Scott Adams

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 in Trump a level of persuasion you only see once in a generation. Trump triggered massive cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias on both the left and the right. We're hardwired to respond to emotion, not reason. We might listen to 10 percent of a speech -- a hand gesture here, a phrase there -- and if the right buttons are pushed, we irrationally agree with the speaker and invent reasons to justify that decision after the fact. The point isn't whether Trump was right or wrong, good or bad. Win Bigly goes beyond politics to look at persuasion tools that can work in any setting -- the same ones Adams saw in Steve Jobs when he invested in Apple decades ago.

Persuasion in a World where Facts Don't Matter

Win Bigly

Timeo Williams

Insightful. Having followed Trump's campaign, I knew he had an X factor, which I pegged as charisma. But Scott pointed it out best- he's a master persuader. 

Scott gives a third dimensional analysis of Trump's tweets and statements, providing another way of understanding the persuasion layer behind his words. 

It also follows that of a timeline, from Trump announcing his candidacy and the early days of the presidency.

Sanat Gersappa

Make you look at recent events in a whole new light.

Josh Clement

Boring, repetitive victory lap. 

Content-wise, the way Scott writes isn't as 'hypnotic' as he thinks, it's actually quite dull, and works much better in the form of a short blog post. Many of the copywriting/sales techniques he uses get exhausting after a few pages. There's no sale, or exciting product, just more boring chapters.

Structurally, the book roughly follows the timeline of the election, and tries to group together examples of powerful persuasion used by Trump (and Scott). Might be interesting for someone who is new to Scott's theories, but for me, felt like a junk drawer of articles, tweets and padding.

I won't say it's a waste of money, since his original blog posts were fascinating (explaining Trump's language, messaging and behavior during the primaries) – and I'm happy to throw a few dollars Scott's way.

A few original thoughts scattered around, but nowhere near enough for this to be a decent read.

Ilia Markov

As a persuasion "manual", this is useful. 

On every other level, it's utter tosh.

Collette

John Elbing

Frank White

Kevin Spachuk

"If you watched the entire election cycle and concluded that Trump was nothing but a lucky clown, you missed one of the most important perceptual shifts in the history of humankind. I'll fix that for you in this book." Adams 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 in Trump a level of persuasion you only see once in a generation. Trump triggered massive cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias on both the left and the right. We’re hardwired to respond to emotion, not reason. We might listen to 10 percent of a speech—a hand gesture here, a phrase there—and if the right buttons are pushed, we decide we agree with the speaker and invent reasons to justify that decision after the fact. The point isn’t whether Trump was right or wrong, good or bad. Win Bigly goes beyond politics to look at persuasion tools that can work in any setting—the same ones Adams saw in Steve Jobs when he invested in Apple decades ago. For instance: · If you need to convince people that something is important, make a claim that’s directionally accurate but has a big exaggeration in it. Everyone will spend endless hours talking about how wrong it is and will remember the issue as high priority. · Stop wasting time on elaborate presentation preparations. Inside, you’ll learn which components of your messaging matter, and where you can wing it. · Planting simple, sticky ideas (such as “Crooked Hillary”) is more powerful than stating facts. Just find a phrase without previous baggage that grabs your audience at an emotional level. Adams offers nothing less than “access to the admin passwords to human beings.” This is a must read if you care about persuading others in any field—or if you just want to resist the tactics of emotional persuasion when they’re used on you.

Win Bigly Persuasion in a World where Facts Don't Matter

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