Charlie Houpert breaks down how judges on The Voice use different words to persuade contestants. The key: focus on what matters to the other person, not what you want. Self-esteem and confidence in your own words do the work.
What's up, everybody? This is Charlie from Charisma on Command. And today I want to talk about persuasiveness and self esteem and really how those two things intersect. Because the truth is, anytime you're trying to persuade someone of anything, you are revealing how you feel about yourself and that is persuading them just as much if not more than the contents of what you're saying. So if you're not familiar with it, this clip is from the show the Voice. And the idea is that a singer gets on stage, sings a song, and then if the judges like them, they compete to have that person join their team. Now, in this case, there's two judges that are going to argue for the same woman to join their team. Joel and Ricky, they have very different strategies. One is bad, one is really good. And we're gonna start with the bad one.
Thank you so much. I actually, really, really want her on my team, Ricky.
Yeah, me too. Okay, me too.
Cardinal sin of any persuasive tactic right here. Talking about what you want when you're trying to persuade someone. People often think that it's like some kind of a compliment to say how badly they would like it if someone did that thing, as if that would be to lavish praise on them. People do not care. They have their own interests in mind. So if you hear yourself starting, I would love or I want or I would like cut it out. You need to talk about what would be good for them. And he's gonna continue down this broken path for most of his argument.
I just wanna say that sometimes I get so excited, it really like scares people away. And I've lost a lot of battles for people, girls.
Now this is something else that I see and it's unfortunate. When you watch it here, it seems so obvious, dude, why are you down talking yourself? But I see it when people step on stage, right? If they're not comfortable giving a, they'll often start with, I'm not very good at this, or they're telling a joke to say, I always tell it badly. Or even guys, when they approach a woman in a bar, they'll say, I know you probably wouldn't want to talk to a guy like me, but if you are going to go up there and negatively social proof yourself by talking about your past failures, you don't stand a chance. Now, we are compelled to do this sometimes because we find ourselves unworthy of the situation in which we find ourselves. We don't think we can give the presentation or tell the joke or talk to the girl. Or whatever it is, if that's how you feel, there is work that can be done beforehand to deal with those feelings, but in the moment, at the very least, do not voice those negative concerns because you are going to shoot yourself in the foot and completely obliterate any chance of it going well.
I've been turned down by girls. I would love it if you would give me a chance again.
I would love it if. That is a terrible way to start a persuasive sentence. Nobody cares what you would love. They have their own interests in mind. He needs to talk about her career, how he can help her.
I just. I'm already seeing things, you know, I just want to try lots of different things. Songs, staging, you know, I like to get really creative because I would love to work with you.
So he talks about what he wants to do, how creative he is, and never ties it back to her. And then, of course, closes weekly with, I would love to work with you. That is a zero on the persuasiveness scale. Now watch how Ricky takes it in a completely different direction.
Cool. Thank you.
You have a whole package. You have the.
You finally, right after all this time. He starts by talking about her. He's going to say what she has going, and he affirms her.
Here you have the aura of a star. You just have to fight for you, believe and stand in that stage, believing every second, every word you say. And I can work on that with you.
That is persuasiveness in a nutshell. Ritu, right there. Right? He affirms her, says what she's got going, says what she needs to do, and then introduces himself. The solution. Now, I could talk about his body language and eye contact and that is all critically important, but that's really all just a symptom of how he feels about himself and his argument compared to Joel. Right. Joel is probably going through some high school thing where there's a pretty girl on stage and he feels unworthy. Ricky doesn't have that same baggage. So he is genuinely coming from a place of, you can be awesome and I can help. And he's not afraid to look at her in the eye as he says it. That is critical.
Allow me, please, to be part of your journey. I would love to be part of your journey. Let's have a really good time and let's fight.
But under.
This is extremely fascinating here. So he starts with you, says you have this going, then introduces a little bit of an issue. You know, this is what you need to do. I can help you and then closes with us. Let's do this together. Let's go on this journey. That is an amazing persuasive arc. In a nutshell. You what you've got. I how I can help with what you're missing. And then us what we can do together. Really, really beautiful, small persuasive arc and just very interesting to see him sum up in such a short period of time. So I want to jump ahead now and show you kind of how they connect differently when they're looking and interacting with her. Again, this comes back to the self esteem part. So here we go. Joel is about to give her a present to persuade her to join his team. Now just look at his approach. Note the amount of eye contact you make. Look at if he touches her. Look at if he's got any sort of engagement going on as he presents this, this gift to her.
That's not cool. That's not right.
Just think about it. Just think about it again.
And with that he's got that little bit of an obsequious like, sorry, like he's almost afraid to touch her as he just hands the roses to her as if they had some bacteria on them and need to get rid of them.
Now I've cruel. Think about it. Wait, that was good.
That is romantic.
Just think about it.
So he's got those small little gestures. He's very tight on the inside. Let's switch this now with Ricky. So cutting out a Ricky, just note his eye contact, how with everything else and everyone shouting around him, how he engages her so completely. Now he doesn't walk up to her like Joel did, but you can just get the sense that he is actually connecting with her much more based on his, the angle of his body, the way that he looks on her, how he gesticulates. This is really where this self esteem issue comes in.
