Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter

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.

PERSUASION TIP 2 Humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors. If you want someone’s cooperation in the future, do something for that person today.

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

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 co

PERSUASION TIP 3 Persuasion is effective even when the subject recognizes the technique. Everyone knows that stores list prices at $9.99 because $10.00 sounds like too much. It still works.

if I make you pause to argue with me in your mind about the accuracy of the 98 percent estimate, it deepens my persuasion on the main point—that Trump has a surprisingly high likelihood of winning.

By continuing to call it a “wall” without details, he caused the public and the media to view that as an error. So they argued about it. They fact-checked it. They put together cost estimates. They criticized Trump for not understanding that it couldn’t be a “wall” the entire way.

The ideas that you think about the most are the ones that automatically and irrationally rise in your mental list of priorities.

I never took his policy positions too seriously except in a directional sense. And directionally, Trump wanted the same things the public wanted: strong national security, prosperity, affordable health care, personal freedom, and that sort of thing. Although Trump never said it directly, he branded himself as a flexible leader who would work out th