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Hello, my name is Tim Story. Welcome to Miracle Mentality. It's for the dreamers, the doers, the believers in something greater. In each episode, I'll invite you to rise above the mundane, to push past the messy and learn to live boldly in the miraculous. Every episode will have practical wisdom, spiritual insight, and my guests will explore what it takes to activate your miracle mindset. Remember to subscribe, follow, and like. So one of the good things about my life in traveling to 82 countries of the world is you get to meet different people that maybe you would not have met before, or through connections, as in this case, you get to talk to somebody that maybe I would not have talked to. Today's guest is intriguing to me because of what I do for a living. And in studying him, it gets me very excited about interviewing him today and having a great conversation about his life and his mission. So today I'll be talking to Dr. Robert Cialdini. The world calls him the Godfather of Influence. Now anytime you're the Godfather, that's good. But of influence, that's double good. This man has taught many, many people in so many of his books that have sold millions. But one thing I love about his teaching I write in my notes is his persuasion for business, but also he teaches us how to connect with other people and build trust. He's a brilliant mind and a kind soul, and he hails from a place called Milwaukee. Just to teach as well. He's been a college professor and helping people out. So Dr., thank you for being on this podcast today. Good to see you. Hi, Tim. All right, let's talk about something deep. I want to talk about baseball to start with. So when you first started playing baseball, because I've learned from our conversation that you got good at baseball and almost went pro, who influenced you as far as teaching you this art of baseball? Well, of course it was my coaches and even my peers, but I was a good enough baseball player to get an offer to play minor league baseball. There was a scout from the Detroit Tigers who was willing to give me a contract. And we had talked about this with my parents and they were okay with the idea. And I was a center fielder. I wanted to be Willie Mays. I wanted to be Mickey Maddell. Nobody liked that. You know what? And I was 18 years old. That was a desire for me. He came to my last game and up in the stands, he showed me the contract and I was going to sign it and his pen wouldn't work, Tim. And he said, oh, sorry about that, but I've got another one in the car. Let's go there. On the walk to the car, he asked me some questions. He said, let me ask you, are you any good at school? I said, yeah, I'm good at school. Good enough to get into college? Yeah. Good enough to finish college? Yes. Wow. Do you like it? Do you like school? I said, I especially like the research part of it. And he took the contract back from me. He said, go to school, kid. Incredible. Your chances of making the majors are low probability. Your chances of being a success, that's something that you have a passion for and are especially good at. Those two elements combined give you the chance to really make a difference. I would have pinned a moment because you look at the chances there where we could have looked at you, Dr. and seen you in the major leagues because you may have done that. And you could have had a great life. But when you look at the life that you've had of bringing education to people, helping strengthen people in the areas that I see on my computer and all the accolades that you've had for becoming this person that's brought so much strength and education to people's lives. Talk to me about the heart that you have for people. And in the faith sector, we would call it more like a burden for people. When did you find that you really wanted to help people? But what age were you? The thing that I wanted when I was finished professionally was to look back on my life and say not that I was renowned or I was wealthy or I had status. It was have I made a contribution? Have I increased the outcomes of the people that I've dealt with? Have I put myself through whatever hard work or motivation in a position to be able to enhance the outcomes of the people I was dealing with? And the university setting and research setting and teaching setting and mentoring setting allowed those for me. To be honest, I don't think I would have gotten to the major leagues. If you know how the minor leagues work, if you're good enough, you get to the next one. You go from class A, ball to class B to AA, to AAA, and so on. And then you go to the major. But if you fail along any of those places, you don't go any further. You actually might come down. And that's where you end up, the last place that you've played. Well, that may take three or four years to know that I wasn't going to be good enough to be in the majors. Well, what was the last place I would be? Maybe I was in Cozad, Nebraska, the Cozad, Nebraska chiefs, right? Yes. And now I'm done. Well, maybe I'm married now. Maybe I have a child or two. I don't get to go to college. I become the assistant manager at the Cozad, Nebraska Pizza Hut. And I don't get to make these contributions because I was steered in the right direction by a man with a good heart. He didn't have to take that contract away from me, but he saw what was his best. Yeah. We look at your life now, and I write in my notes, one of your most famous works is The Psychology of Persuasion. So first published 1984. And you get into a lot of interesting things that I love to talk about and even think about, about commitment, consistency, social proof, authority, liking, scarcity. The Psychology of Persuasion. Yeah. Why that title? Well, everybody wants to know how to persuade better and how to resist those people who are trying to persuade them in some kind of undue or unethical way. Right? So if I ever go to a party and people ask me, so what do you study in its persuasion? A group of people gather around me. Right? They want to know more about what have you found? What are the most interesting findings? What did you do that was that you didn't expect in studying the persuasion? Tell me how to be more persuasive. Tell me how to have my antenna up for people who are trying to use persuasion in a undue, unwelcome fashion. And so I know that this is something that I was blessed to be able to study by following that path in school. OK, so talk to me about ways people are persuaded in a positive way. I feel like I was persuaded by my coaches in a positive way, by my teachers in a positive way. I feel like other people have tried to persuade me in negative fashions. But tell us a little bit about positive persuasion. So what I say is that we have several principles of influence that everybody falls in line with. And one of them that's very positive for me is reciprocity, the rule that exists in all human cultures, that if someone has done something good for us, we should do something good for them. And the key is you have to go first. You have to give benefits. You have to give advantages. You have to give information. You have to give to others first, and they will want to give back to you. So it's a great system. And I always say, look, when you go into a room where you want to be more influential, don't ask, hmm, who can help me most here? Ask, whom can I help most here? Whose circumstances can I elevate here? And you do that just to be somebody who increases the outcomes of the people around you. That's who you are. And those people will now be your advocates. Which is a beautiful way of seeing life and doing life. So you know that we learn various ways. We learn through education, conversation, observation. I would say in the observation side, I saw people with the power of persuasion in back to sports, that some of my coaches, they were not yellers. They did not scream at the kids. But they're very persuasive just by their own personal actions. And I remember one coach that I had, his name was Ron Trejo. And I thought as a 10-year-old, I don't want to let him down. Because this guy is taking the time to coach us. He's so good to us. I don't want to let him down. So really, he was using persuasion by being a servant to the kids, right? Exactly right. I mean, there's good research on this. There was a study done by McDonald's in the countries of Colombia and Brazil. So some place outside of the United States shows you how powerful this rule is across boundaries. One week, every family that came into the McDonald's stores, where this test was being done, the kids each got a balloon. Half of them, they got a balloon as they were leaving as a nice gift for the parents for bringing their kids to McDonald's. A lot of times we do that. After an exchange, we thank people with some kind of a gift. The other half, each family got a balloon for the kids as they entered. And the parents spent 25% more on the food because they had been given. It's the same balloon. What rules we are for not giving first. People want that approval. They want that sense of welcoming. There was a study done that showed that if you have a welcoming statement on the landing page of your site, welcome to us. We're so glad that you're here. Yes. You get significantly more conversions to what you're offering. Very powerful. Before people have even read a word of what you have to offer. You've given them approval. You start by doing something very positive and humanful. I love what you're saying. And even you see this at Disneyland. I remember as a child wanting to go into Disneyland because I felt like I was celebrated from the minute I walked onto those grounds. Whether it be by the characters that are walking around, whether they're just waving at you or maybe you could take a picture with the character. Going down the main street and looking at all the options. I remember watching people how clean they were making the place and dusting and making everything right for you. But as a child, that so touched me and persuaded me to be a person who wanted to continue to go back to Disneyland. I know you said you come from a faith background. There's not a single major religion that fails to teach the golden rule. Do one who others as you would have them do to you. Yes. Was there a person in your childhood who first showed you the power persuasion even in a small way? Let's go back to your childhood. I grew up in an entirely Italian family in a predominantly Polish neighborhood in a historically German city, Milwaukee, in an otherwise rural state. And what I saw was that if you move from one of those environments to the next, the rules of engagement changed in how to be most persuasive. Right? My Polish neighbors were different around the table or around the house who were different than the people who were officials in the city who were different from people just outside in farmland. And there was such a difference if you went driving and there were stands, fruit stands along the side of the road and you went to stop and buy something. You would strike up a conversation. You would have a producer friendship, a bond with them. You didn't do that in a supermarket. You didn't do that in a city. It's so good. What I learned about persuasion very early on was how different it was and how it was worth studying. Because it wasn't one thing. You had to learn the nuances of it. You had to learn how to operate within each new environment. Bob, how do we personally define ethical influence? What's this idea that when you talk about ethical influence, what are your thoughts? So the ethical influence is moving people in your direction by informing them into a scent. Giving them information that allows them to do better as a result. To have a better outcome because they now have this information than they would have without the information that steers them correctly. So for example, one of the principles of influence besides reciprocity is authority. What are the authorities saying about the topic that I am conversing with you or communicating to you, messaging with you about? If I don't honestly tell you what the legitimate experts are saying about my topic, what a fool I am. Because people want to know what the experts are. So another principle is the principle of scarcity. If I have something that scares, rare, dwindling in availability and it's going away. If I don't tell you honestly, this is the last week in which this offer is available. What a fool I am. You want to know that so that you don't dawdle and come back and I have to say sorry, they're all gone. Right? Yes. So that's the thing. You find something that's genuinely in the situation that educates people into yes. And if you lift that to the surface, that's an ethical approach to persuading people. Bringing on. So share it with somebody, a friend, a family member, a colleague, and then make sure and reach out to us at TimStoryOfficial. And let us know that you love what we're doing. Thank you for being a part of this movement. I look at all the places that you have taught at, places even like Stanford, Ohio State, USC. The subject that you usually teach would be what? Just so the listener can better understand. So the broad topic that I teach at the elementary level like to college sophomores is social psychology. How do people act and interact in social environments? And then the upper level class I teach is influence and persuasion. It's a seminar. It's a smaller class. How do we delve into that particular aspect of social interaction? Moving people in our direction by, according to what we say, in how we present our case. I'm not talking about changing the features of what we have to offer. How do we deliver the, how do we present the strengths of our case that makes it more likely that people will want to say yes to those strengths? Okay. So now I'm going to see if you can go into my world and help us all out. So I told you my background, seminary. And then I became a speaker, an author, and then a therapist slash life coach. I was trained by a lady from USC who is a professor at USC named Dr. Helen Mendez. And I remember her telling me in the 80s, Tim, something called life coaching is going to become very big. So with some of these people that you work with, that should be part of your skill set. So this idea of motives, let's go into motives for a minute. Because I think that many times when somebody is trying to sell people something, whether it be a car, a vacuum cleaner, something that they're trying to sell, maybe sometimes the motive is not so pure. It's just for the sake of the sale. Even if that person doesn't need it, they're trying to get them and persuade them to buy it for the sake of the sale. Right. Okay. Tell me about this word motive having to do with persuasion the way Dr. Bob would see it. Well, I think these principles of influence motivate people in your direction. And the key to doing it ethically, as you said, some people will not be straight with you. Right. So as a life coach, you need to make sure people understand what your background and history and experience and credentials are there before you make your case to them. Right. For what you are offering. And they will be open to hearing what you have to say. Because you're right. But if you lie, if you give them false information about your background, that's the unethical. That's the dishonest strategy. They're going to find out once they then deal with you and trash your reputation to their friends and so on. It's a bad long-term strategy. The same thing with the principle of social proof that we talked about. If you honestly show them the number of testimonials that you have from other individuals, a range of other individuals, including some people in their situations and so on. And those are honestly produced by you. They are informed as to you as a good choice. If you again, manufacture them, if you fabricate them, if you counterfeit them, that's the unethical side of it. How can a parent or even if somebody is not a parent, we all know children, whether they're nephews or nieces. How can they help little children be a little more, I'm going to use the word again, pure in their motives. So the child doesn't feel like they need to manipulate to get something. So one of the things that I do see by counseling people, working with people, is they'll say to me, Tim, I've got three kids that are all raised in the same house, same standards, but that one right there, and they won't say it in front of the kid, but they'll say, be careful. He's a rascal. The way he sees life, maybe it's the cartoons he's watching, the friends he has at school, I don't know. But how can we purify the motives of young people? And if you want to change my word, purify, maybe you got a better word for me. I would say that it would be a mistake to directly criticize them, because when people are directly criticized, they put up barriers. Their self-esteem makes those criticisms bounce off. They don't want to hear them. So they put up these walls where they don't process or hear or believe what you say if it's going to denigrate them. But you can do it with stories you tell them about other people who were that way. And then there was a downfall as a consequence. There was a very interesting study of firefighters in training. And one group of them were trained by being given evidence of what other firefighters had done correctly and that they should follow that. The other half were given information about what other firefighters had done incorrectly and led to errors. Those who got the information about errors to avoid by other people got higher scores on when they were given tests about what was the right thing to do. Right? So you can use stories about the problems, the consequences of dishonesty or whatever trait that you would like to reduce in that child. Yeah, I love what you're saying and how you're handling leadership there. Let's go back to sports again. You look at Phil Jackson who famously coached the Chicago Bulls and then the LA Lakers and played for the New York Knicks. But his style of coaching was so different than a lot of style of coaching because he seldom called a timeout. And his idea was I've been practicing with these players all the time. I don't want to be the timeout guy like stopping them all the time and then challenging them and then go back out and then timeout. But you see other coaches are constantly calling that timeout. But the players that played for Phil Jackson, when you talk to them later in life, they really loved his flow, his style because he wasn't constantly in your face over challenging them. So when I talk about that, tell me what goes through your mind. I'm actually a fan of Phil Jackson as well. And there was one thing that I heard him say in an interview that stood out for me that helped explain his approach and why it was so successful. He said, what I train in practice, right? And for every move within a game that we prepare for is whatever just happened, maybe they dribbled the ball off their knee and went out of bounds. Maybe they got a rebound that they wouldn't be expected to get. Maybe they scored a point. Maybe somebody blocked. Whatever it was, optimize the next thing in the game. Incredible. He's not going to go to a timeout and criticize him for it. He's going to have installed in them, okay, how do we maximize the outcomes of the next thing? The next thing in that game. Yes. That's the thing that struck me as the reason why you would see that flow. You didn't have to introduce or interject a timeout. It was already patterned into them. No matter what has just happened, it could be a success or a failure. Optimize the next thing. Yeah. I love this. Optimize the next thing. I want to take you to another subject where I think you can help us. I think that my crowd, the people that seem to follow me are doers. They're people that want to scale their lives, scale their businesses, scale their companies. This idea of being an influencer. When I would think of old movie stars, I think of like a Jack Lemon, a Walter Matthow. A Charlton Heston. I wouldn't think of these other people that have done little bit parts as the same as those gentlemen or even like some of the great ladies like Sophia Loren. But today we have this thing called influencer. It might be because somebody just did something extremely silly. What are your thoughts on this idea of there's actually a profession? I'm an influencer. One of the marketing approaches that had the greatest increase in the last 10 years has been influencer marketing. And here's the interesting. What's the next most successful? Handmade products. Why? In both cases, there's a person there. There's a person. So my advice is to humanize your approaches. That's why influencers, there's a person there. And we are living in a time when technology is separating us from one another. The way we entertain ourselves, we press a button and these Netflix or YouTube, the way we work, we work in front of a screen. The way we shop. We press buttons. We don't interact. And this is draining humanity out of our everyday experience, human contact, and we wanted. And the more we can restore humanity by making what we do and how we do it more human, the more effective we're going to be. Help me with this idea of our appetite as people, the appetite. I'm going to give you a quick example. I have a sister six years older than me, seven years older than me, and another one eight years older than me. The one that's six years older than me was dating a very classy man. And I was young. I was about 15. And we went to a nice restaurant and I ordered a hamburger. And he said to me, Tim, he said, hamburgers are good. But would you be so kind as to let me introduce you to something else? And I said, of course. He goes, I know this restaurant well. Let me just introduce you to it, but you could still have the hamburger if you wanted after. Bobby took me for a ride. It was a great Italian restaurant. He ordered things I'd never tasted before. And it expanded me because I was 15 and I wanted a hamburger. It's like little kids that are just so used to going through drive-thru restaurants. But this gentleman expanded me in my desire, in what was tasty to me, what I enjoyed. How can we expand people's desire for other things? Yeah. I like what he did. That is, first of all, say, would you be so kind? So he's giving you a reputation to live up to, to be kind to it. Right? Right? Right? And then he's not saying, don't order a hamburger here. He's saying, would you be willing to try something else? You can still have the hamburger if you don't like it. Yes, exactly. He gave you choices. He gave you the opportunity to have your own freedom of action in that situation, which we all prefer. That I would say, man, let's do that. Let's give people choices, not a lot of choices that confuses them. But when you have products and so on to sell, give them three levels. You can have the silver, you can have the gold, you can have the platinum package. But let, and then describe each one, or we can have this model or that model. And here's a secret that has worked very well. And that is, you might have the platinum product and you say, you know, that's really, that's really good. But let me tell you that the gold one is almost as good and much less expensive. So you're doing something, you're getting, talking about reciprocity. You're giving them a piece of information to allow them to maximize their outcomes there. Some people, they want the best, no matter what you. They're still going to go for the top of the line. But when you have moved down and said, but you know, the gold package, a lot of people in your situation, now you're getting this social proof principle, a lot of people choose that. That's our most popular one. You're going to get them moving there instead of the silver package. So good. The power of persuasion. Dr. Robert Sheldini, how can we onboard people into more of your work? Out of the books that you've written, what is a book that you might recommend for the people that are watching and listening right now? It's the book called Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion. And we've had more than one edition of it. The last one was just a couple of years ago. So it's new and expanded. Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, new and expanded. That's one way to do it. We also give workshops and we have, for example, a mastermind program coming up in December. Tell me a little more about the mastermind. It's designed for application. It's not designed as a college course where you learn about different theories of persuasion and influence. It's about, okay, we've got these seven universal principles of influence that research has demonstrated our very powerful levers for action in human behavior. And it's only through their ethical use that we're going to train how to do them. And the key is the application of that training. How can you employ them? So when you use one or another, both sides win. Both sides are enhanced by a yes. Not only you, but the person who receives it. What are the applications that work the best? I love your work and the things that I'm studying. So for those that find this fascinating, which should be 100% of you, so with Dr. Robert Cildini, we'll put all the information there. You'll probably see it right now of his website and how to find out more about his mastermind that he has. Definitely we need to get this book because it's going to help us in all areas of our life. Okay, I have one final question for you. For people who feel like they are not that persuasive, that they don't have the personality to be persuasive. Oh, that was my brother. He was great at talking or that was my sister. She was the prom queen, but I'm not the persuasive one. For one that does not feel like they have that power, what would you say to them? Well, there are seven universal principles of influence that work in every culture, in every population, and every situation. They're in my book, they're in my programs, and I'll just say very simply, they're reciprocation, we talked about that, they're scarcity, we talked about that. There's authority, consistency, liking, we say yes to those who we like and who like us, social proof, and then there's one called unity. The one that says we share an identity in some way or another. I love what you're saying. Yeah, and if you can honestly show people how you are similar to them in the same value system, the same belief system, the same partnership, people don't sink the boats that they're riding in. And our job is to put people in the boat with us. Put them as a communicator, put them in the boat with us, they're not going to sink that boat. Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Robert Cialdini, what a great conversation this has been, and what you're bringing to this world is such a wonderful thing, because I think many people are wrestling with their place on this earth. Where do they fit in when they see government officials and they look like the strong persuasive type, whether they're male or female, and so many people that are quiet, so many people that are wallflowers, that's their personality type. I love even when you're talking about being consistent and just going out there and being a strong person day after day and planning seeds of goodness and greatness in people. And this is what I get from your work, and that when you do that, truly, you do reap what you sow, which is a better life. Right, I agree with that metaphor, that gardening metaphor. You have to cultivate the earth before you plant your seed. Yeah. Thank you for watching and listening to the Miracle Mentality today. Don't forget to, as we say, like and subscribe. And so this guest today, just out of this world, Dr. Robert Cialdini, all his information is right there. I want you to continue to follow him. I want you to buy his book, and I do appreciate his time. And I just want to tell you this, no matter what you're going through, don't ever put yourself down. You may not be what you want to be, but thank God you're not what used to be. I'll see you next time. Thank you for sharing space with me on this episode of Miracle Mentality with Tim Story. If today sparked your courage or helped you understand why you're created for success, I invite you to carry that Miracle Mentality forward. Visit me at timstory.com, that story with an EY on the end. Until next time, walk by faith, embrace possibility, and create your own comeback story.
