CHANGING WHAT PEOPLE WANT
“you can't force action. but you can change desire.”
The Lesson
Hypnotists know you can't make someone do something they really don't want to do. But there's a workaround nobody tells you: you can completely change what they want to do. Our preferences are incredibly fluid. A single pill (prednisone) can change your food preferences, mood, and reactions entirely. Train a dog: it doesn't want to sit at first, but associate sitting with treats long enough, and eventually the dog WANTS to sit. The feeling about the trick merges with the feeling about the treat. Same with people. Associate the behavior you want with something they already want.
Real-World Example
A founder wants engineers to write documentation (they hate it). Wrong approach: mandate documentation. Right approach: Associate documentation with things engineers want. Peer recognition, reduced support tickets interrupting their coding, pride in clean systems. After enough positive associations, engineers start to actually want to document. You didn't force the behavior. You changed the desire.
Watch Scott explain this lesson
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