CHAPTER   12   

The Psychology of Self-Persuasion

The First Person Who Needs to Say Yes . . . Is You

I can’t apply for that position, thought the thirtysomething product quality manager engineer. I’ll never get it.

Some people squeeze stress balls when they think through things. Tom Butler had a baseball. And not just any baseball, but a limitededition 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series commemorative ball. He rotated it in his hand, the way a reliever might in the late innings of a crucial game. He clicked back over to his Microsoft Outlook and hit the send/receive button. More emails. As he scanned the seemingly endless list of meeting invites, CYA cc’s, and the occasional offering for a Russian bride that slipped through the spam filters, his mind kept wandering back to the new job posting he saw earlier that morning. He quickly tiled his windows and went back to the intranet job-posting page.

The enticing link stared back at the young multitasker. He clicked it—for the 11th time—and once again read through the job description: Director of New Product Engineering > fast-paced work environment; must be skilled at managing others; bring keys to future company growth.

Tom’s thoughts bounced back and forth like a tennis volley on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. I’d be perfect for that spot. And behind that thought, with the speed and intensity of a Serena Williams backhand, But I can’t apply. I’m lucky to have this job.

* * *

WHEN TALKING TO YOURSELF IS A GOOD THING

Whether it’s chasing a new job, requesting a plum assignment, or making a budget pitch to the board of directors, we all talk to ourselves before we take action. Many psychologists have labeled this ongoing mental dialogue “self-talk.” These internal comments impact thoughts, emotions, actions, and ultimately careers and life itself. The following quote, attributed to everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to Ralph Waldo Emerson to the president of a leading supermarket chain, illustrates this cause and effect:

Watch your thoughts, they become words;

Watch your words, they become actions;

Watch your actions, they become habits;

Watch your habits, they become your character;

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

The point is made even more elegantly in one of my all-time favorite books, As a Man Thinketh by philosopher James Allen, published just after the turn of the 20th century (New York: Barse & Hopkins) and reprinted many times. It may very well have been the first “selfhelp” book. “Man is made or unmade by himself; in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself,” Allen wrote. “He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.”

What are you building?

AVOIDING UNPRODUCTIVE SELF-DOUBT

Allen addressed the curious phenomenon of self-talk. If left unchecked, those thoughts often skew negative. “A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild,” he wrote. Negative self-talk can be disastrous for your persuasion attempts. That’s why this chapter will guide you through common professional persuasion challenges by teaching you to cope with the vicissitudes of professional life. It is not intended to be used for medical or psychiatric purposes.

Analyzing Self-Doubt

In some cultures, self-doubt carries the same type of stigma as leprosy in biblical times, polio in the early 20th century, and HIV/AIDS in the 1980s. That’s why you hear some people brag, “I never doubt myself!” There’s a word for that kind of thinking: denial. We all experience selfdoubt, in one form or another, whether we want to admit it or not. And this is, in some ways, a good thing: More than likely, self-doubt is a mental condition hardwired in man’s prehistoric brain, and it likely was one of the things that kept Australopithecus africanus alive on the Serengeti Plains. (“I don’t think I can kill that saber-toothed tiger with just this stick.”)

For modern-day Homo sapiens, however, self-doubt sounds more like, “I can’t possibly apply for that job.” Today, self-doubt is often what keeps you from yes success. This, too, has a name: the “impostor phenomenon.”

In 1985, psychologist Pauline Rose Clance published a book called The Impostor Phenomenon: Overcoming the Fear That Haunts Your Success (Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers), in which she describes how highly successful people battle inferiority. Successful executives, professional athletes, and celebrities all at one time or another believe someone will find out they aren’t as good as everybody thinks they are. In other words, they’re unable to internalize their success and accomplishments. This mental condition hinders talent and contributions. You, too, may have experienced the impostor syndrome. For instance, if you know you’re good at number crunching but walk around on eggshells as if someone’s about to play the ace, you’re experiencing the impostor syndrome. Clance estimates that 70 percent of all people have an impostor syndrome.

Regardless of what you call it, self-doubt manifests itself in many ways. Here are some examples of what self-doubt looks like in the workplace:

• You don’t apply for the open position.
• You don’t make the pitch.
• You don’t ask for help when you need it.
• You don’t request a customer testimonial.
• You don’t solicit your manager’s recommendation.
• You don’t request the sales referral.

Similarly, mental self-flagellation is a not-so-distant cousin of selfdoubt. This is when you chastise yourself for screwing up a report or questioning why you didn’t present the statistics before you shared your opinions in the board meeting. And this internal pattern can destroy self-esteem. In fact, it can be such an insidious habit that psychologist Eugene Sagan labeled the phenomenon as having a “pathological critic.” Whether your own pathological critic took up residence in your head during your early years or later in your professional life doesn’t matter. Either way, if this line of thinking sounds familiar, you have your own mental drill sergeant to deal with on a daily basis.

Self-Doubt and Persuasion

All of these manifestations of self-doubt can become problematic for your persuasion efforts. Why? Because persuasion is about taking risks. Because it requires you to put yourself “out there” by taking a stance and asking for agreement. Because persuasion is mostly about taking action, not sitting back hoping the action will occur on account of someone else’s effort. And because self-doubt can paralyze you.

And this, my friend, is a serious problem!

You want to become a master of persuasion. (After all, that is why you bought this book in the first place, right? I presume you didn’t, say, need a doorstopper.) Well then. This is the part of the book where you need to commit to take charge of your thoughts. “Mental toughness is essential to success,” Vince Lombardi once said. He should know: He led the Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowls. And just as Lombardi coached his players to train their physiques to win football championships, you can train your mind to win persuasion championships.

One way to train a champion mind is by understanding the interrelatedness and importance of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and selfconfidence. These words are, of course, familiar to us all. But to be empowered to put these ideas into action, we need to really understand the concepts. So let’s briefly review each in turn.

Self-esteem can be defined as one’s opinion of oneself as a person, the pride you have in yourself, or your self-respect. The term has evolved over time—with various people emphasizing certain facets. Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning, in their book Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem (3rd Ed. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications, 2000) (first published in 1987), describe self-esteem as the emotional sine qua non (an essential condition); consultant Alan Weiss, who has done tremendous work in the area of self-esteem, describes the word as a verb—an action that leads to self-confidence; and I consider self-esteem a necessary mental condition that allows you to acquire the skills required to persuade. Think of it as your persuasion foundation.

Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in his or her capabilities to perform a particular task or in the ability to acquire the necessary skills to perform that task. Or, as I like to define the term, “having the grit, spit, and determination to get things done.” Can you make a compelling presentation? Can you calculate a Net Present Value and discuss its relevance? Can you demonstrate the perseverance to study for a master’s degree while working full time? If you can, you’ve proven your self-efficacy.

Self-confidence means demonstrating a general sense that you will be successful. Be careful here, though, as the line between confidence and cockiness is paved with peril. For me, confidence is best displayed by the assuredness that you will be able to accomplish a task. Whether it’s winning the business, meeting the deadline, or smoothing the ruffled feathers of a relationship gone awry, you have the capacity to maintain the cool demeanor to get the job done.

Put them all together and . . . Bang!

The Big Bang Theory of the Psychology of Self-Persuasion

Some people’s opinions may differ, but what I see most often in my work is that self-esteem results in self-efficacy, self-efficacy breeds selfconfidence, and self-confidence leads to persuasion success. I call this the “Big Bang Theory of the Psychology of Self-Persuasion.”

In other words, if you think of yourself as talented and capable, you’ll work to learn new skills, such as how to calculate Internal Rate of Return. When you acquire that skill set, you’ll be more confident in speaking with influential others in project meetings. And when you’re more confident in those meetings, you’ll be more inclined to make an effort to gain support for your persuasion priorities. See how this works? For an even clearer perspective, refer to Figure 12-1.

The reverse of these events, however, can also be true—and be catastrophic. If your self-esteem is either partially or wholly dependent on your persuasion success (winning that promotion or prevailing in an argument), be prepared for the psychological equivalent of a black hole. The gravity of your situation will not even allow light to shine through. Imagine the devastating effect this could have on your career.

Here is an example of how everything can go downhill if you rely on positive feedback to boost your self-esteem: Let’s say you don’t understand what people are talking about when it comes to finances. You asked a question once in a meeting, and several people laughed at your lack of financial acumen. Subsequently, you withdraw whenever financial matters are discussed. You don’t participate, and you feel as if you don’t really belong at meetings with people of this caliber. Figure 12-2 shows what this paralyzing dynamic looks like.

This is a soul-crushing, potentially career-destroying, psychological state. The biggest problem in this dynamic is that you’ve handed over your mental wellness to the feedback and criticism of others. So the question is: Do you have to do good to be good? Excluding the theological perspective, which is beyond the scope of this book, no—you don’t. You have worth and value despite what happened at yesterday’s staff meeting. To be honest, though, if you aren’t so good at something, how do you build the self-esteem to make the effort to be good at it? How can you have more big bangs and fewer black holes?

DEVELOPING WEAPONS-GRADE SELF-CONFIDENCE

Living with low self-esteem, debilitating self-efficacy, and declining self-confidence steals your energy and ability to cope with anxiety, problems, challenges, and risks. That’s the bad news. The good news is that attaining that high self-esteem, solid self-efficacy, and weaponsgrade self-confidence does exactly the opposite. It enables you to solve problems rather than worry about them, find ways to win people over, and work directly and purposefully to find solutions.

Many of the following ideas could fall under a category of psychology referred to as “cognitive therapy”—that is, participating in activities, exercises, and conversations that improve your “self-talk,” or ongoing internal dialogue, and therefore impact everything from your emotional state to your persuasive performance. For some, this is the purview of incense-burning, beard-wearing, New Age types who wouldn’t be caught dead without their yoga mats. If you have that bias, but are able to break through it, you’ll discover that cognitive therapy is powerful stuff.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University studied 240 depressed patients who were randomly placed in groups. Some received antidepressant medication, others participated in cognitive therapy, and still others received a placebo. After 16 weeks, the antidepressant group and the cognitive therapy group had improved at about the same rate. The real difference was that the cognitive therapy group was found less likely to relapse during the two years following therapy. Why? They had acquired the skills and behaviors to think more positively.

This example illustrates the key to becoming more resilient. Just like the body needs air, nutrition, and regular exercise, your mind needs a fitness regimen, too. You must regularly stretch, feed, work, coach, and rest your mind, so consider what follows as your all-access, lifetime membership to Mark’s Self-Persuasion World Gym.

The Ultimate Guide to Self-Persuasion Success

To make the most of your newfound ability to persuade in any professional situation, be sure to practice persuasion by participating in the following activities at least once a day (if not more often):

1. Be cognitively aware of your internal dialogue. When you make a mistake and find yourself thinking, I always mess up! or Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! hit stop. Don’t keep running the video clip on a loop in your head.
2. Reframe negative thoughts. Don’t scold. Fix. You don’t always mess up. (You got to the office successfully, didn’t you?) It’s not that you’ll never get anything right. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but you did land the job in the first place.) You’ve done many things well and you’ve achieved success. Otherwise you wouldn’t have made it this far into the book. It’s just that some aspect of a particular project or relationship is giving you a hard time. Break it down and troubleshoot. Maybe it’s not the entire board presentation that’s giving you fits, it’s only the intro or anticipating resistance. Identify and fix. If you don’t currently possess the skills to make a fix, acquire them. If you don’t have the information you need, find the data.
3. Create an honest self-assessment. Develop a document for your eyes only. No one else will ever see it, so make a list of your strengths (how well you deal with people, perhaps, or your ability to solve problems) and your weaknesses (your dislike for conflict or disdain for details). Then add either a piece of positive evidence or a potential solution after each one. An example might look like this: “I keep my promises and am excellent at maintaining long-term relationships, as evidenced by my 10-year relationship with our firm’s top client.” Remember that nobody is either all right or all wrong. (Even Gandhi probably had a bad habit or two.) But with an honest assessment and a frequent review of what you do well, what you don’t, and what actions you can take, you’ll be on your way to destroying that pathological critic.
4. Use success ranges. Don’t turn every situation into an all-or-nothing case. In other words, don’t enter every client meeting thinking you need to come out with new business or else it wasn’t a successful meeting. Create ranges of success: Your threshold success might be that you make a positive impression and set another meeting, while your ultimate success might be that you secure a deal.
5. Understand the physical side of self-persuasion. Get enough sleep and rest, because “fatigue makes cowards of us all.” (William Shakespeare said this first, but lots of folks, from U.S. Army Gen. George S. Patton to Vince Lombardi, have picked it up, and it still rings true today.) Without enough rest, you won’t be able to form your arguments, look your best, and articulate your positions to the best of your abilities. Likewise, too much caffeine hurts your persuasion attempts. Caffeine makes you seem nervous and uncertain, even if you don’t have a visible case of the jitters. (So much for oozing self-confidence!)
6. Boost your natural dopamine levels. Exercise can fuel dopamine production in your brain, making you feel good, look good, and present your ideas with confidence. Plus, if your target doesn’t say yes, it doesn’t bother you as much!
7. Be present. Research suggests that the majority of people’s thoughts are consumed with regrets of the past (“What I should have said was . . .”) or focused on anxiety about the future (“What if this next guy doesn’t buy?”). This makes us sacrifice the present moment, the most precious gift we have. So throw yourself into what you’re doing right now, and if your thoughts start to wander, tell yourself to “get back to work.”
8. Undergo digital detox. Turn off all your gadgets for, say, 60 minutes a day, and enjoy the quiet. Think about it: No TV. No Pandora. No Twitter or Facebook. Making digital detox a daily regimen will calm your thoughts and allow you to focus on the present.

9. Be convinced of your own value. Ask yourself these questions and write down your positive responses:

   • Do people compliment your work?

   • Do others ask for your advice?

   • Have you contributed an idea at work?

   • Have you sought additional education?

   • Can you produce testimonials and references?

   • Can you list best practices that you employ to be successful?

   • Have you participated in or contributed to a professional organization?

   • Do people ask for you by name?

   You might not have positive responses to every question, but you probably have more than you imagined. These accomplishments should pass through your mind whenever your pathological critic works his or her way back into your self-talk.

10. Use positive affirmations. In sports, team captains often can be seen rallying their teammates by yelling at them, “We got this! We got this!” While it may not be grammatically correct, from a psychological perspective, it’s dead-on. When you catch yourself slipping into negative self-talk, replace it with something positive. I realize this sounds goofy, but it works. Find a repeatable phrase and run it through your mind. I like one made famous by the late French psychotherapist Émile Coué: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” Self-help legend Brian Tracy likes to use “Back to work. Back to work.” Just find one that works for you and keep using it. You got this!
11. Create high-quality options. When we covered persuasive processes in Chapter 7, we talked about presenting your targets with high-quality options—choices for them to decide not if they are going to say yes but how they are going to say yes. Same thing goes for you: Never allow yourself to have just one option for your persuasion project. Always have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a Plan C. Offering high-quality options for everything you do will transform your mental state.
12. Keep a success journal. Every night before you go to bed, write down three things you did well that day. Some people are wired to magnify setbacks in their mind and minimize successes. This isn’t mentally or physically healthy. By forcing yourself to reflect on your day and capture three positive aspects, you can reverse this dynamic. Such an exercise takes incredible discipline, but if you can do this consistently, it has been said to have the same mood-improving impact as antidepressant drugs.

The psychology of self-persuasion is all about consistency. You never want to get too high when you hear yes or too low when you get a no. The tools provided in this chapter will help immensely, but it’s not enough just to read this information; you must put it into practice in order for it to work effectively. Along these lines, remember this helpful rule, called the “72-hour rule,” courtesy of strategic innovation consultant Aviv Shahar: If you do not use a new skill within 72 hours of learning it, the likelihood of you ever putting it to use drops precipitously.

And that brings us back to where we started this book—to the fundamental mindset for persuasion success. If you want to be convincing, you have to be convinced. The first person who needs to say yes is you.

* * *

Let’s circle back to that story we started at the beginning of the chapter:

The curser blinked expectantly.

Wait a minute, Tom thought. This is silly. Why can’t I go for that job? Sure, I don’t have an Ivy League sheepskin, but I have my diploma. And more important, I have real-world experience. We’ve had many successes in our work group, and I’ve played a key role. I have a great relationship with the hiring manager’s right-hand guy, and my boss has always been supportive of my efforts to improve.

I could pull my résumé together, run the idea of applying for the spot by my boss, and get his feedback. Any way you slice it, I have options. I can go for the job, or I could ask for some new and more challenging assignments, or I could ask to attend that immersion workshop at Penn that I’ve always wanted to go to.

Tom glanced down in his hand and looked at his “stress ball” with the Red Sox logo emblazoned on it. He immediately thought about those immortal words of Curt Schilling, which many baseball pundits say inspired that 2004 Red Sox team to break the so-called Curse of the Bambino: “Why not us?”

He smiled and began putting together his application.

Why not?

Chapter 12 Persuasion Points

1. Self-talk is good, as long as you focus on the positive and learn to overcome the negative.
2. Negative self-talk can be disastrous for your persuasion attempts.
3. Self-doubt has been hardwired into our brains since prehistoric times, so experiencing it is inevitable. The key is overcoming it.
4. Think of the psychology of self-persuasion as a “big bang theory”: Self-esteem results in self-efficacy, self-efficacy breeds self-confidence, and self-confidence leads to persuasion success.
5. Know the difference between confidence and cockiness, and be sure you don’t send the wrong message to your targets.
6. As psychologist Albert Bandura once said: “People with high assurance in their capabilities approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than threats to be avoided.”
7. The psychology of self-persuasion is all about consistency. You never want to get too high when you hear yes or too low when you get a no. Keep your emotions steady and intact.
8. When you catch yourself slipping into negative self-talk, replace it with a positive affirmation, as Curt Schilling did for himself and the 2004 Boston Red Sox: “Why not us?”