Persuasion Articles of the Week

“Book” by Noah Dibley, Flickr, CC-By-2.0

#reading #magic #persuasion #success #coronavirus #bodylanguage #emotionalintelligence

Why We Forget Most of the Books We Read

We have too much information bombarding us… not enough repetition of what we learn… and with computers in our pockets, do we even need to remember any more?

The hidden tricks of powerful persuasion

BBC article on how magicians, restaurants, and others influence us beyond our awareness.

Choosing in Freedom or Forced to Choose? Introspective Blindness to Psychological Forcing in Stage-Magic

More about how forced choices in magic work.

The Coronavirus is coming for you

The news media is pushing fear about COVID-19, but most everything is unknown. The biggest impact to most people will be their economic well-being.

The Best (And Worst) Ways to Spot a Liar

This piece discusses Body Language. It gets a good amount right — that we can’t make guesses with just a few seconds of interaction — but it misses the idea that real body language experts find a baseline before they can begin to judge deviations and discomfort.

The article also discusses asking questions about a person’s story, which Jim Camp promoted with his “Three-plus” system — asking the same question at least 3 ways — to help find the real motivations (in Camp’s case, the motivations behind many negotiations.)

Emotional Intelligence Needs a Rewrite

Another piece about trying to read peoples’ emotions, and how we’re not as good at it as we might think. One standout here, that most PRL readers would know, is that emotions are not rational.

The Common Denominator of Success

What are the differentiators between a successful person and a failure? Your habits, defined by your purpose.