one side that unconsciously you gravitate towards. And when they like score an intellectual point, part of he goes, yes,

you know, like I agree with that. You know, whereas the other side, the moment they say something like, oh, that's actually a good point. You instantly start looking for loopholes. Oh, but what about? You know, but I have you really considered, you know, or I'm not so sure about that, even though what they've said is probably fundamentally true, you find it hard to take on board. So I think those are the tells to look out for. And I think the intersection with what we do economically is actually significant here. So one of the terms I often use is this idea of psychological sunk cost. Most of us are familiar with economic sunk cost, that idea that you'll stick with an idea or a course of action decision you've made, even if you know it's not going to end well.

And it's not going the direction. You hope it would go initially, but you stick with it because you've invested so much money and so much time, you essentially let your past decisions forfeit your future benefit. And we do the same thing psychologically. There'll be belief systems and ways of thinking that we've invested so much time and energy in, but also we've invested ourselves, our ego, our identity, our reputation. You might have been a public advocate for a certain way of thinking, a certain view or perspective. I can't get back on it now because I've made public statements about this and our ego is involved. And so often you'll stick with an old idea or mindset and stubbornly so, even when a better idea has come along,

better updated information has emerged, be like, I can't consider it because the cost of change can feel too great. So there's a lot of humility, like genuine, willful humility required to change minds. Because for us, like all of us, we like to feel like we're right. And all of us think we're right, because that's just one of the parts of human nature. You think of someone you know right now, and they might have a belief that you're like, and that is absolutely. absolutely nuts. How can they think that? To them, that belief makes perfect sense, because if it didn't, they wouldn't believe it. And so we're like, we've got to realize that for all of us, that's just a part of what it is to be human. What's something that you've changed your mind about

recently? I've probably changed my mind about just a little bit is what we see happen with the metaverse. I became, back in 2022, I was a real, initially a skeptic about the metaverse. I thought it was a bit of a buzz topic thing. But then I started to read quite deeply, working with clients, it was front of mind for them. And so I actually started doing a lot of work in the media, doing press interviews about the Metaverse, trying to help clients understand it, and essentially became a bit of a spokesperson for it,

even though I've been a skeptic six months earlier. And then a few months later, generative AI happened. And everyone was like, the Metaverse, that's old news. Let's talk about chat GPT, whereas I thought last year was going to be all about the Metaverse, and I made some pretty bold predictions about that,

didn't eventuate because of generative AI. So I've had to probably step back some of that and sort of just humble myself and go, maybe I got that timeline wrong, and maybe the whole immersive reality, spatial computing thing, it'll happen, but not in the timeline. I thought, that's embarrassing. That's uncomfortable for all of us. When you've made very public, like national television type statements about a trend or a technology,

like, I think I got it a little bit wrong. That's embarrassing. But that's how you learn is actually being able to call that stuff and acknowledge it. Soon, I want to move into the tools, the techniques, the actionable takeaways that the people listening can use when they want to try to persuade. a spouse, a colleague, a boss, a client to come around to a different point of view. But before we go there, I first want to stay a little bit more on this topic of the tendency that people have, that we as humans all have, to remain stuck in our ideas.

You've talked a bit about identifying with your ideas and how that sunk cost and that sense of identity tends to make ideas stick. What other factors are there that cause ideas to be sticky? Yeah. If you look at what happens in our brains, that's a big part of what's happening here when it comes to stubbornness. Like what actually, what's the psychology, the neuroscience of stubbornness? And there's a lot that we've learned even in the last couple of years, which is pretty interesting and quite counterintuitive. You know, the things we thought we knew about the way our brain worked, even in the last three to five years, we've had to rethink in many cases. So interesting, And if you look at what happens when our brains encounter ideas that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable,

you know, those ideas that push up against our views or identity, you've got to look at which part of our brain is actually doing that processing or that thinking. We often assume that humans are fundamentally reasonable. And if you just present humans with good evidence, good logic, the best thinking, they'll see the light. They'll see reason. They'll change their mind. That's not the way our brains actually work.

And yet for the last three or four hundred years, that's sort of what we've thought. that's an enlightenment and post-enlightment view of human nature and human psychology. So now our brains can be reasonable and rational, but only a small part of them is. We often use that phrase, I'm of two minds about a certain decision, and that describes that sense of being indecisive. That is actually fundamentally true. We operate in two minds at any given moment. The first mind we operate in is what I refer to as our inquiry mind. And that's the part of our mind. That's the part of our brain at the front of our brain. It's the bit that is logical, rational, reasonable, it's very linear in its approach to processing information. This is the part of our

brain that evolutionary biologists will tell you was the most recent to develop for us as humans. And we would like to think, and we all assume this of ourselves, that we would use that more than the average person because we're very thoughtful and methodical and rational. The truth is we probably only use that. The estimate is for between 5 to 10% of our decision making. So the vast bulk of our decision making, our perception, formation, our thinking happens in a different part of our brain, which I refer to as the instinctive mind. And that instinctive mind near the top of the brain stem, typically associated with the limbic system,

which is that part of our brain that processes emotions, that's very tribal in its view. It's very reflexive, very quick to respond. So anyone who's familiar with Daniel Kahneman's work would know that idea of thinking fast versus slow. This is the fast part of our brain. It's very reactive. And the gift is it's the part of our brain

that's kept us alive for millennia. Because when a threat emerges, it swings into action. It jumps to conclusions. The problem is that same part of our brain, that very pattern recognition part of our brain in an instinctive mind responds to psychological threats the same way it does to physical ones. So when we're exposed to again, ideas, information that they can feel threatening, instead of considering them, we often jump to that conclusion.

And we tend to do other things that mean we're not actually thinking reasonably or rationally. We're perhaps deferring to others. What are other people like me in my tribe thinking about this? as opposed to do I think it's a good idea. And we often use that tribal brain to guide how we respond to things. Or maybe we're just going to denial mode. And you see this play out constantly, this idea that if it's too hard to believe, I just won't believe it. We'd like to think that seeing is believing. As humans, that's just not the case. You can present someone with really rocks all that evidence. And yet if it's too uncomfortable from them to believe, their instinctive

mind would just like almost like fingers in the ears type vibe, just ignore it entirely because it's too hard to change their mind. So these are the dynamics. So we tend to play out with the instinctive mind. So the question is, if you want to change someone's mind, which mind are you referring to? Most of us use logic, evidence, data, spreadsheets, which will appeal to the inquiry mind, but it's the instinctive mind we need to change. A couple of things that you said there that I want to draw out a little bit. One is that you talked about our tendency to shortcut to the ideas that are shared by people like me, that sense of tribalism. What do other people of my cohort believe? You shared some data about how

we not only look to that tribalistic sense of identity for belief formation, but even for who are we more likely to be charitable towards versus who are we less likely to help if we see them injured with a twisted ankle? If we need a blood transfusion, who are we more likely to want one from? Has that sense of tribalism intensified in recent years in modern society? That's a good question. It's hard to know. For a couple of reasons. Firstly, we weren't measuring this in the way we can now, certainly 10 to 15 years ago. So Chris Bail is a researcher who's probably done the most research on this. And what he would suggest is that while polarization, particularly online, feels like it has increased, you know,

people are far more tribal and extreme in their views and tend to look at everything through the lens of, you know, is this left or right? Is it conservative, progressive, Democrat, Republican? And then we decide whether we agree with what's being shared based on who has shared it. And we tend to think that has gotten worse because what you see online are increasingly loud voices that are at the extremes. The reality is if you step offline, there's good evidence that actually we haven't become necessarily more polarized. It's just that the algorithms love extremes. And so typically what you see shared or now pop up in your feed tends to be the loudest voice. So they'll be the extreme views. Nuance is boring. I mean, Facebook or Instagrams or even TikTok's

algorithm have no interest in nuance. The things that get, get responses are those extreme views. So there is that sense that tribalism seems to be worse than it was. There's a degree to which that could just be a factor of, you know, this notion of what we see online we tend to see in reality. And yeah, I think there is evidence that we tend to see more things as expressions of identity and the culture war thing rather than just being standalone ideas. There is that sense that we're seeing that increasingly become the primary lens through which we look at ideas, which means we're not really engaging with informational perspectives faithfully objectively, they become essentially an expression of identity, which means we're not generally

thinking very well. That's where stubbornness kicks in. And it isn't just political affiliation. You shared a data in your book about how when researchers looked at fMRI scans of people who were Apple users, iPhone users, the same region of their brain lit up when presented with Apple branding as the regions that are affiliated with religion and religious belief. Yeah, that sense of these things become not just something that we use or a publication that we read, it becomes a part of who we are. And so that extends to so many things that we see. Apple have done this beautifully, but other brands have as well. Typically, it's because they've connected the brand identity to someone's personal identity. You're no longer an Apple user. You're like

an Apple devotee. You can't imagine yourself ever using anything else but that product. And you see the same with Coke versus Pepsi, for instance. And it's often, plays out with people who it's not just something I use or something I read, it becomes a part of who I am. And that's again where stubborn so often kicks in. Right. Because then, fundamentally, it tears down who you are. There was another study that I found really interesting where people looked at what would happen if a person was only exposed to ideas that they disagreed with for a prolonged period of time. If their social media was filtered only for views from the side that they disagreed with, even after a prolonged period of that, several weeks, their views still

fundamentally hadn't changed. Yeah, I found that study, well, fascinating, but also a little bit sad, really. So that was actually a study done by Chris Bale, where he actually took a whole bunch of Twitter users and exposed them deliberately to content for a series of weeks from the other side of most debates. And he assumed, I mean, it's a nice assumption that actually by exposing people to lots of alternative views, just the opposite side of the view, that actually their perspective would soften, they might become more open-minded. Typically, the opposite occurred. They became more entrenched. Yeah, they became more entrenched. That's right. And one of the reasons for this is when you're exposed to often what feel like binary views, it's us versus them, black versus white,

that's often when polarization becomes most acute. And so simply just substituting your white for someone else's black in terms of the information, actually causes them to become more defensive as opposed to more open-minded. The study I found more interesting in this regard was from a guy named Peter Coleman. So Peter Coleman runs a lab at Columbia University where I love what he does. He actually basically sets up debates. The difficult conversation slab. It's a difficult conversations lab. So he'll get people to debate an issue or an idea and then essentially measure how much their view changed at the end of the debate. Now, granted, these are college students who voluntarily signed up. So they're probably going to be more open-minded.

than the average bear. And yes, there's still, often those instances where really good arguments still fail to move the other person. So what Peter wanted to look at is what causes views to actually change. And the thing that most significantly caused people's minds to open up was when issues became complex. So for instance, if they're going to go into a debate about, let's say, abortion, and there were very strong views that were going to be shared, if they read a series of articles about, let's say, gun reform that went to great lengths to show how complicated the issue of gun reform is it's not a black and white thing it's it's shades of gray and there are so many very valid shades of gray for instance just by reading about complexity of that one issue

essentially had a halo effect it also meant that it changed the way that individual approached an unrelated issue of abortion when they went into the difficult conversations lab discussion and in those instances if they were exposed to more complex ideas that was a thing that made them more open to different perspectives so i think if you look at chris bale's work perhaps the tricky is not to expose people to the opposite side, but just to a much more diverse cross-section of views, that is more likely to cause open-mindedness than just trying to get people to swap to the other camp and be exposed to the other side for a period of time. And that makes sense, because if there are two camps and they're both presenting arguments

at a superficial layer, then that might not be as persuasive as a thorough analysis that goes deep into the subject matter. Yeah, definitely. So this kind of leads naturally to the next part of the interview in which I want to talk about what we can do, specific tools, techniques, when we want to persuade somebody to come around to our viewpoint. And again, this might be a spouse who maybe you want that spouse to get on board with a different way of spending money or a different way of managing the household budget. Maybe you discovered the financial independence movement. You want your spouse to come on board with it, but they're not really into it. Or maybe you want them to invest in a different way, right? So perhaps it could be that. Perhaps it could be a colleague or a client or a boss. It could be some workplace relationship. What do we know from the field of behavior that can help us change minds, given the fact that minds tend to not want to change? I think the first key is agency or autonomy. People need to feel that they are in the driver's seat of change.

The moment they feel like they are being coerced or even convinced to change, even though you're intentioning engaging with someone else may be to change their mind, if they feel like that's that ploy or a play that's happening, they will dig their heels in even if what you're saying is something that they actually agree with. So we've got to be very mindful that the key, the first key to persuading anyone is to win them over to us before we try and win them over to our ideas. And so affinity is a critical starting place. Because even in, let's say, a married relationship where you've got two partners at home where there's different views about money, the realities on that issue, the other one person probably feels

very much at odds with the other. It's almost like they have to defend their position because you've adopted these two, almost these two archetype personas. And so stepping outside those. The moment that happens, then you're not even on the same page looking in the same direction. you're actually looking at each other as opponents. So trying to get that sense of affinity and agency. You're on the same team. We're in this together. And so much of this starts with very simple things,

in terms of trying to get someone on board. And I love the work of Paul Zach. If you're not familiar with Paul Zach, he's a neuro-economist at Claremont University, who's done a lot of work around trust and affinity. And particularly, what are the neurochemical things that happen in our bodies and our brains that cause us to be open to someone else, particularly the role that oxytocin plays.

And so oxytocin is that the body's social, bonding hormone. And so what's interesting is until there's oxytocin or that sense of connection, and this is what Aristotle talked about as ethos, that sense of having credibility with the other person until there's a sense of, I feel like I can trust you. They won't be open to what he's trying to share. And so Paul Zak has looked at a whole lot of research over the years around how to build that sense of trust and affinity with another person. One of the things he's looked at is the importance of synchronicity, getting in sync with the person you're trying to connect with. And over the years, I've heard that spoken about as in

like match the body language of the person that you're communicating with if you want to build influence. And I'm like, to me, that's always felt just a little bit contrived. You know, if they cross their legs, you cross your legs. If they touch their area, you touch your area. I'm like, it just feels almost manipulative even. So I remember speaking with him a little while back and say, how do you do that in a non-ickey way or it's a really practical way? And I just loved what he shared. He said, one of the things that the researchers have shown is that going for a walk is the best way to do this. Because when you walk side by side with someone, you eventually start to match their cadence, you get in sync. And when that happens, if you look at what happens in our brains,

there's essentially a mind meld that forms when you're doing something in sync with another person. So if you've got to have a high-stakes conversation, it's a sort of thing that could easily turn into a battle of the wills and a source of stubbornness. Don't do it across a dinner table or a coffee table. Get out, go for a walk, side by side. Even simple things like that can actually change the way our brains are engaging with the other person and make us more open-minded. Another thing that Paul's work looks at, and a few people have actually explored this is the value of vulnerability and I'm self-deprecation. Now, don't go into the argument or the discussion or the debate with another person with that sense that I've got my carefully worded

arguments ready to go. You know, go in with that sense of open posture. This is just my view for what it's worth. I may be way off here, but, you know, just like preempting it with that sense of self-deprecation is incredibly effective because it disarms the other person. And they're going to keep Williams, who's done some great work looking at how this plays out in the legal setting. And I love his work because he's looked at in legal cases, when do the jury typically switch their allegiance from one side to another? And what they've found is typically when one solicitor will go to the jury and actually acknowledge weaknesses in their own case, acknowledge information that might work against their own arguments. But by being self-deprecating

and even engaging in self-disclosure, just being honest and humble, what it does is it instantly disarms the other party, in this case the jury, it makes them, instead of sitting there looking for the holes in your argument, the keys you've got to bring that stuff up before the opposing side has the chance to. But by saying, look, I haven't figured all this out, but my sense is that. Like, just adopting a posture of humility, it builds that sense of connection, commonality, trust that is often essential if someone's going to be willing to listen to what you say. So I think that's probably the first, most important thing to do is try and get them on board with you before you try and get them to agree with your perspective.

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It can be helpful if you can present the idea, not even as your perspective, but nudge them into coming up with the idea themselves. There's a great example of that in the cigarette, can I have a light? Yes. Can you share that story? It's an amazing story. So I read this in one of Jonah Berger's books, and I'd heard about it over the years, but I hadn't sort of seen the detail of the case study. It's a fascinating one. So the Thai health authorities in Thailand did this a few years ago where they'd released a quit smoking campaign like a lot of governments around the world do, but it wasn't really working. People weren't calling the quit helpline to get advice to quit smoking. And so they'd done all the standard things that governments do. They had tried information campaigns to scare people, or a shock people to give them medical information. Again, none of it was working.

What they tried, though, was a technique where they sent people out into the community to go up to smokers who were mid-smoke, having a smoke, and ask them for a light. Now, typically, that's like the global assumed thing that if another smoker asks for a light, you just say, yes, that's just a social norm. What's interesting in this instance, when they walked up to the smokers that people sent out by the Thai Health Departments to ask for a light, they were met with a lecture. So the people who were smoking stopped smoking long enough to basically lecture the other person as to why they shouldn't smoke and it's bad for you and it'll give you cancer and,

you know, they'll have to drill a hole into your throat if you get throat cancer. You know how bad that would be? And like you think, how strange that these people smoking would default to that response. And it's only strange to you understand who it was it was asking for a light. And it was young kids aged between 8 and 10. So the Thai health authorities have sent these kids out into the community to essentially ask for a light. When they received the lecture, what the kids then did is reached into their pocket and gave

that smoker a little note that said, do you care about me? what about yourself? And they had the little quit helpline. And that quit helpline, I can't remember the exact number, but I mean, it had been around for a number of months now. The number of calls in the month that followed this skyrocketed and stayed elevated for many, many months afterwards. Because what

happened is suddenly these smokers heard themselves giving the advice, they'd been given by others for years. They knew what was right. They knew what was helpful. They knew what was going to be constructive. But until they were the ones giving the advice, essentially until they owned it, became the messenger of this rather than the person being. being coerced by their kids and their spouse and the government and the community

or stop smoking when they were the ones who had to give the message, suddenly it sunk in. And it's not foolproof, but it was a much better technique than trying to coerce or convince these smokers to change, giving them to actually vocalize themselves. Why change was a good idea. And so there's lots of ways that you could do that in other techniques. One of the techniques that I found that I loved that is very useful, and I've seen this work at a personal level as well as a professional level in the life. last few months is a technique I call the rate and reflect technique. And so this can be really

valuable. If you've got someone you're dealing with, it might be a teenage kid or someone at work or someone, you know, a partner or spouse, and they're really fixed in a certain way of thinking or behaving, what you can do, the first thing is you ask to, or two questions you ask in a specific order. The reason this works is because it gives the other person that sense of control and agency. So the first question you ask is, so out of one to ten, how likely or willing would you be to and dot, dot, dot, whatever the changes you're wanting to suggest. So, they're going to give a number. Now, that's the great thing.

Firstly, it's a scale. It's not a yes or no. Do you want to do this? Yes or no, because if there's even a shred of doubt or resistance, people will say no. And so you're giving them a scale. That's a helpful first start. But that's not a particularly new or fresh or original idea. It's the second question in this approach.

That's where the game changes. Because the second question then is, I'd say the first one, they've said three out of ten. I don't want to do this, but probably three out of ten, maybe two out of ten. Second question then is, okay, so I'm just curious, how come you didn't choose a lower number. And at that moment, the whole conversation changes, because now the person is encouraged to share the reasons, even if there's only a small number of reasons or a tiny bit of reasons for why they might be open to a certain way of doing things or thinking, this doesn't negate all the other reasons they have for not wanting to, but it focuses the

conversation on the part of them that is motivated to change. So this is a technique in the clinical world. It's called motivational interviewing, and it's been used for decades now to deal with drugs. drug abuse and all sorts of destructive medical conditions. And it's been shown to be the most effective way to get people to change in a way where the change is sustainable. Because they're giving reasons to change that are their own rather than feeling they have to comply with what's being presented to them. And I actually saw this play out recently. A few months ago, a group of us were getting together a whole lot of mates away for a weekend. And on the Saturday night, sitting around drinking whiskey and one of the guys in the group said, hey, so let's be honest,

how's life going? Like, you know, scale of one to ten, like how your marriage is going, for instance? And I'm thinking, gosh, what I, that's, that's heavy. That's serious. All right. I'm strapping. Why not? Let's go there. So we sort of went around the group.

There are about seven of us there. And everyone said, oh, like seven out of ten or I had a ten or whatever. The last guys we got around to him in the group said, oh, yeah, probably three. Probably three out of ten would be like where we're at right now. It was the whole conversation changed. It was quite heavy. There's a lot going on in their family unit. And it was all pretty difficult.

And we spent as a group, you know, because this group's been friends for a lot of years, a lot of life done with this group of guys. So, like, we just talk about how's that going? What does that mean? And after about 45 minutes, we got sort of this downward spiral of everything being a bit dire and negative. And so I remember as we're sitting there thinking, how do we sort of move forward in this conversation? Because it's just like a bit of a downer. And so I thought, I'll try this technique in the most untechniquing way. You've got to, like, make them conversational organic. If it feels like you've got a strategy you're at work playing out, people sniff that a mile off.

I just said, like, just in a very conversational way, hey, so like, you said, you're three out of ten, like, how come you didn't give a lower number? What's that about, you reckon? And in that instant, it was like I was speaking to a different person in a different marriage. Like, his whole conversation, his whole posture changed, his countenance change. I was like, well, like, not everything's bad. There's some stuff that is really good. Like, we make a really good team as parents.

He started to then essentially sell us on the ideas behind why things were good. There were just elements. This didn't negate all the other stuff. hard. But it shifted the whole focus of the conversation toward the things that were good. And I think that's a useful technique in all sorts of contexts where you want to get people to reflect on how willing or open are they? And then what's the part of them that is willing and open? What is the motivation that already exists and start there? And you're far more likely to have a constructive conversation. Another piece of that also comes from highlighting to people what

their own values are, and then gently showing the incongruity between their stated values and the current decisions that they're making. There's a hand-washing example that stands out, and it's very subtle. Yeah, that was a really interesting example that was in one of Adam Grant's books. I think it was in Think Again. They used the example of how to get surgeons to wash their hands a sufficient number of times and sufficient duration, because surgeons know, and it's been come and practice for a long while now that you've got to wash your hands in a certain way for a certain period of time for them to be safe for you as a surgeon. And yet, and this is terrifying for anyone who's been in surgery in the last few years, there's every chance that your surgeon

didn't wash their hands for as long as they should. That's just the statistics are that people, even surgeons who know what they should do, were not washing their hands enough. And so a couple of techniques were tried to shift this. So they'd place different signs with different wording above the hand washing sink in hospitals. And so one of the signs was, you know, your hands for the sake of your patients and their safety or whatever it was. So wash your hands for the sake of your safety or your health. And even all these different versions of these signs that they used above the hand washing sink and then measured how long people washed their hands for.

And the one that got the best results was when they framed hand washing is something that was it for the benefit of the patients they were treating because if they didn't, it could harm their patients. And all it was is it just reminded the surgeons what they valued. The reason they got into what they do typically is because they care about patients. they care about people. And so their beliefs, their value system, their behavior were incongruent. Once that was made clear, their behavior changed to match their beliefs really quickly.

And so typically, that's a really good way to lead with this stuff. And so you can do that by just reminding or nudging people as to what their values are and just gently pointing out where there might be a gap, that sense of incongruence between their behaviors and their beliefs. But you can also get people to make commitments sometimes in a way that really helps. There's another example in the medical context of over, overprescription of antibiotics. And they did this at a series of clinics in Los Angeles. And so, I mean, overprescription of antibiotics is a massive issue. Something like $300 million worth of

overprescribed antibiotics are given every year in the US. It's a huge figure. They wanted to try and address this. And so what they did, they got doctors to sign a pledge that they wouldn't overprescribe antibiotics. And they had a couple of clinics where the doctors just signed the pledge, others where the doctors signed the pledge and then put it up in the waiting room. And then other doctors that didn't sign the pledge at all. And what they found is that when they sent essentially actors who were pretending to be patients with symptoms to go into the doctor's practices, those who had gone to practices where the doctor had signed the pledge they wouldn't overprescribe were far less likely to be given antibiotics they didn't need. Those where the pledge was physically

visible were significantly less, even more less, to get antibiotics they didn't need. Something about making that sense of commitment to what they thought was important, actually guided or shape the behavior of the other individual. So sometimes if you want to get someone to shift their behavior or their perspective, getting them to clarify what their values actually are. And even in the case of, let's say, finances, you know, what do we actually value as a family or as a couple? Let's just be clear on that. And the fact is once you actually speak the values out, often you realize from a values perspective, we're really aligned. We're on the same page. Our values are the same. It's just that our behavior or our priorities are not. And sometimes just clarifying the values,

getting on the same page and getting people to speak out loud, what actually matters to the them suddenly becomes clear that maybe some of what they're spending their money on, some of the way they're invested in their time, some of the decisions they're making don't match what their values are. And that's the opportunity then to have an honest but a humble conversation about, okay, what needs to change? If this really matters to us, how do we need to leave this? We need to walk our talk. Reframing an issue also makes a major difference. There's a great adage there about two monks. One monk said, can I smoke while I pray? And he was told, no. The other monk asked, well, can I pray while I smoke? And he was told yes.

It's amazing. And the way you position an idea, the way that you frame it can make all the difference. And this can be honestly down to the language that you use. Sometimes we use language in a way that essentially means that we can step back from the issues and not engage with them honestly. Something about framing an idea and actually using language deliberately actually makes a big difference. And so we've seen this play it in lots of different ways. I mean, this is what PR people have done for years. They won't talk about mining. They'll talk about resource exploration, for instance. Like, it's just about using language in a way that it changes the frame, change the way the message of the idea is perceived. Gambling has turned into gaming. Exactly. That's

exactly it. And so we've got to be mindful that we can also be manipulated by organizations, by companies, by brands, and the way that they use this language. But if we're smart, we can use this language well to frame an idea or an issue in a way that's going to be relevant to another person. Go name Jonathan Haidt has done some great work around using what he calls the five moral foundations. So if you look at the way that people understand the world and think about issues, typically the moral foundations will be things like fairness or justice. You know, there'll be things like loyalty, authority, purity. And so if you can frame an idea using language that speaks to the values, the moral foundations of the person that

you're engaging with, you can take any issue and frame it in different ways depending on the way that person sees the world, the way that person defines their value set. And your message, will either then be received or they'll push back on it. You're framing the way you communicate and the language you use can make all the different. So I encourage people to check out on that stuff. Jonathan Heights's work on Moral Foundation. It's brilliant.

And to go from the deep end back to the shallow end, moral foundation's moral framing, that's the deep end of it. At the shallow end, at the superficial end, something as simple as making it rhyme can make it resonate more. As illogical as it is, we know that humans are not logical beings. people tend to believe things that rhyme. Yeah. Is Gillette the best a man can get? I don't know, maybe. Yeah, but there's something about just using a rhyming thing makes something sound more

credible. And so there's a lot of really interesting research about using language that's easy to understand or has a symmetry to it, even using the use of alliteration. It makes your message or your ideas sound more credible, even though it may not be, but all of a sudden because it has that sense of rhyming, it actually, it's almost, it slips off the tongue. so therefore people's minds are more easily able to consider it and take it on board. Alliteration too. Afford anything is much more powerful than buy anything. Correct, yes. And often they're very simple things. And one of the things I struggle with is this constant tension of wanting to use techniques that work because they just work, but at the same time

not to use things that could be manipulative. And one of the important decision points for any of us is to ask ourselves, are we trying to change someone's mind for our benefit or theirs? that's got to be the starting point. And so I think the manipulation and persuasion can often look very similar. You can even use the same tools, but it's about the motivation or the heart behind it that really matters. So even though I share a whole lot of techniques and tactics for trying to position ideas, frame the conversation, open people up to certain ways of doing things or thinking differently,

the precursor to all of this is, are you doing this in a way that is integrous? Are you doing this an ethical way and in a way that is designed to benefit the other person? And otherwise it's manipulation, which is never going to work well in any relationship, but certainly in like particularly the sort of close relationships, often where these conversations really come to the surface. And I think one of the things I love this notion of, are you just trying to win for the sake of winning? Andy Stanley, who's a leadership expert based in the States, put it beautifully.

He said, in any relationship, when one party wins, the relationship always loses. And so if you're going into a discussion to try and win or to beat the other person, your opponent or in some cases, it might even be your spouse or your partner to try and win the argument, often that's going to be an unhelpful posture, an unhelpful tone to start with. I mean, to have a conversation where you both move forward together. I mean, the goal is not victory, it's progress. And that's what changing minds is actually all about if it's going to be done in a sustainable way.

These aren't just parlor tricks or techniques just to coerce people into thinking differently. It's hopefully getting to a point where they feel they can open up their thinking, see an idea from a different perspective and embrace it wholeheartedly as our own. That's the goal. When beginning this, how can you let somebody know that you disagree with them without sounding disagreeable? We'll go back to the example of, you know, maybe your spouse spends a lot more money than you're comfortable with and you disagree with that or maybe they want to make one big major big ticket purchase coming up that you think is a bad idea. You disagree with it. but perhaps you haven't discussed that yet, and you'd like to bring it up and you'd like to disagree,

but you don't want to sound disagreeable. You don't want to sound as though you're instigating something. Well, firstly, I would just say acknowledge the awkward. Just get it out there. Just say, hey, like, this is a conversation that I hate bringing the stuff up. I don't like talking about this. To me, the relationship we have is far more important than money and decisions, but obviously we need to talk about this. So, like, just even framing in that way can be really helpful because, you know, that just sets a tone where you've acknowledged the awkward, you've called it out. And then some of those statements we talked about before, this idea of take this for what it is. It's just my own view. My sense is that. Because if you go in with a really firm view of this is my position,

my argument, here's why I'm right and I think you should consider it. Of course the other person is going to instantly get their back up or dig their heels in. And so going in with that sense of this, look, this is just my view. And I might be way off here. And this might be really unreasonable, but. And even just giving them the opportunity to then essentially step in and understand things from your perspective without having to feel like it's this battle of the wills. So I think so much of it's about starting the conversation with that sense of humility and openness, but realizing that there will be points where it actually does get tense or difficult. And when someone's in that state where they're like the amygdala attack has kicked off,

you know, they're angry, they're frustrated, they're fighting back. The hair on the back of the neck stands up. Sometimes in those moments, you don't have to finish the conversation there and then find a resolution. I feel like, let's just press pause. I'd love to circle back to this, but like we're both tired, maybe now's not the right time to talk about this. Be very in mind that the things you've suggested, the perspectives you've got, particularly put them in terms of your own experience, how you feel about these things rather than logical arguments, they're going to be far more likely to think about those and the hours and the days that follow,

then circle back to the conversation later on. I think sometimes we've got to be mindful of there's this timing in having conversations that are effective and often now may not be the right time. Certainly raise it even to start the conversation, but you don't have to have it there and then. And so I think just picking a moment is probably also a really important part of just, you know, not spirally into these very tense situations where you both walk off in a half and nothing actually changes.

When you're trying to change somebody's mind in a work context and this conversation is happening over Zoom, but largely perhaps over email or over Slack, how do you modify these or apply these principles in that type of a context? A lot of it depends on how much existing relationship is there. Because one of the things that, and we've seen this play out a lot in the last couple of years with remote and hybrid work, when you've got teams that have never actually worked physically together, what you're lacking is social capital. And also, you know, that sense of just knowing someone's values. And so if they say something that feels like it's out of character, you give them the benefit of the doubt. Whereas if you don't have that, if all you've ever seen is someone on a screen or connected with them via Slack or email, then they say something and you're like, well, maybe that's just what they're like. And if that's the way, they are, I don't want to work for someone like that. And all of a sudden, we spiral, we get offended. And so I think it is important at times to be mindful of what you put in writing and what you say face to face or video. I mean, typically, a good rule of thumb is write the

positive and say the negative and never get those mixed up. If you write the negative, it's amazing how people stew on that, they read into it, write the positive and they'll often refer back to it. And it can be a really powerful way of building relationship and rapport. But speak out the negative. So if you're in different geographical regions, that means jumping on a call. That means having a Zoom call. Face to face is better because if you look at a lot of the research around oxytocin and what Paulzac's work has looked at around what builds trust, there's something about be physically with people that makes a big difference.

But if nothing else, at least make it audible and hopefully that's so that the person can see you. Because otherwise, they'll read into their instinctive mind. That's what the instinctive mind does is it's great at narrative formation. It'll make up a story. It'll take the tiny bits of data that it's got about the situation. or the relationship, and it'll construct a whole narrative, which may or may not be true. And so when you're having these tense situations and trying to change someone's mind,

particularly in a work context, face-to-face or at least in a video call, it's going to be far better than trying to do something in a written format. But yeah, ideally, if you can get face-to-face and build rapport and relationship, this is why what I'm seeing with a lot of my clients is they'll have off-sites now, where, you know, the off-site they may have had with their sales team, say, three or four years ago. half the time is about strategy planning and content delivery. Now a lot of the time is just spent being together, building relationships. Because that social cap with that social glue, that is, that's what's missing when we work

remotely. And increasingly, that's what causes the offense and the friction because you don't know the other person enough to give them the benefit of the doubt. And so therefore, your instinctive might often jumps to conclusions. All right. Well, we're reaching the end of our time. Are there any points that we haven't discussed that you'd like to emphasize? guys. One of the things I've found that's really valuable for clients, particularly in a work

context around why people don't change, is to look at the whole notion of resisting change. Because we've been told for years that humans are afraid of change. That's something we've all said, we've all read it. I've said it. I've written about that in books. What's interesting, what we've discovered in the last few years is that's not actually true. Humans aren't afraid of change. What we are afraid of is loss. The moment you're engaging with someone who feels stubborn or stuck in a certain way of thinking, realize that it's probably a sense of feeling they're losing something, it's at the core of that sense of resistance. So to be the three common losses that people fear the most that cause them to be stubborn, the loss of certainty, the loss of power,

the loss of dignity. The moment people feel like changing or shifting their perspective or adopting a new worldview means they're going to lose one of those things, the more they'll resist, they'll dig their heels in, even if deep down they know what you're suggesting is a good idea. And so my encouragement would be rather than trying to upsell the benefits of change and give lots of logical reasons why the change you're suggesting is worth considering, less than the loss. Address those points of loss, those perceived losses that people may have. Because unless you do that, the best ideas in the world will typically be falling on deaf ears

if people's fear of loss means they can't consider those in an open-minded way. Perfect. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. And your book, MindStuck, Mastering the Art of Changing Minds, is available anywhere. books are sold. Yes, indeed. Thank you so much. Lovely to spend the time.

Ah, thank you. Thank you, Michael. What are three key takeaways that we got from this conversation? Key takeaway number one, there are times when we can become entrenched in ideas, and that can lead to unhelpful behaviors or bad decisions, like not getting out of a bad investment, or not pivoting your strategy in some kind of a side hustle that you're running. Maybe there's a portion of your portfolio that you're running. Maybe there's a portion of your portfolio that you dedicate to individual stocks and you've held

on to a couple of them for way longer than you should have. Or maybe there's a limiting belief that you hold. An idea that you can't do X or Y or Z. And you are stuck on that idea because as long as you continue to believe it, it justifies why you haven't. In this first key takeaway, Michael McQueen talks about how to recognize entrenchment in ideas within ourselves. And the key is recognizing whether or not you approach something with a spirit of curiosity. You look for it in yourself when you feel uncomfortable or unwilling to

consider an alternative. You know, you'll read an article, you'll have a conversation that challenges something you've assumed is true. Instead of being curious, you become defensive. Just for all of us, we've got our own tells, our ways of figuring that out. I noticed for me over the years when the hair on the back of my neck goes up and I start to feel that flushed red, hot feeling around my throat and my face. It's actually, that's the amygdala response. That is the fight and flight part of our brain kicking in to defend our views. And sometimes, you know, you're having a conversation with someone, and it's actually a really casual conversation, but they bite up against something that you feel strongly about. And instead of being able to honestly and

objectively have the conversation and remain in that posture of curiosity and humility and open-mindedness. And so that is the first key takeaway number two. When you're trying to persuade someone, getting in sync with them can help you feel a lot more comfortable, and it can help the both of you work together as a team. So in the second key takeaway, Michael McQueen shares one major tip to get in sync with another person when you need them to change their mind or when you need to win them over to your side. Match the body language of the person that you're communicating with. if you want to build influence.

And I'm like, to me, that's always felt just a little bit contrived. You know, if they cross their legs, you cross your legs. If they touch their area, you touched your arm. I'm like, it just feels almost manipulative even. So I remember speaking with him a little while back and say, how do you do that in a non-ickey way? Or it's a really practical way. And I just loved what he shared. He said one of the things that the researchers have shown is that going for a walk is the best way to do this.

Because when you walk side by side with someone, you eventually start to match their cadence. You get in sync. And when that happens, if you look what happens in our. brains, there's essentially a mind meld that forms when you're doing something in sync with another person. So if you've got to have a high-stakes conversation, it's the sort of thing that could easily turn into a battle of the wills and a source of stubbornness. Don't do it across a dinner table or a coffee table. Get out, go for a walk, side by side. Even simple things like that can actually change the way our brains are engaging with the other person and make us more open-minded.

That's an important tip for high-stakes conversations. And that is the second key takeaway. Finally, key takeaway number three, be honest and be humble. Honesty and humility are character attributes and values that have integrity in and of themselves. When you remain inside of that, you remain inside of your own power, your own internal locus of control. But in addition to those two attributes being strong characteristics, they also can disarm the people with whom you communicate. because humility and honesty builds connection and trust. And that is central currency, regardless of whether you're an attorney presenting a case to a jury or whether you're a salesperson talking to a client or an engineer making a case to your boss

as to why you should get a raise. Don't go into the argument or the discussion or the debate with another person with that sense that I've got my carefully worded arguments ready to go. You know, go in with that sense of open posture. This is just my view for what it's worth. I may be way off here, but, you know, just like preempting it with that sense of self-deprecation is incredibly effective because it disarms the other person. And they're going to keep Williams, who's done some great work looking at how this plays

out in the legal setting. And I love his work because he's looked at in legal cases, when do the jury typically switch their allegiance from one side to another? And what they've found is typically when one solicitor will go to the, jury and actually acknowledge weaknesses in their own case, acknowledge information that might work against their own arguments. But by being self-deprecating and even engaging as self-disclosure, just being honest and humble, what it does is it instantly disarms the other party, in this case, the jury, it makes them, instead of sitting there looking for the holes in your argument,

the keys you've got to bring that stuff up before the opposing side has the chance to, but by saying, look, I haven't figured all this out, but my sense is that. Like just adopting a posture of humility, it builds that sense of connection, commonality trust that is, often essential if someone's going to be willing to listen to what you say. So I think that's probably the first most important thing to do is try and get them on board with you before you try and get them to agree with your perspective. And so that is the third and final key takeaway. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to self-improvement and great financial health. This is the Afford Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please share it with a friend or a family member.

and remember to follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, where you can leave an honest review. I'm so grateful that you tuned in and spent this time with us today. My name is Paula Pant, and I'll meet you in the next episode.