I think like a doctor, so I loaded an earlier draft of this chapter with drawings of brain parts and discussions of how the brain works. When I finished, I showed it to Ellen, my editor, thinking she’d say, “Wow. That’s great.”

Ellen quickly glanced over all the brain stuff. And then she said, pointedly: “Ick.”

I got her point. Most people reading this book don’t care about neurons and neurotransmitters and gray matter and white matter. If you’re one of them, you just want to learn how to reach people. You don’t care what happens inside their brains when you do.

But here’s the thing: When you understand something about how the brain moves from resistance to buy-in, you’ll have a huge edge—because no matter what your message is, you need to talk to the brain. That’s why I teach a little brain science to hostage negotiators, CEOs, managers, parents, and anyone else who needs to reach difficult people.

However, I heeded Ellen’s wise advice and took an axe to my first draft. Gone are the brain drawings and dry anatomy lectures. What’s left? Three crucial concepts that will empower you to see what’s happening behind another person’s eyes when you’re trying to get buy-in. Understand all three—the three-part brain, amygdala hijack, and mirror neurons—and you’ll know all you need to know about the brain science behind reaching anyone.

THE THREE-PART BRAIN

How many brains do you have? It’s a trick question, because the answer (as you probably know, if you took college biology) isn’t one but three.

Your brain has three layers that evolved over millions of years: a primitive reptile layer, a more evolved mammal layer, and a final primate layer. They all interconnect, but in effect they often act like three different brains—and they’re often at war with each other. Here’s how each of your three brains behaves:

   The lower reptilian brain is the “fight-or-flight” part of your brain. This region of your brain is all about acting and reacting, without a lot of thinking going on. It can also leave you frozen in a perceived crisis—the “deer-in-the-headlights” response.

   The middle mammal brain is the seat of your emotions. (Call it your inner drama queen.) It’s where powerful feelings—love, joy, sadness, anger, grief, jealousy, pleasure—arise.

   The upper or primate brain is like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock: It’s the part that weighs a situation logically and rationally and generates a conscious plan of action. This brain collects data from the reptile and mammal brains, sifts it, analyzes it, and makes practical, smart, and ethical decisions.

As we evolved, the newer regions of our brains didn’t vanquish the older parts. Instead, like the rings on a tree, each new region overlays the more primitive ones. The middle brain overlays the lower brain; the upper brain overlays the middle brain. And all three have power over how you think and act every day.

To a small extent, these three brains work together. To a greater extent, however, they tend to pull apart and function independently—especially when we’re under stress. When that happens and the reptile or mammal brain takes control, the human thinking brain is eclipsed, and we shift into primal brain functions.

What does all of this have to do with getting through to people? Simple: To reach someone, you need to talk to the human upper brain—not the snake brain or the rat brain. You’re in trouble if you’re trying to gain buy-in from someone who’s feeling angry, defiant, upset, or threatened because, in these situations, the person’s higher brain isn’t calling the shots. If you’re talking to a boss, a customer, a spouse, or a child whose lower brain or midbrain is in control, you’re talking to a cornered snake or, at best, a hysterical rabbit.

In this situation, your success hinges entirely on talking the person up from reptile to mammal to human brain—a technique I’ll teach you later. For now, however, let’s look at why the primitive brain can take over, canceling out all those centuries of evolution. The key: a region of the brain called the amygdala.

AMYGDALA HIJACK AND THE DEATH OF RATIONAL THOUGHT

Your amygdala, a small area deep in your brain, flies into action if it senses a threat to you—for instance, if a stranger approaches you in a dark parking lot. This threat doesn’t always need to be physical; “fighting words,” a financial scare, or even a challenge to your ego can light it off as well.

Your frontal cortex, the logical part of your brain, also goes on alert in situations where you sense a threat. However, this higher brain region wants to analyze the threat, and you don’t always have time for that. That’s why your body gives the amygdala the power to throw a switch, either directing impulses to or diverting impulses from the frontal cortex.

Sometimes when you’re really scared, your amygdala instantly shuts out your higher brain, causing you to act on primitive instinct. Most of the time, however, the amygdala sizes up a situation before making its move. To understand this process, picture the amygdala as a full-to-the-brim pan of water on a stove. Heat this pan of water gently, and it can simmer gently for hours. Crank the heat up to high, however, and eventually the water will boil over catastrophically. Similarly, as long as your amygdala stays on “simmer” and isn’t pushed into boiling over, you can continue to access your upper brain, which empowers you to pause, reflect, consider options, and make smart choices. When your amygdala hits the boiling point, however, it’s all over.

We call this boiling-over point amygdala hijack—a term first coined by psychologist Daniel Goleman, the originator of the concept of emotional intelligence. The term “hijack” is appropriate because at that point (if you’ll forgive me for detouring momentarily into another metaphor), your brain’s intelligent and sensible pilot—the frontal cortex—is no longer in control. Instead, the snake is flying the plane. Your ability to reason drops drastically, your working memory falters, and stress hormones flood your system. Your adrenaline rush will keep you from thinking clearly in the next minutes, and it may take hours for the full effects to fade. Goleman no doubt was keen on this concept because when you undergo an amygdala hijack, your emotional intelligence goes out the window.

If you’re trying to talk facts and reason with a person who’s in full amygdala hijack, you’re wasting your time. But intervene before the amygdala hits the boiling point, and the person’s higher brain can stay in control. (Think of this as adding salt to water as you heat it. When you do that, you raise the water’s boiling point, and it can take more heat while staying at a simmer.)

Many of the techniques I’ll teach you for dealing with angry, fearful, or resistant people do just that: prevent an amygdala hijack. When you do that, you’ll be talking to the human brain, and your words will get through.

MIRROR NEURONS

You cringe when a coworker gets a paper cut and cheer when a movie hero gets the girl. That’s because for an instant, it’s just as if these events are happening to you—and, in a way, they are.

Years ago, scientists studying specific nerve cells in macaque monkeys’ prefrontal cortices found that the cells fired when the monkeys threw a ball or ate a banana. But here’s the surprise: These same cells fired when the monkeys watched another monkey performing these acts. In other words, when Monkey #1 watched Monkey #2 toss a ball, the brain of the first monkey reacted just as if it had tossed the ball itself.

Scientists initially nicknamed these cells “monkey see, monkey do” neurons. Later they changed the name to mirror neurons, because these cells allow monkeys to mirror another being’s actions in their own minds.

The new name is more accurate, because we’re finding that humans, just like macaques, have neurons that act as mirrors. In fact, studies suggest that these remarkable cells may form the basis for human empathy. That’s because, in effect, they transport us into another person’s mind, briefly making us feel what the person is feeling. In a 2007 article titled “The Neurology of Self-Awareness” in Edge, V. S. Ramachandran, a pioneer in mirror neuron research, commented, “I call these ‘empathy neurons,’ or ‘Dalai Lama neurons,’ for they are dissolving the barrier between self and others.”

In short, these cells may prove to be one way nature causes us to care about other people. But look at mirror neurons from another angle, and new questions emerge. Why is it that we often tear up when someone is kind to us? Why is it that we get a warm feeling when someone understands us? Why is it that a simple caring “Are you okay?” can so move us?

My theory, which my clinical findings support, is that we constantly mirror the world, conforming to its needs, trying to win its love and approval. And each time we mirror the world, it creates a little reciprocal hunger to be mirrored back. If that hunger isn’t filled, we develop what I refer to as “mirror neuron gap.”

In today’s world, it’s easy to imagine that gap growing into a deep ache. Many of the people I work with—from CEOs and managers to unhappy spouses to clinically depressed patients—feel that they give their best, only to be met day after day with apathy, hostility, or (possibly worst of all) no response at all. In my belief, this gap explains why we feel so overwhelmed when someone acknowledges either our pain or our triumphs. That’s why many of the most powerful techniques I’ll teach you involve mirroring another person’s feelings—even if you don’t agree with them.

Here’s an example from my own practice that illustrates the surprising power of this approach. It involves Jack, a highly intelligent paranoid patient I saw several years ago. Before coming to me, Jack had seen four other psychiatrists.

“Before we start talking,” Jack said right off the bat, “I need to tell you that the people living above me keep making noise all night long, and it’s driving me crazy.” He said this with a wry grin that seemed odd at the time.

“That must be exasperating to you,” I responded empathetically.

Smiling mischievously as if he’d caught me in a trap, Jack added: “Oh, I neglected to tell you that I live on the top floor of my apartment building and there’s no access to the roof.” Then he looked at me with a smirk reminiscent of a comic looking to get a rise out of an audience.

I thought to myself: “Hmm. I could say ‘and so?’ and trigger a confrontation. I could say ‘tell me more,’ and have him go into even greater detail about his paranoid delusion. I could say ‘I’m sure that the sound appears quite real to you, but a part of you knows it isn’t’ … , but that’s probably what the other four psychiatrists said.”

Then I asked myself, “What’s more important to me? To be a calm, objective professional giving him yet another of the reality checks that he’s already received from my profession? Or, to try to help him, even if it means letting go of reality?”

I decided on the latter. And with that conclusion, I let go of what I knew to be the truth and said with full sincerity: “Jack, I believe you.”

With that, he looked at me and paused for a moment. Then, startling me, he started crying, making the sound of a starving feral cat out in the night. I thought I’d opened up a real can of worms and questioned my judgment, but I just let him cry. As the minutes went by, his crying lessened, sounding less animal and more human. Finally, he stopped, blotting his eyes with his sleeve and wiping his nose with a tissue. Then he looked at me again, seeming ten pounds lighter as if he’d just relieved himself of a tremendous burden, and offered me a wide, knowing grin. “It does sound crazy, doesn’t it?”

We smiled together at the insight he’d just gained, and he took his first step toward getting better.

What happened to allow Jack to begin to give up his craziness? He felt mirrored by me. In his experience, the world required him to mirror and agree with it, whether it was a doctor saying, “You need this medication,” or a psychiatrist saying, “You realize that these are delusions, don’t you?” In that scenario, the world was always sane and right, and Jack was always insane and wrong. And “insane and wrong” is a heck of a lonely place to be.

My accurate mirroring helped Jack to feel less alone. As he felt less alone, he was able to feel some relief. And as he felt that relief, he was mentally able to relax. As a result, he felt grateful and, with that gratitude, came a willingness to open his mind to me and to work with me rather than fight me.

Now, you’re not likely to deal with many paranoid schizophrenics in the course of your daily life unless you’re a psychiatrist. But you will deal, every day, with people who have “mirror neuron gaps” because the world isn’t giving back to them what they’re putting out. (My guess, in fact, is that this is a nearly universal condition of humankind.) Understanding a person’s hunger and responding to it is one of the most potent tools you’ll ever discover for getting through to anyone you meet in business or your personal life.

The hunger to be mirrored can go well beyond one-on-one conversations. I’m reminded of an incident 20 years ago. In it, I watched an unassuming and even bland speaker not only get through to an audience of 300 people, but be more effective at it than his charismatic copresenter, who possessed a much more powerful personality.

I was attending a two-day conference on an intensive and highly effective form of brief psychotherapy. The meeting featured two speakers, a Canadian psychiatrist and a British psychiatrist who were copioneers in that field. Each would speak, present videotapes of sessions with patients, and then elicit comments, questions, and discussions.

Right out of the gate, it was clear that the Canadian speaker was powerful, focused, hard driving, and easy to listen to. In contrast, the second psychiatrist, although equally clear, was calmer, low key, and British, and it took more effort to pay attention to him.

But over the two days, a curious thing happened. The Canadian speaker launched into his presentations like a 747 zooming down the runway to takeoff. The British guy was more like a twin-engine Piper Cub making its way down the runway at a more leisurely clip. The Canadian’s enthusiasm caused him to always exceed the allotted times for his presentations, running well into the times allotted for breaks. This caused the meeting staff to shorten breaks and urge us to get back in time for the next presentation. The fact that a significant number of members of the audience were becoming restless, looking at their watches, and rushing through snack breaks had little impact on the Canadian. He was going to finish what he had to say, whether or not anyone listened or cared.

In contrast, the British psychiatrist began his talks by tapping on the microphone and asking if everyone could hear him in the back of the room. He was also acutely attuned to any clues that the audience’s attention span was drifting significantly. At those moments, he demonstrated one of the most dramatic instances of mirroring I can remember—and he did it with a large audience, no less. He would literally be in mid-sentence, stop himself, and say: “You’ve heard enough for now. Let’s take a break and resume in ten minutes.”

At first these episodes seemed a bit off the wall, but by the end of the conference, the audience had clearly shifted from being wowed by the charismatic but rather full-of-himself Canadian to deeply appreciating and listening to the Brit who’d taken the effort to accurately mirror them. The British doctor had won over a whole roomful of people, and he’d done it effortlessly.

FROM THEORY TO ACTION

The brain science I’ve outlined in this chapter comes with an asterisk attached: It doesn’t apply to everyone. On rare occasions, you’ll meet people who are stuck in their reptile or mammal brains and can’t think logically no matter how much you try to help them. (Many, but not all, fall into the category of “mentally ill.”) And you’ll meet some people who don’t give a damn if you mirror their feelings or not, because they’re sociopaths or narcissists who only care about you doing what they want—which is why this book also includes techniques for dealing with bullies and jerks.

In almost every case, however, the people you’ll meet are willing to be touched if you can just break through the walls they’ve erected to keep from being hurt or controlled. In the following chapters, I’ll tell you how to effectively mirror the emotions of these people, redirect them to their higher thought processes, and keep them from undergoing an amygdala hijack—all by putting a few simple rules and techniques into play. And I’ll tell you how to keep your own brain under control, so you can stay cool and say the right thing instead of melting down under pressure.

When you can do all of these things, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to reach people—and you’ll be amazed at the difference it will make to your job, your relationships, and your life.