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Begin With Why – Main lesson

Hi, I’m AJ Hoge and welcome to our new lesson. In this lesson you will learn a powerful leadership technique.

Imagine that you’re at work, at your job and you have a great idea. You know it’s a great idea. You know it will help your company. You know it will solve a difficult problem. But, you also know that you have to convince your team and your boss that it’s a good idea. You have to persuade them to try the idea.

If you can’t persuade them, if you can’t convince them to try it, nothing will happen. Then it doesn’t matter how good your idea is. It doesn’t matter how smart you are. It doesn’t how skilled you are, if you can’t persuade the team and the boss to try it, to do it, nothing happens.

Or, another common situation. Imagine you have a child and you need them to do something differently. Maybe they need to eat more vegetables. You want them to eat more vegetables. You know this is good for them. You know this will make them healthier and stronger. There’s no doubt in your mind eating more vegetables will help them.

But as we all know, with kids, it doesn’t matter if it’s just a good idea, because you have to convince that kid to do it. You have to somehow persuade them to eat more vegetables and if you can’t persuade them, if you can’t convince them, they’re not going to do it, not long-term.

So it doesn’t matter how good of an idea it is, how much it will help them, if you can’t persuade them, again, nothing good happens.

In life we need to persuade people. It’s a natural part of life. We need to influence other people all the time. In fact, without persuasion, without the ability to persuade and influence we can’t contribute. We can’t make the world a better place. If we can’t persuade others we can’t contribute to our family.

We might have lots of good ideas to help our family, but if we can’t convince them, we can’t persuade them to try something new, to try something different, it doesn’t matter. Nothing will improve. It’s the same with our jobs. It’s the same with our friends. In fact, it’s the same in all parts of life.

Now I know that sadly, in the world, persuasion has gotten a negative feeling, a negative connotation, a negative idea. And I know why, it’s because that unfortunately we all have experienced some bad examples of persuasion where someone has tried to force and push us to do something that we don’t want to do. And it’s a bad feeling. We don’t like it.

We don’t like it when people try to lie to us to make us do something. We don’t like it when people try to push us, push us, push us to do something that they want us to do, even if it’s a good idea, right? It’s just human nature.

If someone pushes you, pushes you, pushes you, what do you do naturally? Your first reaction is to (urrgh) stop, is to stop and push back, right, you don’t want them to push you. Even if they’re trying to push you to do something that’s good for you, you will just naturally (urgh) resist it.

We see this with children, of course, children are a perfect example of that. You’re bigger than them. You’re stronger than them. You can push them to do things, but the more you push with kids, usually the more they resist.

You try to force them to eat those vegetables and (urgh) they close their mouth and (urgh) and then it’s a big fight, a big battle every meal. We’ve seen it with kids, but you know as adults honestly, we’re pretty much the same. We might do it in a little different way than kids, but we’re kind of the same. When people try to push us, we push back, we resist.

Now, some people have enough authority, enough power to that they can force people. Some bosses they can force their employees to do things, but it’s still not the most effective way. You can do it in the short-term, but in the long-term again, people will find a way to resist and it’s just not the most effective way to influence.

But we do need influence, even though yes, there are lots of negative examples of people using force or lies for persuasion. We shouldn’t confuse that with the very necessary skill of persuading others, we need it in life.

The reason is simple. It’s almost impossible to succeed in life, to do something worthwhile in life without other people. You need other people to help you out.

A company needs lots of people not just one. A family, again, is more than one person, one person is not a family you need at least two. And as soon as you have more than one person involved, now we need persuasion, right? Because you might have a great idea, you might have a good strategy for something, but if you can’t convince the others in your group, on your team, dead end, nothing happens, nothing improves.

How does this happen in the normal world, if you’re trying to persuade somebody? What do most people do? They’ll say, for example, in a business, let’s say you have an idea that we need to increase our advertising and that will help us make more sales, make more money.

So what do most people do? Maybe they stand up at the meeting and say, I believe we need to increase our advertising and if we do that then we will get more sales. This is the normal way that most people in conversations, in meetings try to persuade others.

Let’s look at that and see, kind of the formula that they’re using.

1. What they’re doing is that first they’re saying what? What needs to be done? Increase advertising, we need to do this. You need to do this. We should do that. It’s what, what or how.

2. And then second, we’ll say because it will increase our sales, because it will make you healthier. The why.

This is sort of the normal formula that I hear and that I see most often. First you talk about what and how and then you give reasons. In school they teach this when you’re writing essays. They teach you, first say what your idea is, make your point and then support your point. Give reasons for the point. Give evidence or reasons.

It seems logical and indeed it is logical, but it’s actually not the most persuasive way to communicate. It’s not the best way to convince another person to do something differently. It’s actually much more powerful to reverse that formula. Another way to say this is begin with why and then talk about what and how. Begin with why.

Let’s talk about the specific ways to do this. Imagine you want to convince someone, again, it doesn’t matter work, children, friends, doesn’t matter. You want to convince someone to try something, do something differently.

Well, instead of telling them immediately what you think they should do, instead you first talk about the reasons, the why. Why they need something new. Don’t tell them what it is, first just discuss the reasons. And there are three ways to do this.

1. The first thing you should talk about is the pain, the pain, the pain.

I know this seems strange. It sounds like it might be negative but listen to me. You need to tell them the painful reasons, the painful whys that they need a change. Again, you’re not telling them what you think the change should be, you just tell them the reasons, the painful reasons you think that change is necessary.

For example, imagine someone in your family needs to be healthier, they need to exercise more. Well, you need to talk about the pain first. Instead of saying you need to exercise more, come on you should go exercise, nah, nah, nah, right? And then they just don’t listen to you.

Instead, you just talk about the pain, you wait maybe until a point where, like they’re trying to walk up the stairs and they’re breathing heavy and you say, I noticed you’re breathing heavy you must feel terrible. You look like you feel terrible right now.

And then you start talking more and more about all the pain that’s caused by them being out of shape, being unhealthy. Maybe their knees hurt, so you remind them that their knees are painful. You remind them that their back hurts.

You remind them of all the activities they can’t do, all the fun cool activities they can’t do, that they’re missing because they’re not in good shape, they’re not fit. You can remind them of all the things they used to do when they were young, but now they can’t do it because they’re not healthy, they’re not fit.

See, pain is motivating. Pain is not such a horrible thing. The only problem with pain is if we stay focused on it too long, then we become negative and just complaining. But focusing on pain for a short time is good. It motivates us. We want to escape from it. So reminding someone of all the painful whys, the painful reasons that they need a change, it’s a good thing. It will bring up that emotion which will help them move forward.

1. The second thing you’ll focus on, the second reasons, the second whys are the pleasurable whys, the benefits of changing.

Again, don’t talk about what they should do or how they should do it yet, not yet. You’re just going to focus on kind of the dream, the dream, the final results and what’s pleasurable and wonderful and great about those pleasurable results.

So again, with the exercise example you might say you know, imagine if you were in great shape, imagine if you were really fit, you’d feel fantastic. You’d wake up with all of this energy, smiling and in a good mood. And you’d be able to play with your children or grandchildren and run around with them and not get tired, not breathe heavy. It would be wonderful. You’d have such a closer connection with them.

Maybe I’ll just run up these stairs and feel fantastic, no problem. You’d be able to do a lot of those activities you used to have fun with. Maybe you could play golf, play tennis or go hiking or walking in nature. Ah, it would be so fantastic and you could make new friends, who are also active or reconnect with friends, who are active and healthy.

And, instead of feeling depressed and tired all the time you’d feel wonderful, happy and excited. Wow, wouldn’t it be great and just on and on and on! Of course, the more you know the person the more you can talk about specific benefits that they will like.

So now you’ve got the emotional why, the emotional reasons that change is a good idea. The pain to avoid or escape, the pleasure that’s waiting.

1. The final thing you need to do before you talk about what or how, is to confirm, to ask questions, to confirm that yes, you understand why. They agree with the why. They agree with the reasons.

So you just say, wouldn’t that sound great? Wouldn’t it be great to be in good shape? Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to run and move and go for walks and play with your kids actively and run around?

You see, ask these questions of them and make sure they say yes, yes, yes because if they say no, I don’t care then you haven’t found the right reasons yet. You haven’t found the why that they need or the why that they want.

And if the why is not correct, nothing else you say matters, nothing else you say will convince them, nothing else you say will persuade them. You must find the why first, the why that’s powerful for them.

So, you might have to try lots of different things. You talk about lots of different ideas, about what’s painful and you watch their reaction and you listen to their reactions.

And you’ll notice, you’ll see when you find something that is important to them, that is emotional for them and then focus on that. It’s the same with the pleasure. You might talk about lots of different things that are great about exercising and having lots of physical energy.

There are plenty of benefits, but maybe you’re not sure which one is important for them, so you mention lots of them until you see them smile, you’ll see the reaction is stronger for the ones that they love, the ones that are powerful for them. Those are the ones you focus on and you do that with questions and talking about a lot and noticing.

Once you find the why, once the why is correct it’s actually then, very easy to convince them to try your idea. It’s not so difficult. In that step two you talk about the what and the how. After you find the why and they’re excited about the reason then and only then do you talk about what to do and how to do it.

The steps for this are very simple. All you really need to do is give them an outline. Tell them the step-by-step process to get from where they are now to where they want to be, so you’re just going to walk them along /dbt//dbt//dbt/. Okay you’re here now, you’re overweight and you can’t even walk up the stairs.

1. So step one, go for a five minute walk every day.

2. Step two, you’ll increase that up to ten minutes, then twenty, then thirty and then a full hour every day.

3. And then step three, you’ll want to increase your muscles a little bit so you’ll do a little bit of weightlifting or maybe just some push-ups.

4. And then step four, you might start jogging a little bit, just slow jogging and increasing the weight that you’re lifting.

And then you will arrive where you feel great. You will lose all that extra fat. You’ll have a ton of energy. You’ll be able to play with your kids and have a great time, go hiking and do all those wonderful things you want to do. So you just step-by-step, show them the process. Step one and then you do this, /du://du://du:/. You just outline it out, the what and the how.

And then the final part of persuasion, talking about what or how, is that you then tell them what they must do. You remind them again what’s step one? What’s the thing they need to do today?

So you tell them the whole process then you say, but don’t worry about the whole thing for now, today just focus on step one. Go for a five-minute walk today. Right now, let’s go for a five-minute walk. That’s all you need to do for the what, the what and the how.

The final part of the formula for persuading someone is to then, at the very end, summarize the why, summarize their why, the reason that’s important to them. So you’d say okay, today we just need to go for a five minute walk and this will start you on the path to becoming healthier so that you can finally play with your kids like you want to.

You reinforce, you remind them of the most powerful benefit or reason, the why. So you begin with why, find the why or whys, the reasons that are important to them, that are emotional for them. You do that first, not last, first. You do it first and you find the power there.

Then you tell them the step-by-step idea you have. Then you tell them the first step to do right now and then you finish again, reminding them of the most important why. That little persuasion formula is super, super powerful.

Now, I use this in my own life. The toughest speech I ever gave and I give speeches to groups and to companies about English learning, about leadership, about having a successful career.

But the toughest speech I ever had was at this corporation, a German company. I won’t say the name. I went to speak to this German company about how to improve the English level of their employees.

To tell them the Effortless English method and how they could change the way they’re learning English so that their employees would speak English more fluently, more correctly, more powerfully.

So I walked in, I got up and I started my speech. As you know I’m usually very high energy, especially in a live speech. I jump, shout, lots of emotion, but this company, this German company, the audience they just sat there, arms crossed, looking at me like this (silence).

And I found out just before the speech that they were used to using the traditional textbook and grammar methods. So I could see that they were closed. They didn’t want me to persuade them. I don’t know why they invited me but they did.

Someone in their company liked what I did, but most of the audience didn’t like what I was going to say. They didn’t want to be changed. They didn’t want to be persuaded.

So that’s a tough position, right? I’m standing in front of this group and I’ve got to persuade them somehow. I knew that I couldn’t start telling them about the Effortless English method immediately.

It would be a mistake to just say, stop studying grammar. Grammar rules are terrible. Throw away your textbooks, all the stuff that I say that’s quite powerful and different. They weren’t ready. If I started with what, if I started with how the speech would not work, they would just sit there the whole time, uh this guy’s crazy. What, no grammar? (urgh) It would have been a terrible presentation.

So what did I do? I began with why. I started to talk about all of the frustrations and problems they had speaking English that they would listen to someone speak English and then they would have to translate it to their language. And then they would have to think of their answer in their own language and then translate it back to English.

And then they would have to think about their answer to be sure the grammar was correct, to think about all these grammar rules and then finally speak, and how that created this kind of slower and unnatural way of speaking English.

I talked about the boredom they probably felt, memorizing, memorizing, memorizing grammar rules and then forgetting them. Or knowing the grammar rules, but when they were speaking, still making those mistakes.

And what I did, and I watched their reactions. I looked at their faces to see how they were reacting and here’s what happened. It took two hours, two hours I only focused on why.

I told stories about all the pain and then about the pleasure too, what could happen if they spoke English fluently and powerfully like a native speaker, how would their lives be different? How would the company benefit?

I told stories. I talked about research. For two hours I only talked about the why. I didn’t mention my method. I didn’t tell them a different way to do it, only talked about the why and kept watching their reactions.

Here’s what happened. In the beginning they were all sitting back, (hmm) with grumpy faces and folded arms and then as I talked about the pain, I could see they started to get interested, right and I could tell, ah! I’m correct, of course I knew I was correct because I know the pain of English learners quite well.

So little by little they started to lean forward and then gradually over time the arms of the audience members, they started to uncross their arms and to open up and then the grumpy frowning faces started to get more neutral. And then they started to smile more as I talked about the pleasurable benefits. And they started to lean in more and their whole emotion changed.

They opened up to me, and only when I could see the whole audience was leaning forward, smiling, listening to me with kind of open body language, only then, it took two hours. Only then did I finally start to talk about the Effortless English method, the how, the what. What they needed to change, how they needed to learn differently and by then finally they were ready for it, but they weren’t ready in the beginning.

Now, by the end of the presentation they were all shouting and jumping and /ah/ super emotional. At the end they came up and they were shaking my hand and oh this is fantastic, this is great, wonderful.

I persuaded them, I persuaded that whole group to try Effortless English, to change the way they learned English. But it only worked because I started with the why and I focused on the why for a long time until I could see they were open.

I can guarantee, if I did the normal thing, if I had gone in and started immediately to talk about my method and don’t study grammar rules and focus on listening and learn with your ears not your eyes, they would have stayed closed. I never would have convinced them. I never would have persuaded them.

But I did, and that’s the power of beginning with why. Getting the why first is so important when you’re trying to persuade anyone. It doesn’t matter if it’s one person. It doesn’t matter if it’s a child or an adult or a whole group of people it’s the same idea and it works.

So, what you’ve got to do is reverse the formula. Begin with why whenever you’re trying to convince someone, whenever you’re trying to persuade someone, begin with the reasons, begin with the why, the painful reasons and the pleasurable reasons. And keep focusing on that until you see that they agree with the why. Only then talk about what and how.

Try this in your own life, with your family, with your friends, at work, whatever. Try it in your own life and then tell me about your success. Tell me how it goes. Tell me your experiences. I’m very curious to hear how you get success using this persuasion formula.

Begin with why. See you next time. Bye for now.