Eight years ago, my youngest daughter, who’s now 30 years old, asked me to write a book for her. It was in the middle of winter and dusk had just turned to darkness as I landed at the Dayton, Ohio, international airport. Hours before, I was at our home in New Hampshire. Two weeks prior to this, she and I had driven from home to Cincinnati, Ohio, so she could find a job and be close to her best friend.
It was now time to drive back across the often snowy and icy tundra of I-90. After asking me how my flight was, the next words that flowed from her lips were, “Dad, I need you to write a book for me. I want it to be filled with all you know about business, real estate, investing, finance, relationships, home improvement, politics, etc. I don’t want to slog through life making the same mistakes you made and the book will be a shortcut to success and happiness. Oh, and I also want it filled with our family history and all of the stories about you growing up that you shared many nights at the dinner table when I was growing up.”
As you might imagine, I was overwhelmed by the request. Swirling inside my head was a vortex of emotions. First and foremost, I was so proud of her to recognize she didn’t know it all. Secondly, my baby had truly grown up and recognized what she was up against. Several other thoughts flashed past my tiny gray cells and the last one I remember was fear. Would I be able to do this massive brain dump and fulfill her wish?
As we drove away from the airport into the inky darkness, she began to rattle off chapter titles in the book. I retrieved my reporter’s notepad in my backpack and began to write them all down. I still have that cherished piece of paper.
Once home, I set the paper on a shelf in my office where it started to gather dust. Nothing happened for five years. One day, my sweet daughter said: “Dad, I know you’ve not started to write my book. I want it for my next birthday.”
Gulp. I had five months to get it done. Being a professional writer, within minutes, I sprang into action and rapidly discovered the book would be about six to eight inches thick! I had to split it apart into volumes.
Believe it or not, I got volume one finished by her birthday. I even designed the color cover for the hardbound book. I had 15 copies printed and distributed them to my wife, my other two children, and a very few close friends. My daughter’s eyes were as big as saucers when she opened the package on her birthday and saw her request had come to be.
Game of Thrones
As I started to write the initial chapters of volume one, it became crystal clear that my parents, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, and just about every person mentioned in the book were all participants in a never-ending daily game of thrones. It was similar to me playing the game of Monopoly with friends on my street when I grew up. Often, a game would span for a week until the last person was cut off at the knees by Butchy Tallarigo, the older kid who always outsmarted us. Each game ended up with him having all the money, all the property deeds, and all of the little green and red houses.You may not realize it, and you may not want to be part of it, but each day you’re playing a game of thrones. You play it at home, with your friends, your co-workers, and your relatives. It’s being played in your apartment building, your HOA, your town, your city, your state, and your country. It’s played by all the leaders of countries all over the world. At the highest level, it’s a never-ending game between good and evil.
You don’t believe me? Just look at the news headlines, for goodness sake! When you drill down into each story or scandal, one of these three things is at the core: money, power, and sex. Often, the trifecta is at the core as all three things are intertwined within the scandal.
If you want a shortcut in life like my daughter, then you need to realize that everyone around you is motivated by those three things, and often, they want all of them in large quantities. You need to be hyper-aware that you’re almost always being played. Or, in the worst cases, you’re using people like tissues to get what you want no matter the collateral damage.
Powerful Psychology
How do those active players get what they want each day from you? The sooner you realize that powerful psychology is being used on you all day long, the sooner you'll be able to defend yourself. Baked into your brain stem are several psychological buttons that others can push to persuade you to do something they want you to do. If you’re not aware of these buttons and how they work, you will almost always succumb to the desires of those that know exactly how to press them.It took me decades to figure this out. I can assure you that your quality of life will be so much better if you know that people around and above you are always trying to play you like a cheap fiddle. Armed with how this psychology works, you'll be able to protect yourself and only do what you want to do.
Here are a few simple examples. Reciprocity is the easiest of the psychological buttons to push. If someone does something nice for you, you often reciprocate and do the same for them. Have you ever bought that small block of cheese or tube of summer sausage at the store after eating a small sample piece that was on a toothpick? You just got played.
Have you whipped out your credit card to respond to a buy-one-get-one offer? That’s reciprocity. You were played again.
Did you sign up for all that special weight-loss food to be delivered to your home because you were bombarded by seeing 5 or 10 other people who magically lost 20, 30, or 50 pounds? That’s the social proof psychology button.
Were you swayed to think one way about an issue because 5 or 10 celebrities pontificated on Twitter or some other social media platform telling you how they feel about the issue? Did you toe the line about some topic because you saw TV news anchors, talk-show hosts, and an army of pundits lecture you on how you should feel? If so, the psychological button of authority in your head was pushed harder than a D8 bulldozer shoves 20 tons of dirt across a construction site.
The ultimate power of psychology rests in just one button. It’s the one that has printed on it in capital letters, “SCARCITY.” Convince someone that something will disappear and that person will do almost anything. When was the last time you bought something when you got the email or text that said, “The sale ends TONIGHT!”
That’s double scarcity. Not only is the company taking away the sale price in hours, but they’re also convincing you that they'll take away extra money from you if you don’t take advantage of the sale price.
What happens if you make someone think that the oceans are going to rise up and flood all the land they live on? What happens if you tell someone that some invisible thing is going to kill them? Yes, you’re making scarce the very thing most people value the most—their lives.
If you want to make the world a better place and experience true happiness in life, then simply become aware of what’s really going on around you each day. Don’t succumb to the psychology. In fact, use it to your advantage, and persuade others what the truth is, about any and all things.
Start your journey by politely refusing that small tasty piece of summer sausage. You really don’t need that extra item in your shopping cart.
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