Professor Alison Wood Brooks

Are you willing to play it with me?

She said, yes.

I asked her these 36 questions.

And at the end of it, I told her about the research and whatever in a non-creepy way.

But like...

But it did, it did exactly that.

It taught me that vulnerability is the doorway to connection.

What about...

persuasion have you got any any useful actionable advice for me on how to be a better salesperson and when i say salesperson i don't mean i'm trying to sell someone a car i mean trying to convince other people of my ideas yeah so that i when i do talks in companies oftentimes someone will stand up and say i'm trying to persuade my boss to do x innovative thing they won't listen to me have you got any tips for me to persuade them but also persuasion is at all levels right yeah up down left right in organizations and and in the world

Because they feel heard and understood.

I have learned that actually in my relationships that if I make the other person feel heard and understood… Validate.

Like the mistakes I made in maybe past relationships were when I didn't validate, it was kind of like a broken record.

The person continued to make the same point because they didn't feel heard and understood.

But if I validate, remarkable thing happens where the kind of record player stops and then you can make your case.

Okay, so I should start every sentence with I agree, even if I don't.

Interesting, I agree.

Yeah.

Julian Treasure, what he said to me was that he did two TED Talks, one of them about speaking, one of them about listening.

Rough numbers.

He said the one about speaking did 40 million views.