One of the 7 key emotional triggers is consistency. We are emotionally forced to be consistent with our past beliefs and actions. And we are hard wired to be consistent with our respected peers. This powerful trigger governs much of our decision process. The databank we build from birth serves us well for future easy, automatic emotional decisions.

How, perhaps even unknowingly, do the politicians activate our emotional consistency trigger? Overall we tend to go with whatever party we aligned with before. Yet politicians do their best to activate the consistency trigger. And they try hard to activate the consistency we have with respected peers.

The first presidential debate was a study in the consistency trigger. Each participant tried to tie the other into a consistent pattern with negative overtones. Obama, referring to the financial meltdown stated “This is a final verdict on the failed economic policies promoted by George Bush,” constantly implying McCain would be consistent with Bush. No fact, no logic, no rationality explained, just a hope to activate peer consistency trigger.

McCain attempted to show that Obama would be consistent with his failure to back American military interests. By emphasizing Obama’s failure to vote for the Iraq surge, his criticism of the surge, and by not admitting he was wrong about the surge’s effectiveness, Mc Cain connected these issues with future probabilities for Obama’s poor military judgment.

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Several large surveys show that most people believe a logical discussion, with good data and the right logical supporting facts, is the best way to persuade. Often, they break the persuasion process down to three main steps:

1. Present your proposition clearly, with conviction.
2. Present your supporting data, with the right facts, logic and information.
3. Structure your "deals" and move on to closure.

But according to Dr. Jay Conger, Director of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California Business School, "Following this process is one surefire way to fail at persuasion."

Why?

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You can have anything you want, yes, anything! All you have to do is to persuade someone to decide to do what you want. The most successful people in the world are those who can get things done with and through others. By applying new scientific breakthroughs, it’s now quick and easy to get “Yes!” decisions and actions.

Before persuading others to say “Yes!” let’s take a quick look at our own decision process. Only when we understand how the brain makes decisions can we successfully influence others’ decisions

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