The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind (with Wharton Business Professor Jonah Berger)

Audio Transcription

Speaker 1:
Robin? Yes. Batman. Where have you been your light? I’m sorry about man. How was it? [inaudible] get myself a burrito tent. Then it appeared to me like a, like a vision. I forgot the Tabasco sauce and I had to double back. Are you kidding me? We’re interviewing Jonah Berger, the New York times. Best selling author who we’re interviewing Jonah Berger. Oh, the Wharton business college professor. Okay. Now we’re interviewing someone. Who’s kind of a big deal. Wow. And you made to tell me that you went back for extra sauce. You don’t have to yell and make your guests sit something. You’re sizzling comment. We’re interviewing author of the new hit book. The catalyst to change. Anyone’s mind, man. I just have a quick question. Would you have gone back? Oh, that’s why I was upset. Ramen. I need you to understand what I’m saying. You’re saying that if I go to Chipotle again and I have to go back to get extra sauce, I should call you and just tell you that I run into a little bit late. No, you sort of a Batman wouldn’t you curse at me. It doesn’t make me want to change my mind. Not going to do it. Not going to do it. Wouldn’t be prudent to change your mind. When being yelled at by a yeller Batman, you should vote for Bernie Sanders. I feel the burn 2020.

Speaker 1:
Get ready to enter the thrive time show. [inaudible] started from the bottom. Now on the top, top, the, to get what we got come Dixon’s on the hooks are pretending the books will bringing some wisdom and the quote as the father of five. That’s why I’m a DOP. So he could see my wife and kids. Please tell them how to see and see now three, two, one. Here we go. Yes. Yes, yes. And yes. When you are next to me and you are back from injury, how are you? My friend I’m alive and kicking. In fact, what is wrong? What’s happening? Oh gosh. Tell us something. Tell us a little something. I just, I got a little pinch nerve and uh, you know, some kind of way. And then I just did a move, you know? So that kind of aggravated a little bit. So I’ve been kind of my little, my little arm, a little bit wink. What’s weird is when you have a pinched nerve in your neck, your arm, isn’t in pain. And yet you have all these sensations in your arms, the stinging, then the burning that I want to tell you what I’ve been doing to get ready for the show. What have you been doing? There’s the phrase? No pain, no gain. Well, yeah. So because you’re in a lot

Speaker 2:
Of pain. Yes. We’re going to have a lot of gain today. Today’s guest is like a pinch of awesome. You have a pinched nerve. He’s a pinch of awesome. I own a burger. Welcome onto the thrive time show. How are you, sir?

Jonah Berger:
Thanks for having me. I love being called a pitch of awesome. I’ll take it,

Speaker 2:
Joe Austin. This guy is a Wharton business school professor. We’ve had him on the show before Joanie, your book contagious. How long ago did you write that book?

Jonah Berger:
Oh, wow. Seven years ago now came out seven years, 2013,

Speaker 2:
Seven years ago. Okay. Now, now, um, tell us, how long have you been a professor over there at Wharton?

Jonah Berger:
This is my 13th year at Wharton. So I’ve been there since 2007.

Speaker 2:
So what was your path like that led to landing this dream job? Because Wharton is one of the most prestigious schools on the planet. What was kind of your path to that job?

Jonah Berger:
You know, I’ll tell you a fun story, which is when I applied to Wharton as an undergrad, I didn’t get in. So you are the same as me. We did not get, I did a, I did a PhD in marketing at the Stanford graduate school of business. And that’s where I studied sort of word of mouth, social influence, change, why things catch on and, uh, and then was lucky enough and fortunate enough to get a job at the Wharton school.

Speaker 2:
Hey Jonah. Now the Tron staff, um, did you ever figure out who it was? I mean, it had to be somebody that said no, this kid can’t cut it. Could you ever figure that out? Just, just out of curiosity, did you ever figure out who that was? That was probably dr. Johnson said that or somebody did. Did you ever forgot why they didn’t let you in?

Jonah Berger:
And was that person

Speaker 2:
You get admitted? Do you ever figure that out?

Jonah Berger:
Getting into college is a hard thing. There are many, many great students, so, you know, it’s hard to hard to choose them, right?

Speaker 2:
Your parents didn’t have enough money to dump and that’s a whole nother story. That’s a whole nother show. Now, now, John, I want to, I want to ask you this here because, um, you know, as a professor, um, you could be writing about a lot of things at the business school, but you recently felt inspired to write this new book catalyst, uh, how to change anyone’s mind. What inspired you to write this book?

Jonah Berger:
So after contagious came out, my life changed quite a, quite a bit. I got an opportunity to work with all sorts of companies and organizations from big fortune 500, like the GEs and the Googles and the apples of the world to small startups and everything in between. And I realized that everyone, regardless of what industry they’re in, regardless of what company size, all had the same problem, which is, they all had something that they wanted to change. Uh, you know, the, the business owners wanted to change the customer’s or client’s mind leaders wanted to change organizations and employees want to change their bosses, mind startups, wanting to change their industries. Uh, you know, parents want to change their kids’ minds, whatever it might be. We all had something that we wanted to change, but it wasn’t working. Uh, you know, often we push, we pressure. We could Joel, uh, and no one moves, no one budgets that customer doesn’t change their mind that client doesn’t come around, the employees don’t change. And so the question I wondered is, is could there be a better way? And so I spent the last number of years doing a lot of research talking to, uh, some of the best salespeople, great leaders, uh, people from a variety of industries to understand, could there be a better way to change minds? And if so, what is it? And, and that’s what the catalyst is all about.

Speaker 2:
Uh, Paul Hood, you are a CPA and a, you went to school for a long time to become a CPA. How long did you go to school to become a CPA? Well, I’m pretty sharp. I only went five years. Five years. Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s a college that’s post high school actually learned something. Just to give you a little background here. Um, dr. Zellner to my right in the studio here, um, dr. Z started an optometry clinic, which is the States States largest optometry clinic, the state’s largest auto auction. Uh, he has a part owner of a bank. He doesn’t own a bank. He’s part owner of a bank, let’s say declared he’s declared show off owner of a bank. He has only successful companies. And you see how many did you have to go to school to become an optometrist? Uh, eight years total after after high school.

Speaker 2:
And I’ve met a lot of broke CPAs. I’ve met a lot of broke CPAs and a lot of broken optometrists. And Paul isn’t in the process of building a 25,000 or built a 25,000 square foot house. [inaudible] you need to have the money to do that starter home. So I want to ask this question, Jonah, how is it that a CPA like Paul could be so successful? How could a guy like Paul be so successful and other CPAs are not because I feel like it comes down to Paul. You have the ability to change anyone’s mind. Sure. So what questions would you have for Joan about this? Let’s say you’re talking to all the CPAs out there, Paul, and you, cause you’ve learned how to change people’s minds. What question would you have for Jonah about, you know, how to change people’s minds? Cause you’ve learned how to do that and I’ve seen Z do that.

Speaker 2:
Most CPAs can’t do it. So Jonah, the question I have is as you have a marketing degree and you know, I think all businesses as successful business business owners are sell salesman, they’re marketing people. Um, did you find that a lot of your research actually kind of went over into the psychology side of things? If a guy was wanting to study and kind of figure the things out that you did, is it, is it more connection or is it actually a sign of the times, you know, that, that, that kind of dictates what’s successful and what’s not successful.

Jonah Berger:
Yeah. I mean, I think you’re right. It’s all about that behavioral science, right. You know, usually when we try to change, someone’s mind whether it’s a client, whether it’s an employee, whether it’s a spouse, we think if we just push a little harder it’ll work, if we provide more facts, more reasons, more information, we just call that client one more time. Uh, they’ll come around and it’s clear why we have that intuition, right? If there’s a chair in front of us and we want it to move pushing is a good way to get it to move. You want to move that chair particular direction, pushing works. But for people pushing off and fails for one very simple reason, which is when you push people, they don’t just move like chairs, move. They often push back, right? And often don’t go in the direction you want them to.

Jonah Berger:
They often go in the exact opposite direction of what you want it to. And so what this book is all about is, Hey, how can we change minds? Not by pushing, but back she’s saying, well, hold on. What are the barriers preventing change? Why has that person changed already? And how can I mitigate those barriers? How can I get rid of the things that are in the way of them doing what I want them to do and get them to go along? I think a great analogy, you know, think about getting in a car as you get in a car it’s on a Hill, you know, you get in your car, you want it to go, you stick your key in the ignition, turn your key. You know, you put your foot on the gas pedal and you just push it and you hope the car goes, if the car doesn’t go, we think we need more gas, right? As a client, doesn’t change that employee doesn’t change. We just think we need to push a little harder. We rarely say, well, hold on. What about the parking brake? Because that parking brake is depressed. That cars, gasoline is not going to go. And so that’s what the catalyst is all about. What are those five key, common parking brakes that come up again and again, that stymie change across a range of situations. And how can we remove those breaks and get people to move

Speaker 2:
Gentlemen, when you’re preparing to write your book, how much let the audience know how many hours or months, or even maybe years did you put into preparing for it? And then, and then second part of that question is, as you were gathering and preparing and writing it, were there any big surprises to you?

Jonah Berger:
Yeah, I mean, so I’ve spent over a decade in some way, shape or form writing pieces of, of this book. So, you know, I’ve interviewed everything from top salespeople and top leaders to, uh, you know, um, uh, hostage negotiators who got people to come out with their hands up to substance abuse counselors who got people to quit, uh, cancer, uh, who was a religious person, is able to get a Klansman to announce the KKK. So looking at all sorts of change from a variety of different angles. And I think the thing that surprised me the most is this, this approach, this, this way of thinking about change. I think, you know, we tend to think that pushing works and I’ve done a study after study this, we’re asked people in a variety of industries, what’s something you want someone to change and how can you get to the change? And over 98% of the time, it’s some version of pushing. We just tend to default to that approach. Rarely think about the barriers, rarely recognize what those barriers are. We’re so focused on ourselves and what we want. We don’t think a lot about that person that we’re trying to change, right. Stopping them and, and how we can help,

Speaker 2:
You know, Jonah. I, uh, I’m a big fan. I’m a big fan of Dale. Carnegie’s book, how to win friends and influence people, which, uh, Warren buffet said that that single book changed his life. And I’d kind of like in your book too, it’s almost like how to win friends and influence people part two, and you go deeper. You know what I mean? It’s like, you’re really getting into the psychology of it. You really do get into the research of it. How much money do you think it costs a CPA or an optometrist per year to not know how to change? Anyone’s mind. I mean, for the entrepreneurs out there that own a company that just keep pushing and pushing and pushing, I mean, have you ever thought about that, Jonah? I mean, how much money could it be costing somebody if they have the branding, right. The marketing, right. The website, right. They got all that. They have the degree, right? They have all the education, but they just can’t change. Someone’s mind. How much money is it costing people?

Jonah Berger:
Oh, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars easily, if more, I think the thing is, you know, we often think about that one client that we can’t get to come around. Oh yeah. But if we’re really good at this stuff, we’re not just convincing that one client we’re convincing dozens of clients. We’re convincing other people to want to join us and become employees. We’re growing that business from that, you know, one person CPA firm, we might be to dozens of people. We’re not doing the work anymore. We’re managing teams. We got to learn how to manage those teams. I said, this is a skill. Whether you’re, you know, getting a client to come around or whether you’re trying to manage more people and get them to come around. I love the link to Dale Carnegie. And that book is a fantastic one, but we’ve learned a lot since that book was written, right. That book is decades old. We’ve learned a lot about behavioral science since then. And it’s really exciting to be able to share some of that science with people through this book.

Speaker 4:
Yeah. Jonah, I got one more question for you. So this is very interest. I can’t I’m Audrey. I just ordered your book on my phone. I can’t write, wait to read it because you know, I deal with business owners. We teach them success principles. And a lot of our business owners are really aggressive, you know, type a personalities. And I’ve said for years, okay, if you step towards somebody, if you, you step towards that part, somebody, they have a natural tendency to step back. And so trying to teach a person that that is a type a personality to just stand steel. Um, so do you see that too? I mean, have you thought about that or address that to where people have a tendency like use, I used to push your chair. I guess that’s what you’re trying to say is when somebody puts the chair, they can either push back or the chair can just take off running when it’s a person. Correct?

Jonah Berger:
Yeah. You know, someone said it so nicely. They said, you know, you need to stop selling and figure out how to get people to buy in. And I think that’s exactly right. You know, I talk about five key barriers in the book. The first one is reactance. And the basic idea of reactants is, you know, people like to feel like they’re in control. And when you tell them to do something, when you pressure them, they don’t feel like they’re in control. They feel like you’re in control. And what do we do when we feel like other people control, we push back and essentially people have an ingrained anti persuasion radar, almost like a, an anti-missile defense system or like a spidey sense of sorts where their defenses go up. When, when, um, uh, someone’s trying to change their mind, they know it’s happening. And so they push back, they push back against it.

Jonah Berger:
They say, I don’t, I don’t want to change my mind. Either. Avoid the persuasion attempt. They ignore it. Think about when that salesman calls, for example, you get that email that you don’t want. We ignore, we avoid it or even worse. Right. We counter argue that person’s sitting there. It seems like they’re listening, but they think, you really think about all the reasons why, what you’re suggesting is wrong. And so one tip I talk about in the book to reduce reactants is essentially to provide some sense of choice, right? So imagine you’re, you’re pitching someone for example, right? You’re sitting there, you’re saying this is the right course of action. Often that person sitting there thinking, Oh, this is going to be too expensive or it’s not going to work or sure. It worked for that type of client, but it’s not going to work for me.

Jonah Berger:
They’re thinking about all the reasons why, what you’re suggesting is wrong. But if you provide them with multiple options, two, rather than one, maybe two, even three, suddenly it shifts their role. Very importantly, rather than sitting there thinking about all the reasons I was suggested as wrong. They’re thinking about which of those options you suggested they liked best, which means they’re much more likely to pick one of them at the end of the conversation. Right? Because now rather than being lectured to, or being told what to do, they’re participating, you’ve guided that choice. You’ve guided their journey. They’re much more bought in and much more likely to go along.

Speaker 2:
Jonah, do you like the tiny desk show on YouTube?

Jonah Berger:
I have. I’ve seen a little bit of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
You got it. You got to really be watching some, some tiny desk in your life. I’m telling you to change your life, but you’ll get like, you know, a hip hop artist performing in a strip down version on it’s like a PBS, but it’s performing a tiny desk is a great, great show. Everybody there hasn’t seen it, but imagine you had a tiny desk. Okay. So you’re doing a tiny desk show and in the room, it’s you president Trump and Bernie and you are sitting down with these, but then there’s no, there’s no crowd though. We’re not playing to the crowd. Now, now playing to Jonah, just to Jonah and you’re sitting down and you’re going guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, and we were eventually get them to stop doing what they’re doing. And you say, now I want you guys to do is I’m going to teach you mr.

Speaker 2:
Trump, or you mr. Burney, how to change the other guy’s mind. So you’re going to pull Bernie aside. You’re going to tell him no, you’re not going to tell Trump that you’re doing this. So you’re gonna pull Bernie aside and say, Bernie, here’s the deal. I’m gonna teach you the secrets. This is how you’re going to change his mind or vice versa. What could political candidates like a, like a Trump or a Bernie Sanders? What could they do better in your mind when doing these debates to not make them so divisive, even if they have different worldviews, what could the other party do to potentially change the other parties might now, again, I realize in modern politics, you’re playing to a crowd and you’re trying to get people to cheer and you attack each other and make crazy statements. I’m just saying, if you were actually sitting down, you were coaching mr. Sanders, or mr. Trump on how to influence the other person, what kind of advice would you give to politicians?

Jonah Berger:
Yeah. You know, I’ve worked with a number of politicians and I share a few political examples in the book. And I think part of the problem is, as you outlined, is it’s almost like a football field, right? Where the Democrats are on one end and the Republicans on the other. And yeah, there’s some moderates in between, but you know, when Democrats say, Hey, you should believe this Republicans say, well, that’s really far away from where I am at the moment. No thanks. And vice versa. When Republicans say, Oh, you should do XYZ. Democrats say, well, that’s pretty far from where I am. Sometimes when we ask for too much, it almost gets disregarded, right? It’s almost outside our zone of acceptance. It gets in that region of rejection where it’s so far away, we don’t even want to think about it. And so one thing I talk a lot about in the book is how can we ask for less?

Jonah Berger:
You know, we want big change to happen right away. I get it. We all, we don’t want big change to happen right away. But sometimes we gotta be a little patient. I was talking to this doctor. Who’s a great example of this. Right? So doctor was talking to a trucker who was morbidly obese way, overweight drinking, like three liters of mountain Dew a day. And what does that doctor want to tell the trucker to dude, stop drinking soda, right? Of course, cut out the soda. Right. Which is exactly what the Democrats or Republicans wanted. They switched to my side right away. All your ideas, right? Yeah. Which is not going to happen. Right. That, that truckers not going to quit drinking mountain Dew,

Speaker 2:
Truckers, love mountain Dew. They love it. They love it.

Jonah Berger:
So instead she says, Hey, instead of three liters a day, just drink two and fill up that third bottle with some water, have it in the cab of your truck. You can drink the water. Um, and you know, refill it in the truck. Stop complains about it, grumbles, but is able to do it right next time he comes back, he’s down to two. Then he says, okay, go from, to now, go to one. He grumbles and then goes away. It goes down to one next. She says, okay, now go down from one to zero. He does it. And eventually loses over 35 pounds because what she did is she didn’t just ask for less. She asked for less and then asked for more. Essentially what she did is she took a big change and broke it down into smaller chunks. I think that’s the same thing. We’ve got to think about politics, right? Stop asking people to completely change in a moment, just find a piece of common ground. Switch that field a little bit, break down a big ask. And there’s smaller, more manageable chunks. It’s like stepping stones. As you jump across a river, making people much more likely to come for the ride.

Speaker 2:
I want to talk about these five key parking breaks. And I also want people to actually buy the book. I mean, Paul, you know how it works here at you’re a CPA. What it turns out, you have to sell a book right. To make money. Is that how that works? That weird. Weird. Okay. So we want people to buy the book. We don’t give all y’all the moves, Jonah, but we want to give away enough of the moves. We’re shapeless entrepreneurs that we want everyone to want the book. Uh, you’ve already bought the book there. Paul. I bought the book. Jonah, can we go through a few more of these parking brakes?

Jonah Berger:
Sure. Yeah. Happy to. So, so I talk about five in the book, um, uh, and they’re actually part of an acronym. So the first is reactants. We talked a little about that. The second is endowment. That’s the E the third is distance that’s D U is uncertainty. And CE is corroborating evidence. Put those five together. They spell reduce, which is exactly what, what good catalysts do? Uh, we talked a little about reactants already. Uh, we talked a lot about distance. If you’re too far away, it gets disregarded. But one, I think your listeners might find useful is this idea of uncertainty. And one thing we often forget is that any time we’re asking someone to change, there’s some fear, some anxiety there, right? New things or new things are always riskier than old things. You’d have old things are bad. We know how that old thing works.

Jonah Berger:
Right? Know? Sure. It might not be perfect. Right. But we know that old thing, people often talk about their spouses this way. It’s like, yeah, my spouse, isn’t perfect. Right. But you know, I know what the challenges are. Whereas new things are really risky. And so anytime you’re asking someone to change, you’re asking them to go from a sure thing to a risky new thing. You ask them to take a switch from what they notice something they often don’t know. And there’s a lot of costs to doing that. Not only is their time or energy or effort, it’s often expensive to change. And so one thing I talk a lot about is how can we reduce that uncertainty? How can we a sense lower the barrier to try and make it easier for people to try what we’re offering. So think about Dropbox, for example, if any of you guys have used Dropbox online storage.

Jonah Berger:
Yeah. Wonderful system. Right? So, so they come out originally, they say, Hey, we’re going to store your stuff in the cloud. People go, where’s the cloud. Right? What if the cloud goes down, they don’t want to try this new technology because they don’t know how it works. And so rather than saying, okay, we’ll make it cheap. Or rather than saying, Hey, we’ll buy a lot of ads. What they say is, look, we’ll give you some for free. We’ll give you a two gigabytes of storage for free. It’s not an infinite amount of storage for free, but it’s just enough that you get a sense of what it’s like. So if you like it, you’re willing to upgrade. Why? Because rather than them trying to convince you, you’ve convinced yourself. And so what lowering the barrier to trial is how can we give people a taste and experience almost like a test drive of what we’re offering, going back to CPA. I’m a CPA. Of course I say, I’m great. I had, of course I say, you should switch your business to me from someone else. No CPA is going to say no, no, stay with your old CPA. So we have to think about, well, how can I show you that? I’m great. How can I give you the experience that allows you to realize how great I am? So you convince yourself rather than me convincing you,

Speaker 2:
Jonah. Uh, I wanna, I want to get through with the listeners out there to get a chance to know you, you know, uh, know you as a person here. Um, did you remember, uh, do you remember pictured your mind? Can you, can you think back to like your eighth grade school dance, eighth grade?

Jonah Berger:
I can’t actually scarily enough. I can.

Speaker 2:
What was your jam?

Jonah Berger:
All the way to Whitney Houston’s I will always love it.

Speaker 2:
Oh, there you go. Well done. Well, that’s the gym. Okay. Came from a mega point. He gets one mega point for that. It’s a mega point. That’s fair. Now, let me ask you this. Now, who are your, who are your favorite music artists right now? We’re a couple of them where you go, man. I really liked this group. Just give us, just give us. We need to know the personal life, the deep dark secrets of anybody just between us. Just let us,

Jonah Berger:
You know, it’s scary, by the way, as I thought you were gonna ask me who I was dancing with at that eighth grade dance, I thought it was going to be even worse than who I was listening to music one. Um, uh, in terms of music, you know, I like all sorts of stuff. I like everything from country to hip hop, to rock and, and everything in between. I find, uh, uh, at the moment I like a lot of indie rock mellow stuff. I have a new baby in the house. So anything that’s sort of mellow and light is, is good for me at the most.

Speaker 2:
That’s not from the same girl you danced with it in eighth grade. Is it just out of curiosity? Just curious. Unfortunately, it’s not. Okay. Well that’s good. That’s good. It’s good to them. They’re making a point. Okay. So now you, um, you, your, your, your book is a, is obviously the books called catalyst. This is a, an awesome book for people to read, but I want to ask you, cause you to write a book requires a lot of time and it requires a lot of focus, a lot of energy. How do you organize the first four hours of your day? Because you are a professor, you’re a speaker, you’re a writer. How do you organize the first four hours of your day? And what time do you typically, you know, get started?

Jonah Berger:
Yeah. You know, people talk a lot about big rocks and little rocks, and I think it’s such a good analogy, right? There’s a tendency to want to start with the little stuff, right. Just to do all the little stuff. And eventually once we get the little stuff done, we’ll go to the big stuff. But sometimes if you don’t make time for the big stuff, it never happens. Right. If you pour all the little rocks in, there’s not enough room for the big rocks. If you pull the big rocks in first, a rocks, sit around them. I think you really gotta be protective of your time. Right? You gotta say, what is that big thing I want to accomplish today? Or this week, writing a book, not fun. Let me tell you. Right. And so it’s, it’s me locking myself in that room and saying, what’s the chapter I’ve got to get through today. What’s the idea I want to focus on today. Let me do that. And then I’ll do some of the small stuff.

Speaker 2:
What, uh, what time do you start the day typically?

Jonah Berger:
Well, I probably start around 7:00 AM. Something like that.

Speaker 2:
7:00 AM. Okay. And then where are you starting today? Do you work out of your house? Do you go to Wharton to work from the campus? Maybe the Starbucks would get a lot too.

Jonah Berger:
I walk to work with my cane every day. I swing my cane around at my top hat

Speaker 2:
Skipping. I bet I can seem skipping, skipping down the sidewalk.

Jonah Berger:
I start from home. I find it. It’s good to, you know, greet the day from home. Sometimes in those sweat pants, in that tee shirt, you know, don’t, don’t start too heavy. Ease yourself into it. Often

Speaker 2:
For the listeners out there that are thinking about it. And we’d have time for two more questions. We’re gonna go lightning round here. So Paul get, get, be ready and ZB ready. But here we go. I’m ready for listeners out there who are thinking about buying the book, but they got it. It’s a tight budget situation. We might go to Chipotle twice this week. Each time we go it’s $8 for a burrito burrito, or too tight time for me. I might go on iTunes and buy 19 songs in the next 60 days that I’ll listen to one time. I might do this or, or I might buy a book that could change my life. Why should everybody pick up a copy of your book? Because I am sold out to the idea that emotional intelligence is super important and I’ve never met a super successful person who it does well in the game of life who cannot change people’s minds. That’s my reason, but why should everybody pick up this book?

Jonah Berger:
So actually say two things. Don’t don’t believe me, go to my website. There’s some free resources there. Check them out. If you find them useful, get the book. And by the way, if you get the book and you hate the book, email me, and I will send you your money back. Sure. That people will find this book valuable. Then I’m, then I’m happy to send them their money back. I think there’s there’s tips and tricks and useful stuff in there for everyone, whether you’re a small business owner, a big business owner, and there’s a bunch of free stuff on my website, resources, whether you’re trying to change a boss’s mind change a client’s mind, it’s a bunch of free stuff people can dig into there. If you’re not sure yet about the book, it’ll give you some sense of what the ideas are. I think it’s really useful stuff, and I want to make sure people can get access to it.

Speaker 2:
Call it rapid fire question before Z one-ups all of us with all the, he always want to just when he walks in the room. So the question I have is, is, you know, again, we deal with businesses, startup businesses, to businesses that have 50, 60 employees already. Um, would you say that this book has a benefit to, to really anybody that wants to grow their business that wants to truly market? Because we have a tendency to people think marketing is just going out and buy an ads and all of that. But the reality is, is that connection that, that, that people that spread your you’ll tell your story.

Speaker 1:
So, um, my question is, is there a target for a specific, a specific size of business that you would be after this, this book?

Jonah Berger:
No, it’s really all about the goal that you have in mind, right? That, that thing that you want to change, I’ve worked with small businesses. It’s tough being a small business owner. You don’t have a big budget. I’ve worked with a lot of medium size or sort of high growth businesses that are trying to take it to the next level. But the challenge is while there’s somewhat different are also often very much the same and you’ve got limited resources and you gotta make a lot of those resources. And so it’s really about thinking about, you know, what does that behavioral science that gets people to change and how can we harness them to move in the right direction,

Speaker 1:
Jonah Z, Z. He’s going to one up us all with the ultimate question, but I want to ask you, sir, will you, um, ban the selling of your books to communist dictators? Will you do that for me? I think they need it more than anybody. No, we don’t want them to change people’s minds. I don’t want the communist leaders changing people. I’m like, Oh my goodness, like this and Kim young songs and what, what, what could happen? Could you commit to not selling this to communistic taters? Is that a pledge you would take for us, please? I’m happy to make that he lost it like six or seven books sells right there. Just right there on the side, back to you. Okay. Back to you. You know, this is an interesting concept and I love the premise of the book. Um, how to change anyone’s mind.

Speaker 1:
And I know this isn’t our listening audience because we’re all entrepreneurs capitalist and where people are out there trying to sell some goods or service shameless. But you know, occasionally somebody may click on the, I click on this podcast, which is a radio show and go, what are they talking about? What’s going on? What’s happening? Isn’t that? I mean, you’re manipulating someone’s mind. Are you, are you, is this ethical? What changing someone’s mind? Are you a dark Lord? I mean, are you like, is this, is this rolling taking over the world? Is this the Illuminati part of the matrix? Is this, am I plugged in or lucked out part of the federal reserve? I mean, is this manipulation at the highest level of your chiropractor of the line? I mean, he says, are you at sorry, you’re putting things in by pray that don’t belong there. It’s just artificial intelligence is all by itself. No, I mean, what do you, what do you, how do you answer that for the average Joe out there that may be listening to it goes, you know what that’s done? That’s done generally. I may not want to, in fact, in my mind, I mean that just me, I’m wrong.

Speaker 1:
He’s just taught my brain or something.

Jonah Berger:
I’ll say two things. First. There were some early reviews on Amazon and one of the early reviews basically said, this book is too useful because it will change people’s minds and salesmen and manipulators will use it. And so don’t read this book cause it’s bad because the tools are useful and they gave it,

Speaker 1:
Get that type take good review. I think

Jonah Berger:
If you’re worried about this book, cause it’s too effective, I’m pretty happy about that. And what I would say is, again, tools are tools, right? You know, you can do some things with a hammer and you can do bad things with a hammer. So just the fact that they’re tools doesn’t mean they’re good or bad. It’s how we use them. And I think what’s great about something even like uncertainty, right? Take Dropbox. What they did with giving away a free trial. If the product’s not good, it’s not going to work right. By giving away something for free lowering the barrier to try and getting people experience. If your thing’s terrible, you don’t have a word of mouth problem or marketing problem. You’ve got a product or service problem, right? And so these tools are useful, but they’re going to be more useful to better you’re saying is. And so if you don’t have a big budget, you don’t have a lot of resources. These tools are gonna be great. You’ve got a product or service that isn’t quite great. Then you got to work on that product. Or so

Speaker 2:
John, I want to, I want to complain here before we wrap up, you have a complaint. I want to share a certified complaints as a certified, certified official complaint. And I want to complain for a second here. Your book is endorsed by a Daniel pink. Okay. That’s a make a point. Okay. Daniel pink was he’s. He’s been on the show. It’s endorsed by Jim Collins. That’s also mega point C. We’ve had the founder of Netflix reach out to us this week to be on the show. We’ve had the founder of square reach out to us to be on the show. We have a Wolfgang puck. He hasn’t been on the show, but on the show, the guy Kawasaki has been on the show on the show. But you know, who has rejected me more than almost anybody who Jimmy see Jimmy Collins, no way. So Wharton, mr.

Speaker 2:
Wharton here, mr. Jonah, if at any point you could give him a copy of your book and inside it, you know, when you signed the book that he’s endorsed, just say personal lines book. That’s always a CLIs book. My good friend clay, and use your Jedi mind tricks to get them on the show because you need to change his mind for good Jonah. Jonah, use it for good, for good. He only rejects me because he has class and style and standards and all the things. Apparently we tricked you into being on our show, but he could, you could you maybe work on him on the side, little things come.

Jonah Berger:
I will work on that. I’ll put that on my to do list today. [inaudible]

Speaker 2:
See. There’s a half million of you. There are begging for Jimmy C emailing me all the time said, I want Jimmy. See, I want Jamie C and we want to say yes, but Jonah’s not going to do it unless he sees some immediate sales buy the book right now. The catalyst, how to change. Anyone’s mind the catalyst. How to change. Anyone’s mind, Jonah. I appreciate you. My friend, you, you offer an unbelievable value. You are the man.

Jonah Berger:
Thanks so much for having me guys. I really appreciate it. It was awesome to be here.

Speaker 2:
Yeah. This was a whale of a show. I have a game twice. First time. I understand that you trick people at the second time, he thought this was Jim Collins podcast. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Hey Carrie Jones. And now without further ado,

Jonah Berger:
[inaudible]

Speaker 1:
From succeeding because they’re the ones to have a whole bunch of tech stocks. I’m talking about Abraham, because Abraham is the one that Abraham had to move up from his country and away from his tidbit. The one. So he was a misfit because he was the one. So he thinks into space because he was the one. So he had to live in isolation. [inaudible] city, new state. It’s going to be your great, all the things that I have done, a clean slate, but like I was different. I ain’t never tried to pull the dope. Well, solid as a rock loyalty. It’s all I ever know doing what you’ve always done. They told me you can never grow conversations with the door to ask them what I ever flown told me. I got to wait for friends. I got to let them go. We don’t maggots. I know that [inaudible] patient. I tell with my moment, no stop. This thing is in of what you’re going to do. When you get back against the wall, you will stand up like a jet, but you’re going to curl up in the ball and a woman not been told for so long ride. It, it widow got to keep your faith.

Speaker 1:
And Abraham had to move out from his country and away from his temper because he was the one. So I think it’s with his pimples because he was the one. They are always on the hip list because I want to talk to some people that have met up on the crazy attack, the devil fin attack at night. Cause he, every time that happened there, a blessing coming up, fix the problems that you take. Dang. I had to go crazy. Learn your lesson from you. Remember when they cut my homie man, reflecting how they cut my lights off. I had to move back in with my mama. Happy feeling like the failure. That’s what life would do. Gotta get up on the ground. I had to make the right move. Raymond noodles. Every night I had some beads, the rights to execute the keynote. Tell me what you might do paid for from the man above no mother.

Speaker 1:
God is like you, you can knock me down, but I promise I ain’t staying. There has been the, like I am the one we just begun this ticket clear me and clay clicking that y’all need to get it out to be colossal taking over. When we flip it up and Abraham had to move out from his country and away from his kid because he was the one. So I think it’s with his pimp folks, they are always on my hit list because I want to talk to some people have a whole bottom. Now I’m here hoping that success separate 23 years in. And she got another kid power man persevere because I never haven’t taught people. I never stopped riding. When the [inaudible] I be paralyzed by the thoughts that we feel.

Speaker 5:
So you’ll stop begging for people to come into agreement with you. So you’ll stop doing polls and census and trying to get everybody to come into consensus with your vision so that you won’t be nobody to say man, with your preach. Cause you already know that you got to haven’t said, Hey man, power one,

Speaker 2:
Listen to the entire TD Jakes sermon grasping the moment by visiting TD Jakes, YouTube channel, simply named TD Jakes.