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>> Kim Ricketts: Good afternoon, everyone. And welcome. My name is Kim Ricketts, and I'm here to introduce and welcome Chris St. Hilaire, who is visiting us as part of the Microsoft
Research Visiting Speakers Series.
Chris is here today to discuss his new book: "27 Powers of Persuasion: Simple Strategies to
Seduce Audiences and Win Allies."
True persuasion of the creation of consensus from conflict or indifference. It is taking an idea or course of action and creating a unity of purpose. We can learn how to make those with alternative perspectives feel valued and not threatened and find the way to consensus.
Chris St. Hilaire is the founder and CEO of three companies. I think four, soon to be four. Jury
Impact, M4 Strategies and Quantitative Focus.
He's served as chief strategist for political campaigns. Provided legal and political commentary for national broadcast outlets such as NBC, C-Span and Fox News. And is an award-winning message consultant for high level legal cases throughout the United States. Please join me in welcoming Chris St. Hilaire to Microsoft.
[applause]
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Is it on? Wow. It's a good sound system. Over the last 10 years, since I founded my company, I've conducted at least 2,000 interviews per year of two hours or more for more than 20,000 interviews in 43 states.
And what I've seen are some very good and some very poor persuaders. I've seen -- and it's fascinating to me because the poor persuaders can make a myriad of mistakes. They can make an infinite number of mistakes.
And I don't want to go all Russian novelist on you, but whoever has read Anna Karen, all happy families are alike, but all unhappy families are unhappy in their own special way. Persuasion is like that.
There are a few techniques that all persuaders use, whether they are good marketing persuaders, whether they are good political persuaders, whether they are good legal persuaders.
They all tend to utilize a few similar techniques, and that's what I'm trying to share in "27 Powers of Persuasion." I tried to create a very practical book that's grounded in some philosophy but that will give you useful tools for getting yourself heard.
The fact is that your average American now gets more than 6,000 requests for their attention every single day. And what that means is that we as a society are tuning out and it's only for our self-preservation. So if you look around the room, Harley Davidson wants your attention. My book wants your attention. The emblem on your watch wants your attention.
The coffee cup wants your attention. Microsoft, I guarantee, wants your attention. And so it's harder to break through than ever. And one thing I'll say is before you can persuade, you've got to get people to listen.

And I suspect one of the first questions I'm going to get today is why not just tell the truth. Well, it's a great statement, but we've got republicans and democrats both saying they're telling the truth. We've got Colgate and Crest both saying it tells the truth. You've got the plaintiff and the defense both telling the truth.
It's their version of the truth. You've got the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and if you read the stories, you'll get two very different bents and they're both saying we're just telling the truth.
So perspectives differ. Realities differ. And your ability to break through and communicate to use the right language, to use the right words, to put yourself in a context to win the debate or influence people, is critical to your success, in every aspect of life.
And when you think about it, persuasion is important every day, everywhere. Professionally, philanthropically, personally your ability to communicate in a way to get your ideas heard is going to determine your success.
And the last thing I'll say before I go into my presentation is that persuasion is both an art and a craft. The art comes from within you. It's that creative idea that you have. And I don't think it's from -- my perspective -- I don't think anybody's identified where that comes from yet. And so the idea that's yours, that's always going to come from within. The craft of persuasion, getting your ideas heard, putting it in a context that is going to give it the best chance to succeed, that's a craft. I watch good communicators get better at it all the time.
My goal, as I said, is to make this book practical and give people the language and tools and strategies to use every day to make themselves more successful. The art comes from within you.
>>: So what happens when you're wrong?
>>: Joy, I'm never wrong.
>>: But you can't always be right.
>>: If it's your job to be right then you're never wrong.
>>: But what if you are wrong?
>>: Okay. Let's say you're defending chocolate and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you vanilla is the best flavor of ice cream, you'd say.
>>: No, chocolate is.
>>: Exactly. But you can't win the argument that way. So I'll ask you, you think chocolate is the end all and be all of ice cream, do you?
>>: It's the best ice cream. I wouldn't order any other.
>>: So it's all chocolate to you, is it?

>>: Yes, chocolate is all I need.
>>: I need more than chocolate. For that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe we need freedom and choice when it comes to ice cream. That's the definition of liberty.
>>: That's not what we're talking about.
>>: Ah, but that's what I'm talking about.
>>: But you didn't prove that vanilla is the best.
>>: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong. If you're wrong, then I'm right.
>>: But you still didn't convince me.
>>: I'm not after you. I'm after them.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Two points and I'll go into them later. One, I've got to preface I'm not advocating smoking. This is the movie Thank You For Smoking. One of my favorite movies.
Before I start getting letters, this is not sponsored by the tobacco industry. I'm not here promoting smoking.
With that said, there's a couple of concepts that I'm going to be talking about. One is choice.
And the three most popular words in the English language are choice, fairness and accountability.
Let me tell you that today I'm going to give you some choices, right?
Because that's the fair thing to do. And then hold me accountable at the end. How do I lose with that statement? How do you lose with that statement in anything you're pitching? Hold me accountable.
So I'm going to talk a little bit more about that. The other point is aiming for the undecideds and that's a chapter you read in the book. In any lawsuit, in any campaign of any type, you're going to have a few for yous, a few hellos, I call them Jerry Maguire jurors. You'll have a few against yous, and the goal is always to influence that middle. In the last election you saw who made the difference, the independents, the swing voters. Aiming for the undecideds. I'll talk a little bit about that also.
Persuasion is part of everything you do. And I jumped ahead of myself, so I'm not going to talk about this slide I already covered about it.
>>: [inaudible]
>>: You don't have to answer that question.
>>: I'll answer the question.
>>: You want answers, I think I'm entitled.
>>: You want answers.

>>: I want the truth.
>>: You can't handle the truth.
>>: [inaudible]
>>: I did the job.
>>: Did you order the code red?
>>: You're damn right I did!
>> Chris St. Hilaire: I love this movie. But what this attorney did here was played to someone's ego. And understanding the role of the ego, when you go into any conversation, yours and theirs, is really fundamental. And what I would say is everybody has this innate sense that they want their ideas to be heard. They want to be liked. They want to contribute. And inside of us, without getting too philosophical, there's this consensus-building part of us, I'm like this person. We have the same wants, the same desires, the same needs. Let's make us all right. And then there's this other part of us that says I need a Ferrari. I need the best looking girl. Or I need the best looking spouse. I want to separate myself. I want to differentiate. My ideas are better than others.
And understanding that other people have those perspectives too allows you to communicate better. So be aware of egos going in. And there are times when you need to side-step them.
There are times when you need to appreciate them. But let me give you a piece of advice, practical piece of advice.
When you're pitching an idea, say from my perspective, saying from my perspective allows other people to have a perspective, too.
One of the most annoying statements, and I'm sure you know someone like this, will say let me tell you how it is. When somebody's telling you how it is, you stop listening. You shut down.
Because they just completely undervalued your ego, your perspective, your need to contribute.
And when you say from my perspective, it says one man's opinion, one person's opinion. I use one man's opinion because really one of the best CEOs in America I believe is a guy by the name of Paul Filino. I'd watch him for years. And at the beginning of a meeting he'd state his position.
But he'd say it's just one man's opinion, what do you think. And when you use language like that, it encourages others to contribute. And the best way for you to accomplish your goal is to make your goal their idea.
And so you can launch your perspective. And when they start to share your perspective, you can seize on those moments and let them become invested in your goal. Mutualize that goal, understand the ego and be that much more effective.
I start every new client pitch -- and I'm really in three worlds. One, I do high stakes trials. And my firm, Jury Impact, is involved with approximately 70 trials a year where we help attorneys who have been on a case for four years and know way too much about the details communicate with
12 people who could not get out of jury duty.

And so what we do is we go in the research and we help simplify things. But when I walk into these pitches, whether it's for marketing, politics or the law, the first thing I say is you know way too much about - insert subject. You all do. You know way too much about your issue area.
Think about simplification. Think about your 15-second pitch. I work with a very good attorney out of Houston, and I don't do a very good Houston accent but he says, "Son, when I'm delivering a case, I gotta have what I call cocktail talk." And that means can I explain the case to my partner's spouse in one sentence. If I can't, I can't explain my case.
And so when you're explaining things, think about one sentence. Think about 15 seconds, 15 minutes, 15-day version of events. But until you can explain it in everyday terms in one sentence, two sentences, 15 seconds, you're going to have a hard time making everything fit within that umbrella.
Back to the goal. I worked -- I was the political director in the California State Assembly for some time. And the Department of Motor Vehicles introduced a bill. And they wanted the ability to close on Saturdays.
They wanted to close all branches on Saturdays. And their stated reason: People are using it too much. They forgot the goal. The goal was to get people through faster. To give them options, to give them choices, to make it fair for people.
And they didn't want to be held accountable. Process is everything you do to achieve a goal. But when you ask the goal and you don't state it to the group, you say what's our goal here, it really gets you halfway to the persuasion finish line, because it allows other people to invest and it remembers -- and it helps people remember why you're here.
When you're in these groups of four, five, six, simply ask the question, why are we here? It sounds simple, but you'll get that much, you'll get to your goal that much more quickly.
>>: What are you talking about? Are you high?
>>: I want to rent you.
>>: You want to rent me?
>>: You pretend you like me. We go out for just a few weeks, and that will make me popular.
>>: Just going out with me is not going to make you popular.
>>: Well, I have a thousand dollars that says it will.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Does anybody remember this movie? Am I the oldest guy in the room?
That is "Can't Buy Me Love." For the women in here, Patrick Dempsey was not always
Mr. McDreamy.
Third-party validation, and I see this all of the time: People want -- very few times does someone want to go out on a limb for your idea. They want to be toward the front but they don't want to be the first or the last. They want to be toward the front.

So your ability to provide third-party validation, when you're making an argument, is really going to help that argument get better heard.
If you look on the screen, you'll see JD Power. You're constantly hearing about cars that receive the JD Power award.
Think Jet Blue talks about their JD Power award. I flew them up here, by the way. Great airline.
JD Power asks you to pay them to conduct the research before they have their findings. It's a beautiful model. But if I wanted to be the best jury consultant in America and have JD Power's proof, I'd have to hire them to conduct the studies. Then they come out with their findings and tell me whether or not I get the award. That's the importance of third-party credibility.
So when you go into these arguments, when you're trying to persuade someone with an idea, be ready to have someone there to endorse it or talk about other sources that aren't you that can help validate your idea.
Because it opens people up to not being the first. And like I said, persuasion goes on at every level. And I actually -- my wife did this. No, my son did this to me. What's that new Mega Mind I saw this Sunday? Not because I wanted to but because my ten-year-old emailed me a review of the movie. I thought it was brilliant and I was going to take him just because of that.
But that's the importance. And using -- understanding -- just using one other person, one other testament, one other award, incorporated into your idea, is going to make your idea heard more and it's going to make it less scary for the audience to endorse.
My vice president added this last line which I will skip.
>>: Good morning, can I take your order?
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Owning the language.
>>: Large black coffee.
>>: What?
>>: Large black coffee?
>>: Do you mean a venti?
>>: No, I mean a large.
>>: He means venti. Biggest one you've got. Venti is large.
>>: No. Venti is 20. Large is large. In fact, tall is large and grande is Spanish for large. Venti is the only one that doesn't mean large. And it's also the only one that's Italian.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Owning the language is fundamental to creating new paths of persuasion.

And you know that you've got a successful product or idea when you coin the phrase. I've been using the phrase shirt mullet for about three years now. It's when the back of your shirt's untucked, comes untucked but the front's tucked in.
I love that. My friend invented that. I've been using it ever since and giving my friend credit in every speech I've done for the last three years. But what's a Kleenex? You're all picturing a tissue, you're not picturing a Kleenex. A Kleenex is a brand.
But they've done such a good job of owning that language that we ask for a Kleenex instead of a tissue. And so to the extent you can invent new language, we use these dials. And we call them effectiveness meters and what they allow us to do, if there's 100 people you can all be holding dials, telling us how you feel about speeches so we can gauge language and importance. We call them effectiveness meters. And now our clients ask: Can you bring the effectiveness meters. To the extent you can own the language, you can own the debate. One of my first campaigns was for school choice in California.
Does anyone know another name -- what's school choice called? Vouchers. Do you know why we don't have school choice because everyone calls them vouchers. Vouchers are unpopular.
School choice is very popular. But it's the language that you use that determines its success.
And so when you -- you can learn a lot about where a room's going to go after you've heard two sides of an argument based on who won that language battle.
76 percent of Americans oppose welfare. About 73, 74 percent of Americans support a social safety net. Can anyone tell me the difference? That's the importance of language. Language is fundamental to our success. And so -- I was actually working on a trial -- what's today?
Wednesday? Friday. In San Diego. And we were doing the research on the lead-up. And it's against the SEC. The Securities and Exchange Commission. And they're accusing some people of what they call a round-trip transaction.
A round-trip transaction is essentially, and some of you probably know more about -- I know just enough to be dangerous. Like a political yellow belt. I know just enough to get beat up.
A round trip transaction is when a sham, a phony transaction essentially occurs to boost the balance, to boost the numbers of a company. And so money -- they say money's coming in and then money doesn't come in. Then they log it off the books, and it's called a round trip transaction. And so during the conversations, during all the deliberations, the key term, the term everyone wanted to talk about after six hours of testimony, were round trip transactions. Round trip transactions. And they were all citing against. But there's another side to the story that wasn't brought up in the presentations. The software that they got and the exchange for what the
SEC deems a round trip transaction was actually their landmark transaction. In the end it's their primary product.
And once you introduce that, once you learn not to let them own that language, not to let them get away with the term round trip transaction, say no, wait a minute, that's a landmark transaction and that became fundamental to the success of the company, it changed the entire debate.
Everyone started saying it was the landmark transaction. So understanding that language, framing that language, getting them open and you'll know whether or not they're going to support

you based on the language that they're using when they describe back what they think you're trying to pitch.
>>: Carly Fiorina, as CEO she laid off 30,000 workers and shipped jobs to China. China, India,
Russia, Poland. I know precisely why those jobs go. Because Fiorina shipped them. To
Shanghai instead of San Jose. Bangalore instead of Burbank. Proudly stamping her products made in China. 30,000 workers gone while Fiorina took 100 million for herself. Carly Fiorina, outsourcing jobs, out for herself. I'm Barbara Boxer and I approve this message.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Before you all start complaining about negative advertising, let me tell you, until it stops working on you, they're not going to stop doing it to. How many jobs did she send to
Bangalore, Bangladesh?
>>: 30,000.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: 30,000. 88 percent of Americans will believe any made-up statistic.
[Laughter]
I'm just kidding. But the fact is, what percent of Americans will believe any made-up statistic? If you use one or two numbers, it gives essentially a quantitative feel to a qualitative argument.
And most of you know qualitative is something statistically unprovable. It's what you're hearing, but it's tangential. It's experiential. Quantitative, 2 plus 2 equals 4. I know plus or minus 6 here's how people feel about a certain issue.
Using one or two numbers gives the process more validity. It gives your idea some quantifiability.
And I always put the rabbit ears around quantifiability because it really doesn't.
But people will remember one or two numbers. And for all you engineers out there, do not overnumber people. If you use 10 numbers, I won't remember any. If you use 1 or 2, I will remember them both. What percent of Americans will believe any made-up statistic? 88. And that's the only number I'm going to use.
The other thing I'll say is if you've interviewed four people and three of them agree with you, it's
75 percent. Has anyone here ever been to an event that's been reported on the next day?
Was the story anything like the event you attended?
>>: No.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: It never is. And that's because biases work their way into stories. And that doesn't mean that anybody's doing anything they think is wrong. And let me tell you, I hear isn't persuasion just manipulation? No. They're completely different. Persuasion is the creation of consensus from either conflict or nothingness. I can manipulate people, but that's not persuasion. That's manipulation. And that's not fair under any circumstance. I can cajole people, or for my employees I can say we're doing this. But that's not persuasion. That's arm twisting.
Real persuasion is the creation, is getting people marching in the same direction. When I did focus groups on persuasion, people were talking about as if it were a negative, as if they were

door-to-door salesmen trying to get you to buy their Encyclopedias before they went on to the next person. That's not what persuasion is.
It's part of every day, all of your lives. To the extent you believe your ideas are ethical, you have a responsibility to be good at presenting those ideas, in silence. If you've ever been interviewed by reporters, one of their tools of persuasion: Being comfortable with silence is hard to do, isn't it? If I'm nodding at you, you want to say something. You want to fill that void. Understanding that being comfortable with the silence will actually give you power. And a reporter told me one time, and I've seen it dozens and dozens of times, there are three answers you get when you're comfortable with silence.
You ask the question. You get the answer that they think you want to hear. Then you get the answer that they think they want to tell you. And when you can use silence appropriately, you get what they really think. And usually it's the most succinct.
So be comfortable with silence. Let it sit. Use it to your advantage. Don't feel the need to fill in.
Thank you for filling in, by the way.
Also -- and I do a lot of CEO political message training. I do a lot of witness prep. And there's this need when you are thinking about an answer, for some reason it's a phenomenon I don't understand. People do this, can you all see my eyes? You look clueless. I gotta tell you. I'm doing you a favor, I think. Look down if you have to look anywhere, okay? So be Bill Clinton right after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke and he's sitting at the press conference. Look down.
And I'm not saying be Bill Clinton, by the way, after the Monica Lewinsky deal. But to the extent you're asked a question, this looks considerate. This looks clueless. Keep that in mind.
This is more of a way to think about persuasion. I started the company when I was, gosh, 31.
And I'm getting old. And one of our first big pitches was in a New York City high-rise. And I'm from Orange County where everything is about three stories tall. And walked in, multi-million dollar campaign. About a dozen lawyers sitting at this grand conference table. We walk in with one of my associates. The pitch went okay. It didn't go is terrifically a word, terrific, swimmingly.
But we didn't get the gig. And we were going down the elevator and my associate says, "Those old guys are so stuck in their ways. Did you see what that guy was wearing? They're not open to new ideas."
And what struck me and which has been validated over thousands of interviews is that like is reciprocal. People won't like you if you don't like them. That's just -- it's just a truism. And even if you don't say it, they'll sense it. They'll see it in your eyes. And so your ability to find one thing to like about everyone, though tough at times, is really fundamental. And it can be something simple.
I like their tie or -- if they're quiet, if you think they're overly quiet, try to think of them as thoughtful.
If they talk too fast like me with my three lattes, think of me as passionate. Find a positive. Find a positive. Because they'll sense when you're open to people and you like people and it will make you that much more likable. Try it one time.
>>: All of us have a responsibility to pay their fair share. That's accountability. And that's what we'll have when I'm president. And make no mistake. We need to end an era in Washington

where accountability has been absent. Oversight has been overlooked. Your tax dollars have been turned over to wealthy CEOs and well-connected corporations. You need leadership you can trust to work for you. Not for the special interests who have had their thumb on the scale.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: What was his speech about? Accountability and fairness. How many people in this room have children? Most of you. I have two. And while I was writing this chapter,
I counted the number of times they used the word fairness in one week. Fairness, one week, seven days. I had a little tally. 77. That's not fair. Zachary got that. It's only fair. Fairness is something we're born with. We have this tendency to want balance, to want equity.
And to use, to use fairness in debates or when you're trying to persuade is always a winner.
Fairness is something we're born with. And it's something we all strive for. Now, by the way, my definition of fairness, the definition of fairness in the Eighth Ward of Washington D.C. where I'm interviewing on some hospital issues, is very different than fairness in San Diego California. But fairness, a sense of balance allows you to do a couple of things. One it allows you to bring, if you're having a conversation that's getting mired in details, we'll say we want to be fair here. Try it. Any point in the conversation. Well, we want to be fair here. It allows you to mutuallilize for a second. It allows you to create some common ground then you can come to agreement on what fairness is. Choice.
School choice. Pro-choice. We all want choices. That's one of the things that Americans want most. So remember, when you can, to ensure fairness you want to include a few choices and hold people accountable. Insert your division. Insert your role. Accountability is also something that we all agree with at all times. Now, the specific definition of accountability may change. But so many of these debates as they get mired talk about accountability. Talk about fairness. Bring it to the goal. You'll find yourself pulling out of the details in these conversations. Getting to the end line by mutualizing and allowing people to build consensus before you move on again.
Just be aware, just be aware. I still get in these conversations. I'll start with what's the goal? We want to hold people accountable. It sounds simple. They'll say chapter 14 and chapter 27, what are you talking about. And we still go through the exercise. And it still results in a better decision.
After the campaign, by the way, Obama was asked, are you for bigger government or smaller government? He said smarter government. I don't know why I brought that up. I just know how you lose.
Making your weakness your strength. My old boss worked for the first George H. W. Bush, the first one, and during the campaign, in the primary campaign, he was being accused of being too shy, of being too quiet. And Peggy Noonan, his speech writer, wrote his speech. And my boss,
Ray McNally, turned it into a mailer that was mailed out to all the battleground states.
And it really turned the tide. And it was George HW standing on the end of an aircraft carrier.
You probably knew he was a pilot. In his flight jacket. With the quote: I have been accused of being too quiet. But I hear the voices of everyday people and they move me.
It was the first and last political piece, especially after his last election, that ever made me cry.
But it made you feel proud to be an American. But what he did in one line was make a weakness a strength.

And when you don't get them out on the table, by the way, people are going to see your weakness as a weakness. Many people will. Not all. But you know my vice president, he's been with me nine years now, was -- has 60 percent hearing loss. And we sit in focus groups three days a week.
And so you've got the loud speaker with the voices coming over them, and you've got an attorney or a politician or a corporate executive talking to him. And he's in the back room. And the first few years he'd nod and they'd say so what do you think? He'd go I'm with you. And he just seemed aloof and without a good idea. And I thought you're a bright guy. I've been in these conversations. You're creative. You read body language better than nine I've ever met and then he said I've got hearing loss.
We get it out on the table now and he turns it into a strength, because he does read body language, which he's developed over the years. He can say that woman is uncomfortable or that man has something to say. He can send that message into our moderator. We'll get it to him.
You get an insightful comment. But he gets it out on the table. He says I have 60 percent hearing loss. You you'll have to speak up. They understand if he's nodding, they repeat it, and nobody minds. But, two, he gives some insightful comment on the nonverbal, and he brings something to the table that the rest of us don't have.
And I realize the messenger is as important as message. So when I say to the women in the audience, when you're one person at a 12-person meeting, when you're the only woman, I realize there's times when that can feel like a weakness. Turn it into a strength. Not only can you speak to both sets of attitudes but you can also bring a new perspective to the table. Old. Young.
Black. White. Rich. Less rich. Is that politically correct?
Own. Own it. Own it and be proud of it. And if you have something, if you're too quiet, say I'm thoughtful. Because how you perceive yourself is going to change the way you're perceived.
>>: You already are the oldest president in history. And some of your staff says you were tired after your encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall yet that president Kennedy had to go for days on end with very --
>> Chris St. Hilaire: I have to go back. How many people know what this is? Every year that, the arms are fewer. This is the first Reagan Mondale debate. And Reagan was accused of being old. Too old to run the presidency. Do we really want this old geezer with his hand on the nuclear device? And those were some of the op eds out there.
And he tackled it.
>>: [inaudible]
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Yeah. You're like the guy who shouts out the end of the joke. I'm teasing.
>>: You already are the oldest president in history. And some of your staff said you were tired after your most recent encounter with Mr. Mondale. I recall, yet, that President Kennedy had to go for days on end with very little sleep during the Cuban missile crisis. Is there any doubt in your mind that you would be able to function in such circumstances?

>>: Not at all, Mr. Pruitt. And I want you to know also that I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent's youth and inexperience.
[laughter]
>> Chris St. Hilaire: You gotta love it. Keep in mind that we all bring streaks to the table. We all bring uniqueness to the table. And that's a good thing. Especially when you're trying to sell to billions of people on this earth.
Any questions? I'm going to make the lack of questions a strength and say I covered this subject brilliantly.
>>: So what you said earlier about owning the language and the power of certain expressions to control the debate. What happens when you're asleep at the switch and the viral language gets out there, this verbal gets out before you've had a chance to counter it? How would you reframe the debate around the death tax?
>> Chris St. Hilaire: You want to reframe -- well, they lost the death tax debate to some extent because they were asleep at the switch, to your point. Once you define language, you have a tremendous advantage.
If you look, liberals are now, what? Progressives. Because liberal took on a bad name. So progressives, which then was co-opted from them and taken on as a negative. So being first to market. Essentially what that is with the language changes the debate. I would suggest to democrats, if they want to in-state new taxes in this environment, that they give up. I'm just kidding. You're getting my bias.
They're going to have to do research and they're going to have to find out how to frame it in a way and develop the language in a way, because, frankly, I don't have a better term than death tax.
Nobody wants to be taxed at their death. Right? And when I'm making a speech on taxes, I can tell you, when you get up in the morning and you turn your little night light on, you're getting taxed.
When you turn on the water to brush your teeth, you're getting taxed. When you start your car, there's a gas tax. When you drive to work, there's a roads tax. When you get to work, there's an income tax. When you buy the coffee, there's a tax.
So I'll come from the other side of the aisle where I'll talk about being the most taxed nation on earth, and then we can argue that point. But I control the debate by saying taxed 300 times.
Then when you die, there's a death tax.
So co-opting it is really difficult. We did it in this case, however, like I was talking, like find out the other benefit. They called it a round trip transaction. Play to a predisposition.
So if I were to walk into the Democratic National Committee and say let me tell you why George
Bush was a great president. They've stopped listening. The debate is over.
I can say whatever I want from there on out, they haven't heard a word of it. So before you can persuade, you've got to get them to listen. And breaking through with that language, playing to a predisposition that's not necessarily -- we can all agree that we need more bipartisanship in

America. That's what Obama's trying to do to open up the debate to get you listening. And he's actually very good at it.
Questions?
>>: There was a point on one of your slides about using silence during [inaudible] can you give more details on this
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Using silence?
>>: Yes
>> Chris St. Hilaire: When you want to know what someone really thinks, let it sit. There's this innate need to fill the silence, to fill the silence.
And this is what my wife's been doing to me for 12 years. And it works beautifully. And I wrote a book with a chapter on silence and sitting there I will inevitably confess to whatever my crime was, most every crime. Because I'm feeling guilty. I'm my own barometer. I have my own sense of wanting to create balance. And the silence is uncomfortable when I'm uncomfortable.
And so learning to manage that silence, being comfortable with that silence, will actually create an environment where you'll become leader, because they'll say that person is comfortable in their own skin.
And all you did was sit silently. I hired a woman last year who was around for three months, and I finally figured out that I confused her silence with wisdom. But she was just silenced because she didn't have anything to say.
So she used it brilliantly on me.
>>: She was [inaudible] after a while.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: For two months and three weeks, you are correct. Any other questions?
>>: At the beginning of this speech you said what you claimed you interviewed 2,000 interviews a year.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: About yes.
>>: Four hours each.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: From two to four hours, yes.
>>: How is that possible? Because --
>> Chris St. Hilaire: You're doing the math. No, I get yeah. Keep coming. I do 12 people at a time. I do two groups a day. So -- and I can do anywhere from 12 to 20 people at a time. 20 is more like a seminar. But 12 is a really nice balance and gives everybody an opportunity to speak.

But I do groups of 12 around the country. That's possible.
>>: That's possible.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: So you've been stuck on that for an hour? [laughter]
>>: It was just the number.
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Name one video that I played. One. Your predisposition was there's no way and you haven't been listening. [laughter]
>> Chris St. Hilaire: I'm totally teasing. I hear you.
>>: What role do you think experts play in terms of persuasion, like on a trial bringing an expert?
>> Chris St. Hilaire: Let me tell you, there's something in persuasion called confirmation bias.
And so within 30 seconds of your presentation, I will decide how I want to feel. And then I will spend the next week and a half trying to prove how I want to feel. And so during the healthcare debates, I did focus groups around the nation. The number one cited example of why we need universal healthcare in America was? Canada. The number one cited reason for why we don't need universal healthcare in America? Canada. It's confirmation bias. So experts can turn you.
Experts are important. In this political year they were actually less important, because people didn't have faith in the system this year. So you saw a lot of the ads had, were either straight out personal attacks or they were average people. I'm Joe and my hardware shop's going to close.
You saw average people, because the experts meant less. But experts do matter. They become that third-party validation and they can usually give you that one or two numbers.
It works even better, in a political race it works when the economy is better. In your daily lives, it's important. And being able to cite an expert that says over the next five years X person states that more people will be using their cell phones as their primary computer. I just made that up. But having a stat like that through a credible expert makes your argument less risky.
Any other questions? All right. I want to thank you for your time. And thank you for laughing at half my jokes. I'll be -- I'd love to sign a book if you'd love to have one.