tk P: You can't influence people using rationale unless you gain their trust first

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It's a myth that we're rational creatures. We tend to make quick emotional or intuitive judgements and then look for reasons to justify them. Further, are biased, mistaking what we see with what there is. We compress reality into narratives, patterns, categories; we focus on what is seen—the sensational—and ignore that what isn't seen—the abstract; we easily get into tunnel vision, mistaking prominence or importance with truth; we are incredible arrogant, thinking our decisions and ideas are right; our environment influences us more than we expect.

In short, our rationale is a post hoc fabrication after an intuitive (emotional) judgement has been made, which was the result of forces mostly invisible to us (unconscious).

The reason for that is that the rational part of our brain (or System 2) evolved after the emotional part (or System 1), and the former is relatively young compared to the latter. A great way to think about those two parts of the brain is to imagine that the rational part is a rider and the emotional part is an elephant. The rider evolved to serve the elephant.

If you want to influence someone, you've got to talk to their elephant before you talk to their servant. In other words, you have to first make them trust and like you before you present them with any rationale. If you instead violate their intuitions, they will try to find reasons to doubt your argument—their guard will go up. Their elephant will feel endangered and will scatter, taking the rational rider with him. You have to tame the beast before you speak to the rider.

Once people like and trust you they're more likely to listen to you, invest in you, buy from you, and so on.

How to gain people's trust and liking?

1. Be a good listener. Being listener means having a genuine interest in the person you're talking to. Ask deep questions, empathize, elaborate on their points, etc.

2. Never say they're wrong. This puts them on the defensive and closes their mind to any arguments. Instead, look for common ground and aim for win-win

3. Highlight similarities. The sameness can be almost anything. It can range from interests, hobbies, clothes, favorite teams, accent, nationality, political affiliation, and so on. You can also highlight similarities by doing the same things together like going out, playing sports, etc.

4. Give genuine compliments.

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