PERSUASION TIP 4 The things that you think about the most will irrationally rise in importance in your mind.

As I write this, President Trump’s current immigration policy is focused on deporting undocumented immigrants who committed serious crimes after entering. His critics probably felt relieved because his opening offer (mass deportation) was so aggressive that his current policy seems more reasonable than it might have without the opening offer for

they are high in priority, even if they are not. That’s persuasion.

PERSUASION TIP 5 An intentional “error” in the details of your message will attract criticism. The attention will make your message rise in importance—at least in people’s minds—simply because everyone is talking about it.

So why did I say Trump had exactly a 98 percent chance of winning when I couldn’t possibly know the odds? That’s a persuasion technique.

I picked 98 percent as my Trump prediction because Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com was saying 2 percent. I did that for branding and persuasion purposes. It is easier to remember my prediction both because of the way it fits with Silver’s prediction and for its audacity,

In the investment realm, I made a small fortune betting on Master Persuader Steve Jobs turning Apple into the company it is today.

A good general rule is that people are more influenced by visual persuasion, emotion, repetition, and simplicity than they are by details and facts.

So Trump ignores facts whenever they are inconvenient. I know you don’t want to think this works in terms of persuasion. But it does.