Do you remember way—-way—-way—back in July, when the public thought
Trump was the candidate they couldn’t trust with the nuclear arsenal? That was
before we realized he could moderate his personality on command, as he is doing
now. We’re about to enter our fifth consecutive week of Trump doing more
outreach than outrage.
It turns out that Trump’s base personality is “winning.” Everything
else he does is designed to get that result. He needed to be loud and
outrageous in the primaries, so he was. He needs to be presidential in this
phase of the election cycle, so he is.
Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton has revealed herself to be frail, medicated, and
probably duplicitous about her health. We also hear reports that she’s a
drinker with a bad temper. Suddenly, Clinton looks like the unstable
personality in this race. Who do you want controlling the nuclear arsenal now?
You probably thought Trump was the bigot in this contest, until Clinton
called half of Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplorables.” That’s the
point at which observers started to see a pattern. Trump has been consistently
supportive of American citizens of all types – with the exception of the press
and his political opponents. The main targets of Trump’s rhetoric are the
nations that compete against us. In stark contrast, Clinton turned her hate on
American citizens. That’s the real kind of hate. Trump is more about
keeping America safe and competing effectively in the world. That is literally
the job of president.
Trump was once the candidate that the LGBTQ community found easy to hate.
Then it turned out that Trump is the loudest voice for protecting America
against the anti-gay ideology that Clinton would increase in this country via
immigration. At the GOP convention, Republicans stood and applauded Trump’s
full-throated support of the LGBTQ community. While Clinton was talking
about a better society, Trump was transforming the Republican Party into one. (Yes,
I know there is more to do.)
You might remember a few months ago when Clinton had lots of policy details
and Trump had few. Clinton still holds the lead in the number of
bullet-points-per-policy, but while she rests, Trump has been rolling out
policy details on one topic after another. Perception-wise, the
optics of “who has policy details” has flipped. (Reality isn’t important
in this context.)
Do you remember over a year ago, when Trump first entered the race? Social
media relentlessly insulted his physical appearance. They mocked his orange
hair and his orange skin. They called him a clown. They called him a Cheeto. It
was brutal.
But over time, Trump’s haircut improved. He softened the color to something
more blonde than orange And his fake tan and TV makeup improved too. Today, if
you ask a voter to name the candidate for president who “looks bad,” the
answer would probably be Clinton, primarily because of her recent health
issues. In our minds, Clinton went from being a stylish and energetic personality
to a hospice patient dressed like a North Korean dictator at a rave.
Not long ago, you would have said Clinton was the strongest candidate for
protecting citizens who need the help of social programs. Then Trump unveiled
his plan for childcare and senior care. You can debate the details, and the
cost, but nearly everyone recognized the idea as a critical need for working
class people.
In other words, the world is turning inside-out, right in front of our
eyes. I summarized this surprising reversal in the most popular tweet I
have ever created.
That’s how a Master Persuader does it. A year ago, I told you that Trump
was bringing a flamethrower to a stick fight. His talent for persuasion is so
strong that he has effectively flipped the script and rewired the brains of the
people watching this show.
But I’ll bet you still think Trump is “thin-skinned,” primarily
because Clinton’s team has done a great job of branding him that way. The label
sticks because Trump has a pattern of going on offense whenever he is attacked.
But let me give you another framework to see this same set of facts.
Specifically, I’m going to tell you how Master Persuaders convert embarrassment
into energy. It’s a learned skill.
I often talk about the benefits I got from taking the Dale Carnegie course.
One of the skills you learn in that class is how to convert your anxiousness
about public speaking into excitement and positive energy. I personally
observed the Dale Carnegie course turning a few dozen introverts into people
who were enthusiastic about speaking in front of a crowd. It was astonishing.
Part of the Dale Carnegie process involved each student doing something
embarrassing in front of the class just to get used to the feeling, and to know
you could survive it. It is one of the best skills you can learn because our
egos tend to hold us back. We fear embarrassment so we don’t risk it. That limits
our potential.
Now think back to 2011, at the Correspondent’s Dinner, in which President Obama mocked
Donald Trump in front of the world – while Trump sat in the
audience, stone-faced. The popular reporting was that Trump was humiliated by
the event. But Master Persuaders don’t process humiliation the same way as
others. They convert it to energy, the same way Dale Carnegie students learn to
convert anxiousness to excitement. It’s a learned skill. And it is literally
the opposite of having a thin skin. It only looks the same
because of confirmation bias.
How do I know Trump has mastered the skill of converting humiliation into
energy? The signs are all there. For example…
Trump has entered one high-risk business after another, guaranteeing that
he would experience a large number of setbacks, failures, and humiliations.
People don’t run toward humiliation unless they know they can
convert that negative energy to fuel. When you see someone succeed across
multiple unrelated fields, that’s often a sign of a Master Persuader who feeds
on both success and failure. You are watching Trump do exactly
that, right in front of your eyes. He has converted every “gaffe” into
news coverage. He eats bad news and converts it into fuel.
Many of you have watched me do the same thing. You’ve watched as I jumped
fields from corporate America to cartooning. Then I became an author of
business-related books. I opened two restaurants that didn’t work out. I tried
lots of stuff that failed miserably. Now I’m talking about the presidential
election. What do all of those things have in common?
I risked public humiliation in each case.
And in each case, lots of people told me “Keep your day job.” On
a typical day, dozens of strangers insult my body, my personality, my brain, my
integrity, and lots more. Like Trump, I consume it as fuel. And it is a learned
skill.
You might have noticed that both Trump and I are quick to attack anyone who
attacks us. Observers tell me I shouldn’t do that, because it makes me appear
thin-skinned. Observers tell Trump the same thing. But observers are missing
one important thing: We use the critics to refuel
If you were an alien from another planet, and you observed a lion killing a
gazelle, you might think that lion was angry at its prey. You might think the
lion was insulted that the gazelle was using its watering hole. What did the
gazelle do to deserve that treatment? Is the lion being thin-skinned?
Trust me when I tell you that sometimes the lion is just eating.
—
You might like my book
because of various reasons and whatnot.
