"Use An Old Dog's Old Tricks"

Dear Persuader,

The definition of Revivification is: 1. Renewal of life; restoration of life; the act of recalling, or the state of being recalled, to life. 2. Bringing again into activity and prominence.

I want to walk you through an exercise using Revivification as a technique for persuading your most affluent prospects. Read through, maybe a few times, practice, and try this in your next Persuasion situation...

First, I’d like you to remember a time when you made a really big purchase. Maybe a house, maybe a car, maybe a piece of jewelry. Think about how you felt at the moment of ownership. It’s all yours now. That little piece of security or freedom or luxury is all yours. Does it feel good?

By revivifying this moment in your life, I’ve just reminded you of a groove, a path that you’ve already traveled, a warm, fuzzy feeling that you already know.

Remember when you use these persuasion techniques that they've been created so that you can easily persuade any affluent prospect, and do it in such a way that is unique to that person. You need not use any sales scripts, complicated sales tactics, or manipulation. You simply use these skills to help guide your prospect to the right decision for them.

In revivifying our prospects' well-tread paths and grooves, we’ve set the groundwork for persuasion. We can assist the process of persuading the affluent by directing our prospects to remember times they did the kind of thing we want them to do.

Revivifying a past experience cuts by an enormous percentage the difficulty of getting the affluent to do what we want. Why try to teach an old dog new tricks when you can simply use a trick the dog already knows to get it to do what you want it to do?

Here we have an opportunity as it relates to persuasion to really make our job easy. We can do it by getting the affluent to think about and remember times they did the kind of thing we want them to do, or thought the way we want them to think, or acted the way we want them to act.

If you are a financial planner, for example: Have your affluent prospect think of the first time they made it to a million. What did it feel like when they became a first time millionaire? Can they envision a future when that number is multiplied by ten or twenty? How will that feel?

How about in real estate? Maybe try revivifying ‘home’. Get your affluent prospects to picture in their head what 'home' means to them. If it doesn’t seem to be a very positive picture, move it around to their dream home. We need to keep the affluent mentally on track with our persuasion and not let them go off down a rabbit hole, especially a rabbit hole of negativity.

We need to get to the people that have some money, that have some ability to buy what we have to sell - the affluent. To actually start things off on the right foot we need to position and frame ourselves in such a way that’s easy for the affluent to hear our message.

If we can get our affluent audience to think the way we want them to, instead of having to teach them something brand new (and especially something that’s bad or difficult), well, we’ve already got half the battle won.

It’s really that simple. That’s what we’re doing. We’re literally getting the affluent to remember the track that will carry our message to success. That’s the way to think of this.

Revivification is the art of getting people to remember the track so that when they do so with our message, they’re already accessing a worn-in pathway. And the minute they start the pathway, people need to complete the pathway. People don’t like to leave things half done.

Your message will be carried to fruition much easier than if you tried to teach the affluent how to think in order to do what needs to be done.

What would be the kind of thing you would want your affluent clients to think about? What pathway would you want them to find that already exists, that would help you to make your message come to fruition?

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

How do you know if something has really made it into the collective consciousness?

Well, I'll tell you one way... it's on Oprah. Oprah features it.

I want to talk with you a little bit about the movie The Secret. I imagine you've probably seen it, or have heard about it. Maybe you even own it.

Let me give you a few thoughts:

I absolutely love it. It's phenomenal. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it and here's why I think it can have a significant impact on your life...

The Law of Attraction is absolutely at work in my life and in the lives of everyone who has the ability or inclination to pay attention. (Obviously that's you, since you had the good sense to subscribe to this newsletter and learn more about persuading the affluent.)

What is the Law of Attraction?

Basically, it says whatever you concentrate on, you'll get more of in return. If you concentrate on your lack of money and worry about paying bills, you're going to get more 'need'.

On the other hand, if you concentrate on drawing money to you, becoming a money magnet, you will attract affluence.

And this isn't just about money. It's about every single thing that you think about. This includes influence, sales and conversion, as well as more personal aspects of life like health and wellness, relationships and spirituality in such concepts as gratitude.

I'm sad to tell you that there are a number of people that, in an attempt to make a name for themselves and parlay off the success of it, have decided that it's appropriate to tear this movie down.

Why? You may ask. And you're probably also thinking, "what does this have to do with persuasion?"

So why would people want to put this movie down?

Well, a typical way of trying to promote oneself these days is to piggyback what you're doing along with something else that's happening in the news.

The Secret is certainly in the news and I have no issue with doing that. In fact, I love to use the piggybacking strategy myself when I get a chance. And I guess you have to take a stand one way or another on things, so this group of people chose to take a negative stand.

Do you agree with everything that you hear from any source? I don't, and I doubt you do either.

So I guess we could then turn and ask, do you agree with everything that you've heard about The Secret, or as a result of watching The Secret? I can tell you that I don't.

But disregarding the entire movie just because there are a few things I disagree with would be like saying, "Money can be used wrongly so I'm going to do the right thing and never try to earn another dime as long as I live. I'll make sure that if ever anyone gives me money, I'm going to give it away because, after all, I don't want to be involved with something bad."

That is definitely throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

If a person objects to positive mental thinking, positive mental attitudes, and the sage advice that has shaped our nation and most all of the successful people in the world today that have followed along the footsteps of great thinkers of our time, then I guess someone could genuinely be upset with The Secret.

But in particular, what did the naysayers pick on? One is that The Secret talks about being responsible in every way. The movie says something to the order of, "We all choose our own reality. Even the people of Darfur consciously chose their plight in life."

Alright, so the people that stood against this movie basically said, "That's nonsense. The Secret is a cult and so it's saying things that are blatantly untrue." They are framing the creators of this movie as a cult.

Do I believe that the people in Darfur (or anywhere else in for that matter who are having horrible problems) consciously choose to be there? No, of course not. And I think in the attempt to entertain and be dramatic, The Secret went a bit too far.

However, do you know that there are many, many millions of people that actually believe along those lines?

I don't think anyone would say someone would consciously choose that kind of life, but let's say that you believed that we are here on planet earth for a reason: to learn. Life is a school and we're trying to learn all the lessons this school has to offer.

Were all of the lessons you learned in high school positive? Probably not.

Some of them were very difficult. Some of them hurt a lot. Maybe you broke up with a special boyfriend or girlfriend during that time and it was quite devastating. Maybe you thought your whole life was coming to an end and then all of the sudden you were saved by something else going well for you.

Alright, so you learned the lessons of your schooling, good and bad.

Well, there are a lot of people out there who believe in reincarnation. Now once again, I'm not going to ask you to believe in this, not for a second. I'm not going to ask you not to believe in it, not for a second.

Through the perspective of reincarnation they might believe that we choose our parents, we choose the country we're going to be born in, and we choose to live the lessons that earth has to give us such that one day we don't need to come back anymore and we can evolve to a higher level.

With this belief as the basis for this premise, then would it be reasonable if you were the creator of the movie The Secret and you believed in these things, that you would make a statement such as, "The people in Africa who are starving have chose their plight in life so that they could experience these difficulties to learn how to overcome them or simply experience a life of poverty"?

I think the answer is absolutely yes. They didn't choose them consciously; they chose them before they came into this earthly experience.

The big question I have for you is: why should we knock it?

I have my own beliefs and thoughts. I believe we need to be responsible. I believe we need to be careful, but to throw the baby out with the bathwater, I just can't fathom.

What do you think?

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Indulge me. Let's enter the realm of fantasy for a moment.

Not THAT kind of fantasy, but the world of make believe, fairy tale, science fiction.

Put yourself in the head of an anthropologist from Mars. Let's pretend we're a team of anthropologists and we've taken on human form and landed in Washington DC, circa 2007.

From this perspective, what conclusions will we come to about American politics?

There's blue and red, there's elephants and donkeys. These represent the "two sides".

Well, are there really only two sides? Of course not. That's absurd.

But realistically, those are the options. Any third side or fourth side candidate is not allowed to contend because "they don't really have a chance of winning". Or "they'll take votes away from the REAL candidate".

So while these sides may appear to vehemently dislike each other, they are sort of in cahoots to keep numbers three, four, or five out of the running. Common ground.

Oh, and it gets better...

The media is an enemy to both sides. They like to highlight the actions of both teams so that they gain more revenue from advertisers.

They're sort of the devil's advocate, but not really because their loyalty is to whomever is in power and whomever owns the media outlet.

More exciting, and extremely advantageous to the media, both sides also have more titillating common enemies:

Hookers (Louisiana Senator David Vitters, who while advocating abstinence-only sex education which excluded information on birth control and safe sex, was identified by two women, the DC Madam and the Canal Street Madam, as being a client - ironic hypocrisy);

The under aged boys (U.S. Representative Mark Foley had ironic hypocrisy with one of these in the form of a Congressional page. Where once he was known as a crusader against child abuse and exploitation, it turned out to be a cover);

Wanton women (yeah, horn dog Bill Clinton and White House intern in the blue dress... at least that was consensual and she was of age).

Other enemies include...

Closeted homosexuality (see my previous post called "The Incongruent Larry Craig", and let's not forget New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey);

Extramarital affairs (the list is too long);

And women who don't like being groped or harassed (The Terminator).

I could go on and on. There are obviously other enemies - crack cocaine (Marion Barry), voter fraud, blah, blah, blah.

Blue, red, elephant, donkey, they seem to want to make all the laws and then break them.

In our research as Martian anthropologists, we'd have to conclude that some form of perversion or criminal record is mandatory for political candidates.

We'd also have to conclude that the non-politicians, the ones who vote (or don't vote), have such a short attention span that really, it doesn't much matter. In a few weeks football season starts and there's a new season of "The Biggest Loser" and boy, then it's back to school time and the kids need new backpacks. And before you know it, it's the holidays again.

It helps to jump into the world of fantasy sometimes, to step back and look at the world from a different perspective. Much like putting a different frame on a situation, a different lens on life.

Try it with your life and your persuasion. See how it goes. Tell others about it, tell me about it on this blog. Create a discussion, invite your friends and colleagues to join the discussion here. Lord knows we need to step back from the craziness every once in a while and talk to each other intelligently about what we observe.

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

In the movie The Usual Suspects there's a scene where a detective is interrogating an alleged criminal.

The detective says, "The first thing I learned on the job, know what it was? How to spot a murderer. Let's say you arrest three guys for the same killing. Put them all in jail overnight. The next morning, whoever is sleeping is your man. If you're guilty, you know you're caught, you get some rest - let your guard down, you follow?"

This struck a chord in me about a current event. In the news (you could have hardly avoided it) is the strange story of Senator Larry Craig.

In case you've been out of the country (or in case you don't live the the U.S.), the Republican Senator from Idaho was arrested on June 11th at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer. The officer was investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom.

On August 8th, he pled guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed, with one year probation.

Craig's spokesman said it was a "misunderstanding".

And yet, he pled guilty.

Craig later said, "I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expiditiously."

Here's where the incongruity comes in:

1. An innocent man doesn't plead guilty. An innocent man puts up a huge fight, doesn't get any sleep, rages about his innocence. (This is not to say that guilty people don't also use this same tactic.)

2. He didn't call an attorney. This is always the first thing one does - whether guilty or innocent - when dealing with law enforcement. What's the "quickest and most expeditious" way to handle a legal matter? Get some representation. Attorneys are like dentists... we don't really want to deal with them until we REALLY need them, but still... this is a "really need them" situation.

3. By saying, "I have never been gay - nor have I ever been gay," he believes that it is possible to be gay, say six months ago, then become ungay, say last week. This points towards a "waffling" and cover up.

And last, but perhaps the most incongruous action of all:

4. He didn't go home and tell his wife about the incident. If something as outrageous as this happened to any one of us and had absolutely no basis in truth, wouldn't we all go home to our spouses (or families or friends) and say, "You're not going to believe what happened to me today. It's the most absurd thing..."

Senator Craig has come up with a scapegoat in the form of "the media".

He claims that he pled guilty because he had been troubled by the investigations into his alleged homosexuality by the Idaho Statesman and claims that he has "been relentlessly and viciously harassed".

The media is easily vilified and a safe scapegoat, but here with his "history" it doesn't ring true.

As persuaders, how, in either situation - whether the allegations are absolutely false or absolutely true - could we frame the story if we were in his shoes?

Did his incongruity give him away?

And what can he do to unframe himself?

Until Next Time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Phobias and isms... they come in all shapes and sizes. There's racism, sexism, classism, sizeism, anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism... All of these represent a belief of superiority of one race, gender, class, size, or religion over another or a hatred of one against another.

Then we've got phobias, which are defined as "irrational fears".

Now there's the new kid on the block, Islamophobia. Actually, the term isn't new. It made its debut in the 1980s, but didn't become popular until after 9/11.

Is Islamophobia a fear? Is it rational or irrational? Could Islamophobia really be just another brand of racism?

We frame our world through words every day. It's all semantics: meaning expressed through language.

For example, we use the term homophobia to describe the irrational fear of homosexuals. However, we do not use the term heterosexism which would suggest the superiority of heterosexuality. Wouldn't heterosexism be more accurate? Who's afraid of homosexuals these days anyway?

You can see the term Islamophobia debated in this article:

http://townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2007/07/31/why_islamophobia_is_a_brilliant_term

Regardless of your personal position on Islamophobia or on this writer's opinion, it is always useful to understand this take from a framing perspective.

Words have enormous power. Words can irritate and incite and enrage, or they can soothe and placate and calm. Words, when used with precision, set the frame for your listener to accept what you're saying. In doing so, you lower resistance and objection with your affluent prospects.

Stay tuned for another post on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Until then,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Hi Persuader,

Here's a great example of a powerful strategy called gaslighting and how to use it in your persuasive situations with the affluent...

I was flipping through the channels a few nights ago and I stopped on an old episode of M*A*S*H. It was the episode where BJ is bored and in an attempt to entertain himself he decides to have a little fun at Winchester's expense.

He takes a pair of Winchester's pants and replaces them with a much larger pair. When Winchester puts them on, BJ casually asks if Winchester is feeling okay, mentioning that lately he's looked a little sickly. Maybe he's not eating enough to keep up his energy, and oh boy, does he look way too thin!

A few scenes later BJ replaces the pants with a much smaller pair and when Winchester tries them on, BJ again casually "notices" how much weight Winchester has gained, which sends the vain Winchester into a dieting frenzy.

Having observed this all, Hawkeye asks BJ, "What's next?"

BJ simply responds, "Tomorrow he gets taller."

This is an example of gaslighting as a harmless prank, but the technique has far more nefarious potential and conversely when used ethically, some positive potential as well.

As with all the techniques I teach, I want to emphasize that these strategies are incredibly powerful and are developed to help with persuasion and should be used ethically with your prospects.

From the 1944 film Gaslight the term "gaslighting" acquired the meaning of ruthlessly manipulating an individual into believing something other than the truth.

The jist of the movie is that a husband tries to make his wife seem insane in order to get her out of his way by getting her admitted to a mental hospital. He does this in subtle ways that cause her to doubt her own ability to interpret reality.

Understanding and influencing how your affluent prospect interprets their reality is an intregal part of persuasion.

There are five main strategies employed in the technique of gaslighting and you can use each one to your advantage when persuading your affluent prospects.

The first is repetitive questioning and this is used to plant the seed of doubt in a person.

Game shows employ this tactic in order to heighten anticipation by causing the contestants to doubt their decisions - asking and reasking, "are you sure?"

A simple cock of the head, a raising of the eyebrow, and a comment such as, "really?" can install in the recipient, the necessary seed of doubt needed to set them off guard.

With this strategy, it is most effective to come from a non-threatening or non-challenging position. After all, you only have their best interest at heart, so go ahead and make them aware of it.

The second strategy used in gaslighting is to point out things that aren't there.

This is a particularly useful strategy in undermining a sense of reality. On the flip side, this can be used just as effectively in pointing out a person's assets and qualities, especially if the person has no idea that this quality exists within them (and even if it doesn't actually exist within them).

In interactions with a boss, a client, a prospect, someone of authority, or someone we'd like to sell to, this can be an effective tactic. Appealing to a sense of vanity or ego, when done correctly, can work phenomenally.

Warning: if the compliment is completely without merit, an obvious fabrication, then one is sure to be discovered. Subtlety and at least a small nugget of honesty works best here.

The third strategy may be employed by various professionals, experts and/or authority figures. For example, a therapist (or minister, or pychic, or doctor) has specialized or divine access to unseeable information about you - deep, mysterious information that only they know how to reveal and which gives them "the answer" that you seek.

This phenomenon causes the client to lower defenses and be more trusting and dependant. This may be part of the reason patients sometimes develop crushes on their therapists.

With these "mysteries" it is implied that the authority figure or expert is really the only way.

In sales, this technique is employed when the customer says they can get the product or service elsewhere.

For example, I really love music and not too long ago I went out to update my stereo system, specifically to find new speakers. A really knowledgeable sales lady in the store said, "Oh, you look like a person who really is a connoisseur of music."

I replied, "Yeah, I am."

And she said, "Well, you gotta hear this... Now, let me warn you. You're going to hear it and you're going to love it. And they're expensive, so should we start with something less?"

Well, I loved them. Immediately. Could I have bought it cheaper elsewhere? Probably. But you know what, the great thing was, she said, "I'll stand behind this and if anything goes wrong, we'll fix it for free. And if you need any help, I'll come and help you."

And then came the specialized knowledge. She said, "Are you good at positioning speakers?"

Positioning speakers? I had no idea what she was talking about.

I said, "You mean like other than setting them on the floor?"

"Oh, not with Martin Logans. They have to be positioned. They have to be so far from the wall and even then, it's an art. It's not a science." She continued, "Like you'll put it about so far from the wall, but there's a sweet spot and you have to turn it and adjust it and all of a sudden they sound like they're worth double what they are."

Specialized knowledge.

Well, I wasn't maneuvered into buying the speakers because of this, but let me tell you something, it didn't hurt that she had really excellent information that I wouldn't have been able to get had I ordered my speakers elsewhere.

The fourth gaslighting strategy involves revealing the secret thoughts of others.

Another term for this: gossip. But it's a specialized gossip, maneuvering the person in an attempt to give them 'insight' or a heads up about what others are saying and thereby establishing you as the one who cares enough to know the truth in driving a wedge between them and the others you name.

This can be used to install insecurity and destroy relationships, so be aware that others may use this on you. When you understand how it works, you can counteract it.

When you are the one performing the strategies, remember to use the utmost integrity with all of these.

To use this positively, you can "gossip" about the good things people are saying. "Confidentially, so and so says you're doing an amazing job, but she didn't want me to tell you this because she's afraid of losing you."

It helps to install positive behavior. Encouragement and praise are more powerful than derision and destruction.

The final strategy employed in gaslighting is to use the mighty power of the many against the fragile power of the one.

Kids do this all the time. It's employed in politics, religion, and suburbia, through the media, the educational system, and society-at-large in varying degrees.

It's a groupthink straight out of 1984.

Ganging up on others is a very powerful tactic. If many others confront you, telling you your position is wrong, it's very difficult to maintain your belief.

This one also has a positive use...

Bring the power of social proof to bear before you are challenged.

Show how studies or polls indicate that your position is overwhelmingly supported. A tremendous amount of people are not what I'd call "independent thinkers". When shown how, "overwhelmingly" a product or position is supported, they want to belong, agree and buy.

As you can see, gaslighting isn't necessarily a nice practice. It is designed into trick someone into doubting themselves and their own sanity.

But there are ways that gaslighting can be used for a positive outcome. You have to decide whether it's the right thing to use this technique and when it's the right time not to use it, but just know this:

There may be other people out there who are using it on you. At least if you know how to think like this, you'll know also how to defend against it.

Listen, this is just the tip of the persuasion iceberg. For more information on persuasion, and how you can strengthen your power of influence, please go to www.PersuasionFactor.com for a course on the details of persuading the affluent.

For further reading specifically on the subject of gaslighting, try Gaslighting, The Double Whammy, Interrogation, and Other Methods of Covert Control In Psychotherapy and Analysis by Dr. Theo L. Dorpat and Gaslighting: How To Drive Your Enemies Crazy by Vistor Santoro.

Until next time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

I Just Can't Help Myself:
Framing The Third and Fourth Taboo

Let's see if this stirs you up. It's a stretch, and a pretty volatile subject. But maybe, just maybe, I'm trying to stir us all up.

We're all familiar with what they refer to as "the oldest profession". And we've all got our ideas and fears on the evils that arise from such a profession. In our society, prostitution is illegal. It's connected to drugs, violence, disease, abuse, and other problems. That's the frame. We can all agree on that, right?

How about looking through someone else's frame? A former student and acquaintance of mine sent me an e-mail recently with a link and all it said was, 'Check out this frame.' The link was to the International Committee for Prostitute's Rights. http://www.walnet.org/csis/groups/icpr_charter.html

I did a little further research and found that there's an organization called C.O.Y.O.T.E. It stands for Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics. This is a 'sex worker's' rights organization. (Notice the shift from 'prostitutes' to 'sex workers'.)

There is a strong movement in many major metropolitan cities in the USA and, in fact, all over the world, to decriminalize the profession and give 'sex workers' rights and protection by regulating the industry.

Wow. Talk about a changing perspective. I had definitely never heard of such a thing and it totally blew me away.

The idea is to differentiate between people who are being victimized and people who feel empowered in this industry. It's a hugely complex issue with the added emotional intensity that only religion, politics and sexuality, can incite.

One of their arguments is that this kind of work is an important part of the economy and that just looking to the legalized prostitution in Nevada and in other countries, points to how some of the dangers can be taken out of the industry by way of regulation. Get rid of the pimps, the violence is cut down. Mandatory monthly medical treatment and safe practices, nearly eliminate the medical and health dangers.

The proponents have taken this highly charged issue out of the frame of morality, and put it in the frame of 'important part of the economy'. Advocates of legalizing drugs use the same argument. And, as with prostitution, point to Amsterdam as an example of how a shift in strategy can work.

How much is spent each year on imprisoning petty pot growers/users, and 'working girls'? If no violence or pain to another human being takes place, these are 'victimless crimes'. I'm absolutely not advocating this, but just showing, yet again, where once we thought ours was the only belief possible to have, there are intelligent, thoughtful opponents to our construct of reality.

Again, this is just an exercise in framing and when you can reframe a very strong argument with another strong argument, whoever has the better frame, wins.

For more framing, instigating, cajoling, stirring up, and prompting, call Kim at kim@MAXpersuasion.com.

Until next time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

We received some very interesting feedback after we began our discussion on framing last week. I enjoy hearing from you, so whenever you feel compelled to comment on or question a topic, please feel free! It is our committment to our readers to continually provide engaging content that delivers an interesting and educational message. Occasionally it will also be controversial.

It is our number one priority to deliver every possible idea and strategy to you that has to do with persuasion, specifically how to persuade the affluent. We will continue to bring up relevant and real life issues as they relate to the persuasion topic at hand. I'm so glad that you share this passion for persuasion, and I hope you enjoy this type of quality information as it applies to your reality.

This is why we've poored all of our energy into creating an absolutely unrivaled, blog-powered website completely dedicated to the ongoing discussion of how persuasion is engrained in every facet of our lives. On this new site we'll be able to continue to work through our discussion together to ensure we all become more empowered in our lives.

I know you're on the edge of your seat waiting for the launch of the number one persuasion blog on the planet! In the mean time, let's continue our discussion on framing...

Reframing Framing

An employee of mine lived in New Orleans until August 28, 2005. That's the day she evacuated with her boyfirend and their four cats and all the valuable things they could pack in to their two cars. They booked a room in a pet friendly hotel in Tennesee and rode out the storm there.

For months after her subsequent move to Portland, people, when they found out where she was from, would say, "Oh, you're a victim of Hurricane Katrina?" Her response was always, "Not really. I had two cars and plenty of cash and credit cards. I was 'inconvenienced' by the hurricane and flood and it was a changing point in my life, but I'm not a victim. The victims were the poor people who didn't have the means to leave."

She goes on to frame this even more positively, "It was an opportunity for a new life, a new profession and a new city where the values are more in line with my own."

Of course, not everyone was so lucky and she has definite feelings of loss and sadness and anger about the hurricane and the subsequent nightmare of New Orleans, but for the most part, she turned this upheaval into a happy new life.

Framing is a powerful tool for positive change. It can be an unbeleivably potent instrument for persuasion.

Look at the frame that we now put on the Holocaust "victims": Survivors.

Thousands of social workers use framing each day. Gang members consider killing an opposing gang member honorable, but social workers and parole officers use framing to show how ugly murder is no matter who is the victim.

Advertising is all about framing. To appeal to younger audiences, advertisers usurp "rebellious" or "indie" mentalities in order to sell their products to the "alternative" youth culture. So now even a carton of eggs seems "edgy" and cool when advertisements imply that these aren't your daddy's old-fashioned, lame, square outdated eggs, these are cool eggs and only the truly awesome are eating our eggs.

Although politicians use framing to put their own spin on issues, who's to say they're wrong? Although I don't understand it, for some reason Bush believes that the war in Iraq is just. He uses framing in every speech he makes, and was successful in 2004 when he convinced more than half of the nation that his view was right. He used 9-11 to frame us into believing that we're all in imminent danger and that "It's better to fight them over there, than to fight them over here." This also presupposes we'd have to fight them over here.

On the other hand, the Democrats have framed the war as something that has been prolonged and has crossed the line of sacrificing too many American lives for a cause that is based on lies and is less than worthy.

We can use framing as a positive thing depending on what we consider to be positive. If you frame it in a positive light, almost anything can be positive. People use this strategy all the time to convince others to "do the right thing". Martin Luther King Jr. framed segregation as eveil convincing many people that it was wrong, and so here wer are today with millions of black and white Americans who've grown up together not knowing that kind of blatant inequality. Was he right? I think so. But for opponents of integration, he was absolutely wrong.

Frame a hardship into a challenge,. Frame a setback into a time for reflection. Frame a victim into a survivor. Frame an old-fashioned product or service into something cutting edge and indispensible and awesome. Frame everything!

Until next time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland

Who's Afraid Of The Big Bad Baby Killers?
An Exercise In Framing

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anais Nin

Politicians and pundits call it 'spin': The ability to distort any event or situation in a way that supports your position.

Take the Nuclear Reduction Treaty. That sounds like a good idea, right? Reduce the amount of nukes, how could you argue with that? This treaty was proposed to cut U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. Well, at least that's what the surface claim is, that's what the public is being sold, but scratch the surface and you'll see the Orwellian overtones of the name because this treaty would actually prolong the nuclear standoff and encourage a stockpiling of weapons.

But doesn't the way the treaty was framed give a warm, fuzzy and safe feeling?

This happens all the time in naming political treaties and acts - The Clean Air Act (loopholes for corporate polluters), The Transportation Safety Act (could be considered the Transportation Control Act because they're putting us under their control and not letting us do whatever the heck we want), and my favorite name, The Patriot Act (limiting our freedom by suggesting that to not agree to having our liberties diminished would be unpatriotic).

Another great example of framing is the abortion debate. In one corner we've got the 'pro-lifers' who are 'anti-choice' and base their activities on villianizing the 'baby killers' even going so far as to bomb clinics in an attempt to save unborn babies (ironically, potentially killing fully formed adult humans and unborn fetuses in the process). In the other corner we have the 'pro-choice' crowd who are said to be 'anti-life' due to their wish to allow women to abort 'unborn babies'.

The anti-abortion/pro-life advocates have framed the debate most intensely by showing gruesome images and using the title 'baby killer' to make their point. Who would possibly want to align oneself with killing babies?

Framing is one of the most important tools we have in our arsenal of persuasion skills.

How can we start to use this kind of framing in our lives?

What if, for example, you had to meet with a particularly difficult client or prospect and there was a certain amount of resistance and uneasiness about having to do this? Or maybe you're ultra shy or socially uncomfortable about meeting with a particularly affluent or wealthy prospect.

Well, instead of looking at this as a chore or a necessary evil to doing business, how about putting a new frame on it? Say to yourself, 'Wow, what an awesome opportunity to use my persuasion skills. As I approach this next person to talk to I'm going to frame our interaction in terms of using the skills instead of in terms of do they like me and will I make it.'

An example from my life of how framing can be profound has to do quite literally with a frame.

My wife and I were looking at buying a Thomas Kincaid painting. They call him the painter of light. You can't buy his originals, they go to a museum, but he takes lithographs of them and then touches them up and the funny things is, if you put a light on them, like a spotlight, you can turn the light up or down and it looks like the painting is painted with day light or nighttime light. It's just unbelievable what he's able to do with his highlighting.

We ultimately didn't end up buying it, but the lady showed us the painting without a frame. And then she said, 'Now, for example, we could put it in a frame like this', and she showed me the same painting a little smaller but in this giant, ornate frame. 'Or, we could put it in this really simple frame over here that would be a lot less expensive, it would look like this.'

I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this almost destroyed the beauty of the painting to me to see it in this ugly little frame that was meaningless. I almost had to walk right out of the store so I could sit and contemplate what I had just experienced because it was such an intense thing to realize that people buy into the frames that we set all the time. And when we set a frame for somebody and people buy into that frame, a profound thing takes place.

This week: think about the frames you've established for yourself and how they may be ready to be updated.

Until next time,

Kenrick E. Cleveland