How to Project Power

What Do They Know That You Don’t?

Does it ever frustrate you that politicians don’t think rationally? Well, it shouldn’t. They might know something you don’t. Recently, at a local college here in South Florida, I gave a presentation called “How to Speak the Language of Power: Hacking into Your Lizard Brain.” The premise was simple. The language of critical thinking, which all colleges and universities teach, is not enough. There’s another “secret” language that powerful people speak. The idea I presented was that if students and faculty really want to make an impact on the human world around them, they must not only learn the language of critical thinking. Most importantly, they must learn methods for projecting power.

Neuroscience shows us that the brains of people around you spend more effort tuning into your body and your tone of voice than in sorting through the logic of your argument. And yet you — especially if you are a nerd like me — will exert a great deal of energy fine-tuning your words in order to influence them. This seldom works, of course, because when you focus exclusively on logic, you are not utilizing the full spectrum of animal communication that is open to you. Because humans are primates, our communication involves more than just words and reason. It is filled to the brim with subtle, non-verbal cues, and the words you are using comprise…