Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Author:   Scott Adams

Recommended by:   Scot Reader

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Psychology, Humor

304 pages, published November 16, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

From author Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, Win Bigly is an analysis of the strategies Donald Trump used to persuade voters to elect the most unconventional candidate in the history of the presidency.  Scott Adams, a trained hypnotist and a lifelong student of persuasion, was one of the earliest public figures to predict Trump’s win, doing so a week after Nate Silver put Trump’s odds at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog. The mainstream media regarded Trump as a novelty and a sideshow. But Adams recognized that Trump was a master persuader.  The book isn’t about whether Trump is good or bad.  Rather, Win Bigly explores the “how” of persuasion.

Quotes 

“We humans like to think we are creatures of reason. We aren’t. The reality is that we make our decisions first and rationalize them later….Your illusion of being a rational person is supported by the fact that sometimes you do act rationally.”

 

“On August 13, 2015, I predicted in my blog that Donald Trump had a 98 percent chance of winning the presidency based on his persuasion skills. A week earlier, the most respected political forecaster in the United States—Nate Silver—had put Trump’s odds of winning the Republican nomination at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog.”

 

“Trump’s unexpected win created a persuasion bomb that no one knew how to defuse. The anti-Trumpers were locked into their Hitler movie, and confirmation bias would keep them there. It was a terrible situation for a country. And it was an enormous challenge for Trump, the Master Persuader.”

 

“A good general rule is that people are more influenced by visual persuasion, emotion, repetition, and simplicity than they are by details and facts.”

 

“When you identify as part of a group, your opinions tend to be biased toward the group consensus.”

 

“People are more influenced by the direction of things than the current state.”

 

“Humans are hardwired to reciprocate favors. If you want someone’s cooperation in the future, do something for that person today.”

 

“The things that you think about the most will irrationally rise in importance in your mind.”

 

“Persuasion is effective even when the subject recognizes the technique. Everyone knows that stores list prices at $9.99 because $10.00 sounds like too much. It still works.”

 

“Unfortunately, most people believe that analogies are one of the best ways to persuade. That fact goes far in explaining why it seems that every debate on the Internet ends with a Hitler analogy. The phenomenon is so common it has its own name: Godwin’s law. But I doubt many people have changed an opinion just because a stranger on the Internet compared them to Hitler. A direct attack usually just hardens people into their current opinions.”

 

“I have no reason to believe humans evolved with the capability to understand their reality. That capability was not important to survival. When it comes to evolution, any illusion that keeps us alive long enough to procreate is good enough.”

 

“The grand illusion of life is that our minds have the capacity to understand reality. But human minds didn’t evolve to understand reality. We didn’t need that capability. A clear view of reality wasn’t necessary for our survival. Evolution cares only that you survive long enough to procreate. And that’s a low bar. The result is that each of us is, in effect, living in our own little movie that our brain has cooked up for us to explain our experiences”

 

“The common worldview, shared by most humans, is that there is one objective reality, and we humans can understand that reality through a rigorous application of facts and reason. This view of the world imagines that some people have already achieved a fact-based type of enlightenment that is compatible with science and logic, and they are trying to help the rest of us see the world the “right” way. As far as I can tell, most people share that interpretation of the world. The only wrinkle with that worldview is that we all think we are the enlightened ones. And we assume the people who disagree with us just need better facts, and perhaps better brains, in order to agree with us. That filter on life makes most of us happy—”

 

“The worst thing your brain could do is reinterpret your reality into a whole new movie with each new bit of information. That would be exhausting and without benefit. Instead, your brain takes the path of least resistance and instantly interprets your observations to fit your existing worldview. It’s just easier.”

 

“PERSUASION TIP 9 Display confidence (either real or faked) to improve your persuasiveness. You have to believe yourself, or at least appear as if you do, in order to get anyone else to believe.”

My Take

If you want to understand how Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, I suggest that you read Win, Bigly.  Scott Adams presciently predicted Trump’s win and does a masterful job explaining in this book how it happened.  He does so in an easy to read, informative, witty and humorous style.  You also learn a lot about the subject of persuasion.  A very quick, easy and fun read.