Persuasion for Smart People

This is no B.S. Headline. I’ve always wanted to do an in depth sharing of the science of persuasion and influence, something that went far beyond the popular book.

Meanwhile, I wanted to create a course that would in 4 parts of 13 weeks each, with each week being between 1 and 4 hours. Today is not a promo for the course as I have only begun recording this project. You can expect it first promoted at the end of July and it will be available about August 1. Then I imagine we’ll release the next three video volumes every three months.

Applications for what you will learn today are broad and will dramatically improve the results for these categories of people:

*Entrepreneurs

*Executives

*Managers

*Relationship Acquisition (This will be a second track that will run in the course throughout. It will go deep into online connection to commitment, alternate relationship options like contemporaneous multiple relationships, including very step by step applications and special indepth additional information not required for the other categories here.

*Sales

*Digital Marketing

*Podcasters and 2023 “Influencers,” as opposed to people who can be influential without a platform.

*Social Media Influence

I’ve been wanting to give you some real in-depth perspectives at determining in advance what will cause any given person to be persuaded in any given encounter.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve been wanting to show you how to know when you are wasting your time delivering a message when the receiver isn’t tuned in to you.

You’ll quickly see why most people are impotent in their persuasion efforts and you’ll get an introduction to how persuasion works inside the brain. Understanding what happens inside takes you a long way to being optimally effective.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve introduced you to subroutines in the brain and how they control most of what people do. Today, you dig in deeper to see the actual processes as they operate in the brain and what has to happen for you to cause change in their behavior or get them to say “yes.”

Most of the subroutines running in your brain are built, or more precisely, grow, over time. You can think of them as parts or ego states, although the concept of parts/ego states is not as precise or eloquent as the notion of subroutines.

For introductory purposes, either metaphor is probably fine as long as the metaphor helps you navigate self and other regulation. That means you know how to control your Self and direct the behavior of other people, which isn’t quite the same as controlling others, an experience that rarely ends up well!

Here’s a quick thumbnail about how subroutines develop and how you can take advantage of subroutines’ strengths and weaknesses when persuading.

You Are Born Pre-Programmed

You were born with genetic predispositions. Those predispositions are manifest in behaviors that are modified by external and internal stimulus and the responses to those repetitive stimuli.

Example: Like most (but not all) humans, you are born with the drive to fight or flee from danger. The drive is not a subroutine. Drives fuel behavior, thoughts, emotions and actions as they interact with the environment and other people.

Now, imagine a teen at school today coming up on a class where he is slated to give a 10-minute speech. The teen is terrified to give the scheduled presentation. He has the inborn instinct to act by fighting or fleeing from that which he is terrified. Today, the teen won’t use self control/self regulation but will yield to his gut reaction. Manifestation? Today he will skip class. (Flight) He could also get himself in trouble with the teacher or anyone else that morning and end up in the principal’s office. (Fight) In either case, the brain/gut has taken care of the individual by doing what it is biologically programmed to do. It follows the instincts it is born with, then triggers the subroutine to fulfill its mission. Instincts have been shaped by behavior.

Later, he’ll be asked to explain why he skipped class and he’ll almost certainly feel compelled to lie.

The act of lying or deceiving, if you will, in defense of irrational behavior is a subroutine. It has thousands and thousands of experiences and causes the person to behave in a fashion that does damage control.

Admitting you’re afraid of being thought stupid because of presenting in front of a room is fear-generating in itself.

Persuasion question: If you asked someone to take an action while a subroutine to defend and deceive was processing, how might that change your conversation? How might it change the result of your requests? If you were the person (the stimulus) that triggered the deception subroutine what is likely to be the only result?

Spinning the wheel to a sub-routine you can influence?

Persuasion doesn’t require the other person to be honest, but in most encounters, if you can spin a person to a subroutine that isn’t going to protect the individual by deception, you’re more likely to persuade the person to do something that is optimally valuable.

For the teen, the only long-term positive outcome happens when he exercises self-control and regulates the behavior. The only long-term positive outcomes occur when facing irrational fears and fighting them head on.

[Being certain to never confuse irrational (teddy bear) with rational (bear)…]

If you were sitting next to the teen before he was going to skip class, you might try to convince him to go to class by saying, “it will be OK…you’ll do fine.”

Even consciously, he knows better. You’ve now lied to him and that is a grand way to cause someone to bolt from you as he did from the class. You are now part of the problem. Persuading someone to overcome a fear has nothing to do with surface structure logic. That means you have to convince a subroutine that doesn’t speak. You can’t tell the person, “you’ll be OK, I promise. No one is going to die in there.”

See how ridiculous it sounds when you actually know what subroutine is running? People are always concerned about scripting their conversations whether they want to pick up the girl, get a raise, negotiate a deal or make the sale.

That’s why they want scripts.

Because the old scripts don’t work. They can’t work. They’ve never worked. They never will.

While the teen is consciously interpreting the subroutine, he still hasn’t decided to cut class and save his soul. At this point, you can speak right to the interpretation of the subroutine.

“That class is going to suck today. You’ve got to get up there in front of all those people, know that some of them are jerks and will probably make fun of you. Makes you want to smack them all around doesn’t it?”

You’ve now caused the teen to doubt his distrust of you and you have gained some trust points. That’s a modest accomplishment and it is tenuous at best until the teen actually is convinced you’ve proven yourself to his subroutines, which no longer see you as a stimulus that needs to be “dealt with.”

Drivers Lead to Sub-Routines

The flight/fight response is just one driver of behavior and it will give birth to a number of subroutines.

There are 15 other drives beyond flight/fight. Those that are typically most behavior-driving are the desire to eat and the desire to have sex/reproduce.

In some people, these first three drivers aren’t a specific individuals “core drivers” but are instead secondary.

In predicting behavior, you assume they are the foundation until you discover otherwise. There are still 13 other drivers. There is the drive to belong, the drive to acquire, the drive of curiosity and learning. People are driven by the desire for independence, altruism and revenge/competition, and a total of 7 other core desires.

What makes you and I different from each other is the fact that these 16 drivers are all manifest in different degrees and in different polarities in you and I. It isn’t simply a question of “how much independence” you want but whether you are driven toward independence or dependence, and *then* just how much.

The drive of acquisition (aka “the desire to acquire”) is thus manifest to the degree on one side of the spectrum as having no possessions or perhaps even people in their lives vs. another person who is driven to collect and even hoard things or people, on the other end of the spectrum.

Drives, Desires and Subroutines

Back to the teen in school.

This time the scenario will play out slightly differently.

This time he does some further thinking himself.

He is compelled to do anything to avoid giving a presentation. From the outside it simply looks like the teen doesn’t want to give the presentation. In reality, it’s much more dramatic than that. It’s a question of terror. His inner reptile is literally going to bolt or fight so that he doesn’t have to present material that day.

That part of the story is all the same.

Flight/fight is activated. His reptile is compelled to not give the presentation BUT in this scenario, the student has an equally or greater core driver “to belong.” Almost all humans have a drive to belong to some group(s).

Survival is almost impossible without belonging, so this driver can be a determining factor in what people ultimately do.

In this case, let’s imagine the student likes the teacher a great deal. They have excellent rapport. The student has few friends, but those he has are the kids he will be presenting to today. The presentation is part of a team presentation and the group he’s presenting with are his best and pretty much only friends. The student is now very likely to live with the terror and present because the fear of letting down his friends and being ostracized from his group would be greater.

The question of loyalty to the group could come up in your mind. Yes, loyalty to friends is significant, but the fear of being ostracized is far more compelling than a wish to be loyal.

Never misunderstand loyalty (an element of honor) and belonging. They are two different drives that can look the same on surface.

You will develop the skill of discernment as time goes on. You persuade each differently.

In the first scenario, our student skips class to avoid the presentation. The second scenario? The student with an equal amount of terror gives the presentation because of the over-riding drive to belong.

Both situations are common in many different contexts of life.

People rarely take the time to even learn how to identify the 16 drivers that are pushing and pulling the people they interact with. After all, 16 is a monstrous number. 16 isn’t 7, after all. It’s a lot to think about. 😉

The upside in digging deep here is that people are predictably lazy and rarely take the time to learn the 16 drivers! People have no idea how to predict human behavior, viewing it as a mystery; and they have no idea how to change themselves or persuade others to change or comply with their wishes.

Effort required, yes?

You will always have the advantage of being able to predict behavior with startling accuracy. This is true of your behavior or the actions of others. It doesn’t take long to figure out what is pushing and pulling people. Once you have figured it out, it is, frankly, fairly simple to almost know what people will do in most situations.

If you personify a subroutine you observe, it’s easier to understand what the person wants to do and what they will likely do next while that subroutine is activated in the brain.

The most valuable insight you gain from delving into the 16 drivers is being able to see through the eyes of almost anyone. Specifically, people who are driven by specific combinations of drivers see the world in very predictable ways.

People who do not have the desire to acquire switched “on,” view others as greedy. People who have the desire to acquire turned “on” see others as people who are not prepared for the future. And that is simply one distinction of a half dozen or so, for each core driver.

And that means a lot more than you might think. When you can know what someone is thinking and why, there is little reason to ever communicate significant information to them that doesn’t comfort or trigger (in a useful fashion) their core drivers.

Behavior is directed (or controlled, gulp) by a message of greater importance to one’s most powerful drivers, squashing a slightly smaller driver. People often believe the core of these messages must be stated verbally, but that’s not typically the case. Vocal nuances will often do the trick. Utilizing questions, of course, is generally the most effective tactic.

Zeroing in on their Core Driver …

“And the team is cool with you not presenting today?”

That would normally be all it would take to “influence” the other person with a strong drive to belong, to give the presentation, assuming that was the best overall decision for the student.

Most of the world is trying to “figure out what to say” to someone to “persuade them” when really there’s nothing to figure out as far as words are concerned. The message matters a lot. The exact words are significant, but nothing compared to the delivery style.

If the teen was driven most potently by vengeance (competition/revenge) then, “And the team is cool with you not presenting today?” is obviously impotent.

Instead?

“So you are OK with the class thinking you can’t pull it off?”

or

“Aren’t they the same kids that picked on you…you seriously don’t want to show them who you are…”

Starting to make sense?

The message is the picture that ends up in the other person’s mind. If you try to script your communication instead of learn the other person’s drivers, you will only hear “yes” or get the change you want a very, very small percentage of the time. Perhaps 10%.

We’ll return to the quest for directing subroutines in a moment. A quick sidestep into ethics.

Persuasion = Communication

“Persuasion” has a connotation that “communication” doesn’t have. Without splitting hairs they are one and the same thing. The difference? People rarely communicate with intention. They tend to simply speak before thinking about the words and tones that are about to exit their mouth.

People who endlessly babble tend to say things like this:

“I’d never persuade someone to do something they wouldn’t want to do.”

That’s what a lot of babblers want to hear, but it really isn’t true.

The purpose of all communication is to influence. The babbler is attempting to influence that they are important. When the stream of words stops, they feel they have failed.

Just imagine for a moment: Can you think of any sentence you can say in a stated context that might not have a persuasive intention?

I’m sure there is some such construct somewhere, I’ve simply not found it yet.

The purpose of all persuasion (communication) is to cause a behavior or at least a thought or feeling in another, or a group of people, that the individual possibly wouldn’t have come to themselves.

Most actions people take are done incorrectly and not in their own best overall interest. This is why it is easy to be a critic and not as easy to be effective. It is clearly in the teen’s best interest to override his subroutines, give the presentation, and receive a grade for his effort. If your influence can help him to do that, is it not considered the best thing all around?

People grow fat, get diabetes, smoke until they get cancer, quit learning, join cults, make disastrous child rearing decisions, beat their spouses, rob banks, kill people on purpose and by accident, steal investors’ money, molest children, rape women, and on and on and on. People are walking decision disasters.

Why?

People do what their “gut” tells them to do. The power of making decisions by stomach sensation…

It’s that simple.

Guts don’t think. They just do stuff in impulse movements and rarely get real stuff done.

My job, hopefully your job in general, is to get people to do something other than what they “normally would do.” We want people to not rip off their banking customers, prefer them to not rape the woman next door, opt for other behavior than grand theft auto, choose something different than smacking the kids around. Normal behaviors are normally a disaster.

Digging in: What is behind “all” behavior?

All behaviors occur because of the influences of the interactions of drivers within the individual and within the group.

People hire me to get people to do what they don’t want to do. It’s typically the best thing to do and the thing I do best.

Returning to subroutines and shifting them into the right place…

The subroutines in humans aren’t literal computer programs. They are always a combination of the proverbial nature + nurture factors.

Stock behaviors, those behaviors that are off the shelf, those behaviors that are done by rote or routine, the same every single time, are very, very difficult to change. These are subroutines. Subroutines collect external stimuli and when “they hear” (“they” don’t really hear, but stick with me on this) ideas, notions, considerations that something other than their specialty behavior might be performed they “lock in to place” and fire up their defense mechanisms.

They will skip class instead of being forced to do something they are terrified of.

Once a person has eaten 10 cookies per day, that’s 3650 cookies per year. That’s 36,500 cookies in a decade. That’s 100,000 cookies in less than 30 years. The stimulus/responses that take the person to the cupboard, get the cookies and cause them to be eaten is not something that is going to be solved by a scolding, 10 sessions of hypnosis, a drug or anything else that comes in a package.

It requires long-term persuasion.

100,000 is more than “a habit.” 100,000 is a veritable and literal program. It’s a subroutine. It requires no thought and generally, these kinds of experiences aren’t encoded into working memory. The cookies are eaten and if a written or video record isn’t made in that moment, the individual will certainly not remember eating the cookies. They get to the end of the cookie jar and then wonder where they all went.

“I can’t remember eating cookies!”

I can hear your brain all the way over here.

Me too.

You just can’t distinguish that memory from any other faint memory of a similar cookie eating experience. They are all the same and 99.9% of all cookie eating sessions are 100% “forgotten.” They never happened…until you run out and have to go to the store wondering who ate all the damn cookies…

That is a DEEP subroutine. A stimulus (and there can be MANY different stimuli that bring on the intake of cookies, for example) triggers a set of behaviors that end up in the eating of cookies.

You can now ask a few questions about causing behavior to change.

“How do I get him to stop eating cookies he doesn’t even recognize he has eaten?!”

“How do I get him to reduce the number of cookies he will eat each day?”

“How can I stop him from eating cookies TODAY?”

As you can guess, these changes aren’t going to happen easily. There is no technology to create a permanent change immediately, at least not one without daily self regulation involved. There is certainly no pill or brief therapy.

In each case, a complete and comprehensive strategy must be planned and implemented.

Causing someone to stop eating 100,000 cookies will generally require that person to have compelling reasons and driving feelings well considered at a conscious level of thought, or, there will need to be a strong motivator on the outside that will squash the desire to eat.

Importantly, the eating of cookies is not always a response to the desire to eat.In fact, perhaps half of the time “hunger” has little to do with reaching into the cookie jar. Quite often it is pairing various stimuli with the undesirable behavior, assuming eating 10 cookies per day is undesirable.

Changing a habit can be about changing a desire driven subroutine, or it can be about changing a behaviorally shaped subroutine. In either case, the subroutine needs to be manipulated. (ouch)

There are lots of tactics that you can use to cause the person to change.

When is the only time a subroutine gets turned off?

Think about it.

You can remove the cookies from the house and all other places the person goes to. You send the person to Ethiopia and they will succeed at stopping the eating of cookies. Otherwise, removal of reward is only a fair tactic. It’s typically overcome by two legs, a wallet and a car.

In this case, it makes it impossible for the response piece of the equation.

That subroutine will go to great lengths to complete the cycle of stimulus to final response. That means that the subroutine, against all rationale or logic, will drive to the store, sneak, hide or steal, doing whatever is necessary to get those cookies into the mouth.

It sounds ridiculous. You’d think the brain would simply be OK with eating an apple or a donut when one of the various stimuli triggers the movements and actions to go for the cookies.

A substitute can work short-term, today, but the brain/body subroutine will work its way to the cookies no matter what city or state they are located in.

You can remove the object, but that doesn’t remove the desire.

Remember the girlfriend or guy that broke up with you?

When did that feeling of the need for reconciliation or reconnection go away?

Exactly.

When a subroutine is created, and it runs a big chunk of behavior day in and day out, it does its job and no other.

People talk about stalking as if it is an unexpected behavior.

It’s nothing of the sort. It is precisely what you would predict to happen when the brain has locked into another human. And it doesn’t take long for that to occur. Expect stalking behavior. Celebrities should anticipate being stalked. A beautiful girl should anticipate being stalked. Location, setting, context don’t matter.

Subroutines have a job to do and their job is to put the individual in the presence of another individual. When the subroutine has accomplished that outcome, it shuts off until the reward is once again removed.

“Stop texting/calling/messaging/emailing/peeking in my window at….me.”

Good luck with that.

Two legs, a wallet and a car.

Subroutines are turned on with a stimulus, like a light switch.

They are only turned off when the outcome has been acquired/achieved.

Can you reason with a subroutine? Would you want to?

Not Easily Switched Off

Subroutines that have been operating for lengthy periods of time can’t just be turned off. They can be changed over time. It takes a lot of planning, strategy and implementation.

• Can you talk to a subroutine?
• Can you reason with a subroutine?
• Can you talk to a “part” or “ego state”?

Subroutines don’t talk. They don’t think. They can’t be reasoned with, BUT they can be temporarily deactivated when another subroutine has stuff to do that is of greater importance.

Subroutines pursue an outcome they have chased and been rewarded by, thousands of times. Subroutines typically don’t stop working until the outcome is completed.

Have you seen the cars that will park on their own? Pretty amazing. That’s a subroutine. It can’t think. You can interrupt it, but you can’t talk to it or rationalize with it. It just does that one thing. When it’s parked, it’s done. It’s over. The subroutine shuts off until it is turned on to park the next time. Where does the analogy break down? The driver can override the system even after it has begun parking.

One way you stop the cookies from entering the body is by putting a stronger drive to work. Persuasion begins there.

Next week?

Let me know if this article changed how you see the world and persuasion and if it did, we’ll pick it up here next week.

Decision Point–Discover a System of Decision Making That Will Clear the Way to Success

Go Directly to Application Form

See Application for course start date

If you’ve ever taken one of my e-courses, yes, it’s like them! This E-course lasts 7 weeks and has more than 20 modules. You set your own schedule – you don’t have to be “in class” at any particular time each day. You get VIP access to a secret portion of the web site, and can log in at any time.

If you could point to one word, to one factor, to one element or cause of what happens to you in your life, it is decision.

Maybe you have been experiencing one or more of the following:

Moving is always tough but when there are more than one person’s job or one person going to a school that they love and the possibility of leaving friends behind makes for what many consider an impossible decision. What do YOU decide? How do you decide?

Your investments have done OK but your total income saved for your future is terrible. There are a lot of options you’ve been told about but you really don’t know what to do. What will you decide? How will you decide?

You are a manager at your company and only have enough budget to pursue one product line. You can choose between an almost sure thing with a very modest return or a riskier proposal that could make you a superstar. What do you decide? How do you make the decision?

You’re on your way home for the holidays. You get stuck in bad weather and are put up at a local hotel. In the bar that night a beautiful woman strikes up a conversation with you and she has offered you the key to her room. What will you decide?

A relative lives with you. They take advantage of you but you can’t let them go because you don’t know what will happen to them. What is the right thing to do and will that thing be what you decide? How will you decide?

An elderly relative lives with you. They can’t take care of themselves any more. You hate the idea of a nursing home or “worse.” You also want “a life.” What will you decide to do?

Your wife is two months pregnant. A test reveals the baby is going to be born with a disease that will require your 24/7 care for the rest of your life. She decides she wants to keep the baby. But you haven’t made your decision. What will you decide to do? How will you make the decision?

Your home has a horrible defect that you can cover easily in the selling process and the defect almost certainly won’t be discovered for years. Revealing it will reduce the price of your home $100,000. What will you decide to do? How will you decide?

You can stay at your present job which you really don’t like that much and live on a predictable but very modest income or you can pursue a venture that has about a 70% chance of success and if it succeeds, you would double your income. What do you decide to do? How do you decide?

“Just wanted to thank you. I took your Decision Point E-Course earlier this year, and have put the ideas into practice. I knew I wanted to leave my job, but didn’t seem able to decide when, how, etc. Well, using what I learned from you, I was able to make a very definitive decision about NOW being the time. I feel great about the timing in my life now and at peace with the decisions I made. This means so much to me! Mahalo nui loa (thank you so very much).”
Stephanie Smedes, Seattle, WA

You’ve been thinking of getting a divorce but you’re just not sure. There are other fish in the sea but you wonder if you can still compete? Can you do better? What about the kids? What do you DECIDE? How do you decide?

You are involved in a custody battle for your children. One of the kids is misbehaving terribly and you don’t know whether you should spank them or discipline them firmly. The result could easily effect the results of the custody hearing. What do you do? How do you decide?

Two women have taken a liking to you. You date them both for some time. They both begin to talk about moving in and a permanent relationship. One is the kind of person you feel comfortable with and would be easy to love. The other is 10 years younger and is celebrity beautiful. Unfortunately she knows it and enjoys being the center of attention. What do you decide? How do you decide?

And those are just a few of the decisions that face real people every day. Decisions that people are forced into and have no idea what to do or how to do it.

THIS COURSE shows you how to make ALL of the decisions above.

And it’s important to note, that the right decision easily can be different from person to person. Knowing how to evaluate THAT is crucial to everything you will do…but no one ever does it….

“As a psychotherapist, I work in the minefield of decision-making and I can tell you that making good decisions is critical to happiness, success and relationships. Kevin Hogan’s course covers the terrain of decision-making with his usual thoroughness, candor and relevance. Kevin is always ahead of the game because of his extensive research, vast and varied connections and sharp mind. His thinking about ‘high noon’ and light a fuse, if applied, would save many relationships and learning the concept alone is more than worth the price of admission.”  
Bob Beverley, psychotherapist, www.findwisdomnow.com

If you haven’t taken an e-course with me:  an E-course with me is not like an E-course as thought of by the rest of the world. With me an E-course means you will have instruction in several media forms. Video, audio and text. There is NO specific time you must meet with me every day.

About 50% of the people who take my courses collect all the materials and work at their own pace later. The other half work with me and sometimes with other participants when necessary, on projects that are necessary to learning how to make RIGHT DECISIONS.

My courses are universally known to be challenging, results-oriented, pragmatic and show you EXACTLY how to get where you want to go.

Decision making is a function of thinking that almost 90% of people do very poorly. Most people think that if something turns out well, they made a good decision. If something turns out poorly they made a bad decision.

And that conditioning is one of the biggest reasons why people are poor decision makers.

Decision making is first and foremost about MAKING DECISIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Every day, people vacillate on making changes in their lives that they KNOW are absolutely necessary, but they decide to do nothing and hope for the best, only to live a life where nothing ever changes.

This is where we begin.

Elimination of PROCRASTINATION and VACILLATION.

You will learn how to recognize situations where you are about to commit acts of self-sabotage. I’ll show you how to identify it long before it becomes an issue. I’ll show you how to crush self-sabotage so you can make a CHOICE instead of only having the ability to stay with the Status Quo.

This first week’s module alone will be worth the investment in the course.

How would you like to NEVER procrastinate again?

What would happen if you could actually MOVE in the DIRECTION that you want to, even if it is ONLY AWAY FROM WHERE YOU ARE TODAY?!

By the end of week one, you will have daily projects to do for several weeks that will almost literally beat the habits of self-sabotage and procrastination from your life.

Most people don’t know that procrastination is a habit you picked up, but it is NOT your fault.

The same is true of self-sabotage.

I will explain why, where it all started, why it happens to everyone and why it must be eradicated intentionally and with no little effort. By the END of the course, IF YOU FOLLOW the Decision Point Plan, you will have eliminated procrastination and almost all forms of self-sabotage.

I’ll explain in detail why self-sabotage is a little trickier and lurks in EVERYONE’S back yard waiting to strike. I’ll show you how to get rid of it and then prevent it so you never have to deal with it in the future.

And that is only week one! How we doin’ so far?!

Decision IS Destiny

You make decisions all the time. Generally speaking, the more decisions a person makes, the more successful they are.

The better a person is at making decisions, the more successful they are.

When you move from your old home to the home you are in now; maybe you moved because you wanted a bigger house, or to put the kids in a better school district. Maybe it was just closer to where your job is…more convenient.

And of course in the case of uprooting and moving your family, you’re talking about a lot of variables, a lot of things to consider. You’re going to find out how to make the right decision in which house to buy and where to move.

What about leaving your job for some other opportunity?

FEAR enters the picture quite clearly and because the future is seemingly unpredictable, you feel frozen or stuck as to what to do, so you immediately default to stay in your same job. But there is a way to make this decision much easier. And you’ll be pleasantly surprised when you do….

But there are also the smaller decisions of life.

• Which movie to go see…
• Which show to watch on TV….
• What to make for dinner…
• Whether to go to the game or stay home….
• Whether to take a vacation with or without the kids…
• Whether to wear blue or black…

There is a simple method that takes little thinking at all to make these day to day decisions.

And then there are decisions that you make that influence other people’s lives like taking a new job, going into business for yourself, moving to a new area, having a surgery that has risks involved….

How do you know what to do? Don’t worry, most people haven’t got a clue as to how to make the right decision every time, and there is a right decision to make.

Then there are Destiny Decisions…those decisions that you make that will literally determine where you are going to be in three years or five years.

These are REALLY IMPORTANT decisions. Every day I see people screwing them up as if they are no big deal.

You’ll find out a methodical system that might take a very short amount of time or significantly longer depending on circumstances. Nevertheless, you will find out exactly what to do every time.

Obviously there are plenty of Black Swan’s (unexpected random events like hurricanes and terrorism) out there to get in the way of what you want in life, but nothing you can control impacts your life more than decision.

Write that down.
Put it on the refrigerator.
That alone is worth $10,000, yes?

Nothing you can control impacts your life more than decision.

How would life be different if you knew you were going to make the right decision, every time?

(Every time?!)

Did you know that in life, there is almost always a best decision?

What would happen if you had the method for decision making?

What would it be worth to have a simple systematic approach to decision making where the guidelines are from your head and heart?

Most people are paralyzed with uncertainty about whether they should:

• Ask the girl to marry them.
• Make a purchase.
• Move from one place to another…
• Quit their job…
• Decide between committing one person or another.
• Start a business…
• Ask the girl to go out with them…
• Send the letter or not…
• Decide between hiring one person or another.
• Get a divorce….
• Send your kids to public or private school….
• Choose between a new car, a used car or no car….
• Go back to school to get more education….
• Fire the person or not.
• Invest in stocks, bonds, real estate and not screw up.
• Accurately plan for their future in all areas.

Why Do People Make Bad Decisions?

And…they make bad decisions because…we all have about 8-10 areas of failure in our brain….similar experiences where you make the wrong decisions over and over again.

(Like marrying the same guy five times, dating jerks, working for idiots, saying the wrong thing at the worst time, etc. Sound familiar?)

We’ll repair all of that. (If we don’t, life will be the same tomorrow as it has been in the past….)

Did you know there is a proven way to make the right decision in each of the above choices?

Now STOP.

For the sake of discussion, let’s assume that is correct. There IS a method you can use to make the RIGHT decision just about every time.

It doesn’t take a genius to think, “I decide to make more money,” “lose weight,” “get a better job,” “get married to perfect person x”.

KEY: Learning the process of making the right decision involves making that decision STICK, be UNYIELDING and barring a Black Swan, guaranteeing you will follow through.

Over the last 15 years we’ve been fortunate to have studied the raw information about how to make laser beam accurate decisions. Complex software programs have shown scientists how to simplify the decision making process using some mostly simple (sorry, it’s not ALL instantly easy!) rules.

And now, you don’t need the software or the computer any more…

And, by the way, in the last 15 years there has been an incredible amount of research done about decision making that teach and use VERY FAULTY processes, that can’t and don’t work.

KEY: You’ll experience FIRST HAND, how what seems to be an obvious decision, is almost always the wrong one….the costly one…(often the disaster one….)

If you follow that teacher’s advice, you’ll flat out screw up.

You’ll end up with next to nothing and headaches and heartaches to boot.

Why?

People, including a lot of authors, are lazy.

They don’t do the research.
They don’t test.
Why should they?

They get paid the same no matter what and when YOU screw up, they just say, “you did it wrong.”

Play along for just a moment.

Can I ask you a question?

Have you ever read that it’s been proven that 93% of all communication is body language?

Of course, lots of times. Everyone has read that.

And of course, it’s not true.

(It’s not even close to accurate.)

How could that be, it’s common knowledge…isn’t it?

There was one study done by a brilliant communication researcher 35 years ago that evaluated people saying one word to another, with the other person only being able to see the person from the neck UP. (that leaves about 90% of the body out of the study.) In this one specific instance, Dr. Mehrabian found that about 93% of the communication sent was at a nonverbal level. Obviously when people communicate with more than one word and people can see below the neck, all kinds of factors change the percentages.

Problem is people read something in a book written by Goofball X and they believe what she writes because she says it’s “scientific.”

People look at their lives and think, “I did everything I was told…”

Yep and look at that life. It didn’t work.

The guru didn’t do the research. They went with the party line and taught that.

I don’t care about the party line because I don’t like the people at the party.

Remember when Benjamin Franklin did his famous experiment about testing each of the virtues (temperance and so forth) for a month so he could eventually become adept at all of them? I’ve heard most motivational speakers talk or write about this. I’d name them, but it would take an entire page…

Anyway…You remember… but he gave up the idea after the first week …he never did the experiment. He wrote early in his biography that he was going to do the project and then soon after decided not to. Basically he said it was impossible to do such a thing.

I’ve never heard ANYONE get that right, either.

But THEY TEACH YOU TO DO IT…

And because you trust them YOU TRY IT and FAIL.

Franklin’s personal challenge didn’t work for all kinds of reasons I’ll show you later.

Question: Why did you believe he actually did the project?

Only one reason: …because someone you trusted or believed, an author, a teacher….told you that it was true.

Want a quick way to filter a crummy guru out?

If they tell you that story, they didn’t get very far in Franklin’s biography. If they tell you that, they’d tell you anything.

By the way…what did Franklin do instead?!

I’ll show you that at Decision Point, too.

The point is that MOST of the stuff people tell you to do…. that is “scientific,” that is based on laws of the universe or proven techniques is nothing more than their imagination having run wild.

…and following their advice will get you the same ultimate destination, every time…

Back to Start. (If you don’t go into foreclosure first.)

So why don’t the vast majority of people make good decisions?

Why are people AFRAID to make decisions at all?

They’ve been given crummy information and worse methods for how to choose and what to do.

It’s that simple.

(OK, there are eight other core reasons people make crummy decisions every day, but to pick on your neighbor here is so not cool…)

And what does the Power of Decision Point give you in life?

• Choice
• Personal freedom
• No limits
• The Ability to Succeed When Most Others Fail
• The Ability to Make Big Changes in Life with Easeand…
• Wealth if You Want It
• A LOT Better Life If You USE The Power of Decision
• Success when you use The Power of Decision.

You’re going to learn it ALL in this 7 Week E-Course.

If you’ve been in an E-Course with me, you know that although they are always convenient, they are also densely packed with practical, real life application as the end result. That is the same here. Everything you learn will be immediately applied to a crucial part of your life because there is a LOT going on in your life right now and a LOT of it has to change but you don’t know WHAT.

Each week you’ll receive a number of emails or documents from me. You’ll have homework assignments that are all real-life based…your life. You’ll be given audio’s to listen to or video to watch. You will once again, find out what “over delivery” means!

You’re going to discover:

• How People Decide
• Why Most People Make Almost All Bad Decisions
• How to KNOW What to do…
• The Four Factors of Luck and How to Tilt the “Luck Factor” in YOUR Favor.
• How to Beat the Black Swan when Bad Luck Strikes….
• All of the Successful Strategies for Decision Including Decision Point: MY PERSONAL SYSTEM

“You’ll never see a sunset if you keep going east! And you’ll never live the changes you want in life if you exercise your decisions in the wrong way. No matter how positive or determined you are. So, if you want to begin making decisions that will help you take control of your life at a whole new level, then you need to enroll and immerse yourself in Kevin’s new e-decision-making course. It’s packed with fresh, new, exciting information that will help you train your brain, period. Since I completed the course, I have learned to think better and smarter about challenges, enjoy being able to make powerful, timely and well-considered decisions with new secret technology that until recently, only the elite had access to. In the course, besides being presented in a convenient format, you will be able to start and work on your learning curve at your own pace. And, personalized learning means you can contact Kevin at any stage of the course. I strongly recommend this course, it has solutions that really work!”
David Power, London, England

Do you sell something for a living?

[Pay attention: I’m going to show you how to analyze how your client WILL DECIDE on buying your product or service…and I’ll show you WHAT is going to happen next…think that might be worth $10,000?!]

I’ve never given the system for DECISION POINT to anyone.

I’m not going to write about it in Coffee….ever.

But the time is now to experience a truly transformational experience in an exciting and unique E-course.

I PROMISE YOU:

No one else is going to ever show you this information. You’ll never experience these experiences with anyone else. You can’t find anything remotely similar “out there.”

So essentially, you’re stuck spending seven weeks with me. As with all of my E-Courses, I am your PERSONAL COACH and you don’t have to be at any specific place at any specific time. The program is delivered via audio, video, and text.

So what’s going to happen in these seven fascinating weeks?

I’ll personally show you the problems you face when you make decisions.

You’ll find out the impact of other people on your decision.

I’ll show you how to minimize the NEGATIVE impact of other people on your decisions, including the people you might love or work with every day.

You won’t regret your decisions anymore.

You’ll understand how to MINIMIZE RISK and MAXIMIZE RETURN on both business and personal decisions.

I’ll show you EXACTLY what to do when the RIGHT decision you determine, FEELS completely wrong.

Finding out how your beliefs, faith, values and lifestyle factor into your decisions matters a lot to you. No one else shows you how to be true to yourself and others around you while you decide for your Self or for many.

Almost forgot…

At the end of the course, you will have one cool, big Coffee Table-Sized Manual that you will be able to refer to forever.

Your tuition: See Application Form for current discounts

A couple things before you apply!

1. I reserve the right to reject any application for any reason.
2. There may be a few group projects that are necessary for making decisions where two people are involved, instead of just you (as in a marriage, with kids, or at work). If you are unwilling to e-mail one of your fellow participants during these two projects do not apply.
3. Everything is yours to keep, but you may not share or give away any of this information to anyone.
4. If you’re still here with me, then I look forward to seeing your application!

See Application form for current discounts

Decision Point Application Form