Dissecting Persuasion: How a Black Jazz Musician Got Hundreds of KKK Members to Give Up Their Robes
Every leader, parent, and consultant runs into the same wall: resistance. Someone pushes back on an idea or a change, and the instinct is to push harder. Travis Hahler, who has led transformation work inside Google and Salesforce and worked with over 100 organizations, says that instinct is exactly backwards.
In this conversation, Howie Chan sits down with Travis to unpack why the human brain treats change as a threat before it treats it as an opportunity. Travis breaks down the six neurological barriers behind every no, from routine and ambiguity to loss and exclusion, and explains why treating resistance as a personal attack only makes it worse.
You'll learn why leaders who spin their message trigger more resistance, how to influence people who outrank you using data, why "no" can actually be a doorway instead of a dead end, and how to apply this same framework to your own resistance to change.
Chapters:
00:00:00 Biggest Persuasion Misconception
00:04:38 Persuasion as Shared Action
00:08:58 Why We're Wired to Talk About Ourselves
00:12:20 Questions That Reveal What People Want
00:14:18 Leading with Emotion Versus Logic
00:21:31 How to Read an Audience You Can't Talk To
00:23:40 Appealing to Values Without Pandering
00:33:01 Be For Something
00:38:52 The Daryl Davis Story
00:42:27 The 4 Questions That Get People to Yes
00:50:27 Why Experts Struggle to Lead With Feelings
00:58:15 Stories That Move People to Act
01:01:05 Crashing Through Glass Ceilings
From Joshua Bandoch:
Mentioned in this episode:
Mark Victor Hansen’s episode: How to Ask for What You Want: The Skill Mark V Hansen Used to Sell 500M Books (after 144 rejections) (Aug 18)
Your Expertise Deserves to Be Known
The Behavioring Lab is a new community for experienced professionals who want to build a professional brand that gets them known, trusted, and chosen by the right people.
The Influence Anyone Podcast
The #1 podcast on applied influence psychology. Each episode, Howie Chan, a veteran brand and behavior strategist sits down with world experts and practitioners to uncover the hidden psychology that helps you influence yourself (mastering your mindset, habits, and decisions) and get buy-in from others (your team, clients, and audiences.) Together, we turn science into playbooks you can apply to lead, persuade, and create extraordinary success.
New episodes weekly. Subscribe and start influencing with intention.
