Weapons of Influence Pt. 3 - Consistency, Commitment And Scarcity

Hey everybody, welcome to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'm Richard R Ramos. Today we come to the conclusion of this 3-part series on the Weapons of Influence. Now, in the first episode, I talked about the principles of reciprocity, and liking. In the second episode, I talked about authority and social proof. In today's final episode in this series, I'm going to share the principles of consistency and commitment. This is a really powerful and interesting principle or weapon of influence, as Cialdini calls it. This principle is psychologists have found that there's something about human beings that we have a desire to be consistent, especially after we've made a hard decision or we made a stand on something, uh, we've made a promise, um, something like that. We made a commitment, and once we've made that commitment, we want to be consistent. We want to be seen as somebody that's consistent. Somebody that says what they mean, mean what they say, that we follow through, we do whatever it is that we said we were going to do. People can count on it. And that's the kind of people that we want to be. That's how we want to be seen. Because the opposite of that is to be flaky. And so we don't want to be that way. And when you're not consistent, you're saying one thing and then sometimes you do it and sometimes you don't. You make a commitment and sometimes you come through, but sometimes you don't. That's just called flakiness. But the psychologists say that we just have this innate desire, uh, once we've made a commitment, to be consistent. So, uh, let me give you a couple, uh, a couple of examples. The first one is from the world of, uh, toy manufacturers. Now, toy manufacturers, one of the problems they were having was once parents came for Christmas And, you know, they made a lot of money, of course, and they spent all the money on the toys, whatever they were buying their kids. Then they would have these slow months in January and February, March. Usually those were really slow months, and they weren't making any money. So they had to figure out how— they didn't have to figure out how to get kids to want more toys, for, you know, kids want toys all the time. But they had to figure out, how can we get parents to continue to buy toys in the off months. And so this is what they came up with. Um, they decided that what they would do was, uh, create these, um, great toys that kids would want, and then they would spend a lot of money on advertising on the Saturday morning cartoons. Of course, the kids would see those toys and then they would tell their parent, that's what I want for Christmas, and get their parents to commit to buying that toy. But here's what happened when they went to the store. I don't know if this still happens. I mean, my kids are all grown, and so I'm not sure this still happens. Maybe it does, or you may have experienced this. So when they went to the store to buy that specific toy, the store would say, oh, we're out of that, but we have them on back order and they should be in, you know, in the next couple of months. So what would parents do? Well, obviously they're there to buy Christmas toys, and so they would spend money on, on, on other toys for their kids. Now, uh, Cialdini learned this because one Christmas— or not Christmas, after Christmas, I think it was in January, he said, or, or February He went back to the store to see if they had the specific toy that his son really wanted because he wanted to keep his promise. But when he went there, he saw the same guy, one of his neighbors that he hardly ever saw. And yet there he was for the second year in a row in the same store with him buying the same toy for his son. So, you know, they just talked about it and they just laughed it off. You know, the coincidence of it. Well, later on that day, Cialdini had a friend that he just happened to mention to him the coincidence. But this friend at one time had worked in the toy industry, and he said, uh, that's not a coincidence. And Cialdini said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, let me ask you 3 questions. Number 1, did you promise your son that you would buy the toy? Yes. Secondly, when you went to buy the toy at the store, were they sold out? Yes. And again, so now he's got to spend more money to buy other toys for Christmas. And then finally, did the same thing happen the year before? And he said yes. So in other words, he realized that he was getting duped, burned, you know, manipulated because the guy told him that's what they do with these in toy stores. They make a great toy, advertise it big, and then when you go to buy it during Christmas, they say they don't— they're out of it and it's all backordered. Why? To bring parents back a couple of months later to spend money. And now they're making money not only in Christmas for all the toys that were bought, but also in the off months, because now they go back to see, hey, you said it was coming in, has it come in yet? And when it does, they go buy it. So he's— now that he found this out, he's mad, and he's on his way to take the toy back. And his friend said, no, no, wait a minute, wait a minute. He said, did you promise your son that you were going to buy him the toy? And he said, yeah. He said, well, if you take it back now, your son's not going to understand why you're doing that, and all he's going to remember is that you didn't keep your promise. And so he— Cialdini— he tells this story in the book, you know, that I told you about, um, that, that I got these principles from. And so he you know, wants to be consistent, wants to keep his commitment, he wants to keep his word, he wants to keep his promise to his son. And so he changed his mind and he didn't take the toy back. And that's just one way. In the book— in, in— where do I have it? Here somewhere. Um, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. I mean, he talks about so many different ways that this principle of consistency and commitment, or commitment and consistency, and how it works. And that was only one story that I just told you. But here's the key. The secret to this principle is that people tend to remain consistent with commitments they make publicly. So I'll give you a personal example, uh, of, of in my life with a program that I committed to called 75 Hard. The 75 Hard is a system that was created by, by a guy named Andy Frisella, and he was inspired by his friend who was known as the Iron Cowboy. Because the Iron Cowboy, his friend, completed 50 Ironmans in 50 days in 50 different states. Let me tell you what, what that means. For 50 days in a row in 50 different states, he swam— you, in, in this Ironman challenge, it's 2.4 miles every day. Then you get out of the water and you bike for 112 miles. And then when you get to the 112th mile, you drop the bike and you run a marathon for 26.2 miles. And normally it takes about 17 hours to complete, uh, the swimming, the biking, and the running. This guy did it 50 of these, 50 days in a row. He did it for 50 days in a row in 50 different states. So did it in California, next day he's in Arizona, next day he's in— on and on and on. So Andy was really inspired by that. And he just so happened to had made a bet with some friends of his that he would be down to 10% body fat by the next time they met. And it just so happened that from the day he made that commitment, to when they were going to meet again was 75 days. And that's how he came up with the name 75 Hard. So, so I, I took on, you know, that challenge. And it, I mean, it wasn't— let me tell you what it, what it, what this 75 Hard is, is about. And the whole point of the story is about making a commitment and then being consistent in what you said you were going to do. So here's what is required in 75 Hard. For 75 straight days, you have to drink a gallon of water every day, take a picture of your body every day, do 10 minutes of daily inspirational reading every day, have a healthy eating, um, decisions that you make. It's your choice. He doesn't give you any diet. It's just up to you to eat healthy. No alcohol. And 2 45-minute workouts every day, one indoors and one outdoors. And here's the commitment to consistency: if you miss any one of those 6 things at any time, you have to start all over again and go back to day 1 and start the 75 all over again. So I knew there was no way I was going to do that, and I also knew that the only way I was going to complete this challenge, this mental challenge that I wanted to, to take on, uh, for myself, was to make a public commitment, uh, with family and friends. And, you know, I offered, hey, you want to join me? Nobody took me up on the offer, so I had to hold myself accountable for 75 straight days to be consistent in all 6 categories, and I did it. So that's the power again of this principle, that when you, when you make a commitment, you just want to be consistent. Human psychology. Now, how can we as parents tap into and use this principle to achieve a commitment of consistent behavior from our children. So here's a few suggestions. One thing you can do is create a written mission statement. And instead of saying, you know, here's our family mission statement, guys, rather you sit down and you have a conversation. And one of the questions you ask that I did is, what kind of family do we want to be? What kind of home do we want our friends to come to? What are we living for day to day? And you just have that conversation, you take notes, and then you have a written mission— family mission statement that your children have helped you develop, and you ask them to be committed to it. It works. Uh, another thing you can do is, is use, uh, the power of writing down personal goals. So you, again, you're having a conversation with your son or your daughter, or all of them if you— if possible. Let's, let's write down some goals, and you write down some goals with them. But there's something powerful about writing them down. Uh, another thing we can do is discuss the family committing to a community service project that they choose, that the kids choose. You can give them a number of options. There's, we can do this over here, we can feed the homeless, or we can go and clean the streets or some graffiti somewhere, you know, whatever it might be. And you discuss with them, let's, as a family, let's commit a Saturday or whatever it is. And then you You give them the options and they choose it and they make a commitment to it, and then we stay consistent to whatever it is that we agreed to. Uh, another thing you could do is encourage them to make a commitment to help their friends that are less fortunate than they are. So that's just a few things you could do to tap into this powerful principle of commitment and then being consistent to the commitment that we made as a family. Now, let's talk about scarcity. Now, scarcity, I think this is something that most of us are familiar with, though we may not know it by that name, scarcity. But that's what Cialdini calls it because it's a powerful thing. And what it's based on, the principle of scarcity, is built on the idea of what, you know, what's known today in social media as FOMO— fear of missing out. That's what the scarcity principle is based on, built on, uh, the human psychology that these social psychologists spend all their time, you know, studying the human, uh, nature and the human mind and human tendencies is that we, for some reason, we equate what is scarce and limited as valuable. For example, that's why diamonds— I don't know that they're as scarce as they make us think they are, but those kinds of things that are scarce, we put a lot of value on those things. Social psychologists have found that people will give more attention and value to the potential loss of something over the potential gain of something. Again, the fear of missing out. So you and I see this every day, all the time on television, mostly in commercials, or, you know, you go to the show, you're bombarded with these commercials and on the radio. Uh, internet, YouTube, social media, because marketers and advertisers are, are just pros at using this scarcity principle, uh, with the limited release of a certain kind of car, only a limited series, so you got to get yours now, uh, we only made so many of them before they run out, you know, so get yours. Then we see it with the joining expensive clubs that give you access to certain things, certain people, certain places. You know, the exclusive club that only so many people— we have only so many VIP passes that will get you backstage. Again, the principle of scarcity. And then there's the limited time discounted offer. If you buy right now, and if you buy right now, you know, wait, there's more. Or if you buy now, we'll give you another one free and shipping is free. You know, all of that is based on them tapping into the human psychology that whatever is scarce is valuable and therefore I don't want to miss out. Well, how can we as parents tap into that human psychology in a different way with meaningful, rare experiences with our children that become very memorable. And that's the key, creating a rare experience with our children, or if you want to say a scarce, uh, experience that's memorable because it doesn't happen every week. We're not doing this every week or even every month. But maybe every once a year, maybe a couple of times a year. But the point is that it's rare, it's scarce, and therefore it becomes valuable to our kids. They don't want to miss out on it. They don't consider it if it's always, always every week. They don't consider that valuable if it's always, we're always doing this. Every week we do this. Every week we do this. Every month we're doing this. That's not going to be considered scarce it's invaluable. But there are certain things we can do. One of them I suggest that I've done with my, with my kids, mainly my girls, is to have a one-on-one parent-child date. Date your girls, date your boys. I mean, but of course, if you do it every week, that's not going to have the value, the rare, scarce value. But if you're doing it just every once in a while, it becomes very special. Another thing is to have special conversations at key moments in the life of your son and daughter, and they remember that, that one time where Dad, you know, he said he wanted to talk to me, took me out to eat, or took me somewhere and showed me some things, and then shared, you know, some things about life, key moments in their life. or a rare rite of passage, something that only, you know, happens when a kid turns 12 or 13 years old or, or 21 years old or 10 years old. It's whatever you decide it is, but it's kind of like a rite of passage where maybe you give them something that you say, you know, I've been saving this for you because now you're old enough to, to have it or to handle it, uh, and that becomes very valuable to them. Another thing is special vacations. And if you can't afford, you know, to fly across the world or to another state, you know, because it costs money, you know, those kinds of special vacations, you know, that you gotta— if you're going to fly, a plane ticket, and then the hotel, and then the food, and then whatever it is you're going to do while you're there. Or even if you drive somewhere, you know, the gas, the food, the hotel. So that can be expensive. But if you're able to do it, what I'm saying is it's, it's a special thing. It's not happening every month. It's like maybe once a year. Or you could have what they call a staycation if you can't afford to do these other things. And in a staycation, you plan to visit rare places in your city, in your community, or maybe somewhere that's not too far with your kids. You Hey, we're, we're, you know what, let's go here. Let's go visit this. Let's go see this. And you show them, look at, let's go check it out. We've never done that. It might be in your own city. Uh, and when you do stuff like that, it becomes fun. It becomes memorable. And when you announce it to your kids and you give them a date, that's something they're not going to want to miss it. They, they have FOMO. I don't want to miss out on that with Dad, with Mom, or, you know, whoever it is that maybe their friends come, you know, that kind of thing. And that's how we can tap into this principle of what is rare, uh, and what is scarce. And children remember those things for decades. I mean, my kids remember, you know, when they were little, every Christmas holiday, after Christmas morning when we'd open presents, we'd take off to the mountains and spend the week in the snow up there, just, you know, doing all the things you do in the snow with the bobsledding and, and just having a great time, the fireplace, playing games together. And it was just us. They remember that. And then one time we were fortunate enough, all of us, 5 kids, 2, 2 adults, uh, we all went to Hawaii. For a week. Um, again, rare. I mean, that, that's not something, you know, we can afford to do, probably even yearly. But again, that, that's what I'm talking about, um, because, um, scarcity creates significance. That rare date with your daughter, that rare rite of passage, that rare outing that you had with your kids, that rare vacation, the whatever it could— it might be. That's how we can tap into using these powerful principles of human psychology to win which is what these lessons are all about, um, and influence our children. Because remember, Mom and Dad, uh, in concluding this series, uh, you are in the best position really to influence your children. And I've shared these principles, these weapons of influence, with you number one, to educate you to be aware of how these things can manipulate us into buying things, doing things, committing to things that maybe we really didn't want to, but we got, you know, manipulated by these different kinds of influences that I've talked about. But because they are effective, because I know they work— of course they work I said, okay, well then how can we use those same principles that marketers and advertisers and pharmaceutical companies and all the rest of it, toy stores, car dealerships, trying to manipulate us into buying things that we maybe don't even really want or need. But because of the power of them, let's take those things and let's use them to tap into the heart and the mind and the loyalty of our children, because our children are being bombarded by these weapons of influence constantly, daily, weekly, monthly, year by year by year. So parents, mom and dad, listen, we cannot eliminate the competing voices. It's impossible. We can't eliminate them. But here's what we can do: we can become the most trusted voice. And that is where it's all about. And when we apply these principles in love, wisdom, and consistency, we don't just manage our children and manage their behavior but we win something much more important, and that is their heart, that is their mind, and that is the gift of loyalty that they choose to commit to you. And therefore, they are consistent in that commitment of loyalty to you, their parents, and to the family values that you have taught them. I'm Richard R Ramos, and you've been listening to the Parent Whisperer podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you would like these, um, episodes, subscribe to the podcast, and share these episodes with friends and family that you may know that it would help them. These principles would help them. Maybe they're struggling with their children. In one way or one relationship or another. And also, I want to invite you— you can go to my website. My books are there, uh, my online courses are there. There's some free resources there. I invite you to go there, download those things, take advantage of them, uh, in your, uh, relationship with your children. And of course, as always, remember, Mom and Dad Parents on a Mission is not for bad parents. It's for good parents like you who just want to get better. See you next time.