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Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

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Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

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That’s because a great pitch is not about procedure. It’s about getting and keeping attention. And that means you have to own the room with frame control, drive emotions with intrigue pings, and get to a hookpoint fairly quickly.

The better you are at keeping someone’s attention, the more likely that person will be to go for your idea.

The fact that you are pitching your idea from the neocortex but it is being received by the other person’s croc brain is a serious problem. It’s the kluge we talked about earlier. The gap between the lower and upper brain is not measured in the two inches that separate them physically. It must be measured in millions of years (the five million years or so that it took for the neocortex to evolve, to be more precise). Why? Because while you are talking about “profit potential,” “project synergy,” “return on investment,” and “why we should move forward now”—concepts your upper brain is comfortable with—the brain of the person on the other side of the desk isn’t reacting to any of those highly evolved, relatively complicated ideas. It is reacting exactly as it should. It is trying to determine whether the information coming in is a threat to the person’s immediate survival and, if it isn’t, whether it can be ignored without consequence.

This filtering system of the crocodile brain has a very short-sighted view of the world. Anything that is not a crisis it tries to mark as “spam.” If you got a chance to look at the croc brain’s filtering instructions, it would look something like this: 1. If it’s not dangerous, ignore it. 2. If it’s not new and exciting, ignore it. 3. If it is new, summarize it as quickly as possible—and forget about the details. And finally there is this specific instruction: 4. Do not send anything up to the neocortex for problem solving unless you have a situation that is really unexpected and out of the ordinary. These are the basic operating policies and procedures of our brains. No wonder pitching is so difficult.

Pitches are sent from the modern—and smart—part of the brain: the neocortex. But they are received by a part of the brain that is 5 million years older (and not as bright.)

Nine out of 10 messages that enter the crocodile brain—and remember, every single pitch starts by going through the crocodile brain—end up being coded. • Boring: Ignore it. • Dangerous: Fight/run. • Complicated: Radically summarize (invariably causing a lot to be lost in the process) and pass it in severely truncated form.

What is vitally important is making sure your message fulfills two objectives: First, you don’t want your message to trigger fear alarms. And second, you want to make sure it gets recognized as something positive, unexpected, and out of the ordinary—a pleasant novelty.

The harsh but true reality is that the croc brain—the source of your target’s first reaction to your pitch—is • Going to ignore you if possible. • Only focused on the big picture (and needs high-contrast and well-differentiated options to choose between). • Emotional, in the sense it will respond emotionally to what it sees and hears, but most of the time that emotional response is fear. • Focused on the here and now with a short attention span that craves novelty. • In need of concrete facts—it looks for verified evidence and doesn’t like abstract concepts.

We have our highly evolved neocortex, which is full of details and abstract concepts, trying to persuade the crocodile brain, which is afraid of almost everything and needs very simple, clear, direct, and nonthreatening ideas to decide in our favor.

As you will see, it begins by setting the frame for your pitch, putting your big idea into an easily understood context. And then, once the frame is established, you must seize high social status so that you have a solid platform from which to pitch. Then you must create messages that are full of intrigue and novelty.

STRONG: Setting the frame Telling the story Revealing the intrigue Offering the prize Nailing the hookpoint Getting a decision

Imagine for a moment that there is some kind of powerful energy field that surrounds all of us, silently transmitting from the depths of our subconscious. This invisible defense shield is genetically designed to protect our conscious minds from sudden intrusion by ideas and perspectives that are not our own. When that energy field is overwhelmed, however, it collapses. Our mental defenses fail, and we become subject to another person’s ideas, desires, and commands. That person can impose his will.

Imagine looking at the world through a window frame that you hold in your hands. As you move the frame around, the sounds and images you encounter are interpreted by your brain in ways that are consistent with your intelligence, values, and ethics. This is your point of view. Another person can look at the same thing through his own frame, and what he hears and sees may differ—by a little or a lot. The common label given to this is perspective. I might perceive and interpret things differently than you do—which is a good thing. Another perspective is often what we need as we nurture our ideas and values.

When frames come together, the first thing they do is collide. And this isn’t a friendly competition—it’s a death match. Frames don’t merge. They don’t blend. And they don’t intermingle. They collide, and the stronger frame absorbs the weaker. Only one frame will dominate after the exchange, and the other frames will be subordinate to the winner. This is what happens below the surface of every business meeting you attend, every sales call you make, and every person-to-person business communication you have.

  1. Everyone uses frames whether they realize it or not. 2. Every social encounter brings different frames together. 3. Frames do not coexist in the same time and place for long. They crash into each other, and one or the other gains control. 4. Only one frame survives. The others break and are absorbed. Stronger frames always absorb weaker frames. 5. The winning frame governs the social interaction. It is said to have frame control.

When you are responding ineffectively to things the other person is saying and doing, that person owns the frame, and you are being frame-controlled.

If you have to explain your authority, power, position, leverage, and advantage, you do not hold the stronger frame.

Every social interaction is a collision of frames, and the stronger frame always wins. Frame collisions are primal. They freeze out the neocortex and bring the crocodile brain in to make decisions and determine actions.

Strong frames are impervious to rational arguments. Weak arguments, made up of logical discussions and facts, just bounce off strong frames.

It would be fair to say that strong frames activate basic desires.

Going into most business situations, there are three major types of opposing frames that you will encounter: 1. Power frame 2. Time frame 3. Analyst frame You have three major response frame types that you can use to meet these oncoming frames, win the initial collision, and control the agenda: 1. Power-busting frame 2. Time constraining frame 3. Intrigue frame

  1. Prize frame

You will know that you are facing a power frame when you encounter arrogance, lack of interest (a vibe that conveys “I’m more important than you”), rudeness, and similar imperial behaviors.

Observing power rituals in business situations—such as acting deferential, engaging in meaningless small talk, or letting yourself be told what to do—reinforces the alpha status of your target and confirms your subordinate position. Do not do this!

When you abide by the rituals of power instead of establishing your own, you reinforce the opposing power frame.

To instigate a power frame collision, use a mildly shocking but not unfriendly act to cause it. Use defiance and light humor. This captures attention and elevates your status by creating something called “local star power.” (You will read about creating status and local star power in Chapter 3.)

Here are some subtler examples of taking the power frame away. As soon as you come in contact with your target, look for the first opportunity to 1. Perpetrate a small denial, or 2. Act out some type of defiance.

Another way to control the frame is to respond to a comment with a small but forceful act of defiance. TARGET: “Thanks for coming over. I only have 15 minutes this afternoon.” YOU: “That’s okay, I only have 12.” You smile. But you are serious, too.

Defiance and light humor are the keys to seizing power and frame control.

When you are defiant and funny at the same time, he is pleasantly challenged by you and instinctively knows that he is in the presence of a pro.

No one likes to be dominated, so once you own the frame, use this power in ways that are fun and mutually exciting.

When you own the frame, others react to you.

To solidify the prize frame, you make the buyer qualify himself to you. “Can you tell me more about yourself? I’m picky about who I work with.” At a primal, croc brain level, you have just issued a challenge: Why do I want to do business with you?

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world and put relationships in context. The frame you put around a situation completely and totally controls its meaning.

When you are reacting to the other person, that person owns the frame. When the other person is reacting to what you do and say, you own the frame.

Running long or beyond the point of attention shows weakness, neediness, and desperation.

“Hey, looks like time’s up. I’ve got to wrap this up and get to my next meeting.” If they are interested in you, they will agree to a follow-up.

YOU: “No. I don’t work like that. There’s no sense in rescheduling unless we like each other and trust each other. I need to know, are you good to work with, can you keep appointments, and stick to a schedule?” YOUR TARGET: “Okay, you’re right about that. Yeah, sure I can. Let’s do this now. I have 30 minutes. That’s no problem. Come on in.”

You have just broken your target’s time frame, established that your time is important, and he is now giving you focused attention instead of treating your visit like an annoyance.

Nothing will freeze your pitch faster than allowing your audience to grind numbers or study details during the pitch.

It is important to realize that human beings are unable to have hot cognitions and cold cognitions simultaneously. The brain is not wired that way. Hot cognitions are feelings like wanting or desire or excitement, and cold cognitions come from “cold” processes like analysis and problem solving. To maintain frame control and momentum, you must force your audience to be analytical on its own time. You do this by separating the technical and detailed material from your presentation.

When your target drills down into technical material, you break that frame by telling a brief but relevant story that involves you.

Your intrigue story needs the following elements: 1. It must be brief, and the subject must be relevant to your pitch. 2. You need to be at the center of the story. 3. There should be risk, danger, and uncertainty. 4. There should be time pressure—a clock is ticking somewhere, and there are ominous consequences if action is not taken quickly. 5. There should be tension—you are trying to do something but are being blocked by some force. 6. There should be serious consequences—failure will not be pretty.

In my experience with this approach, the opposing analyst frame gets crushed by emotional, engaging, and relevant narratives like this. Attention redirects back to me, allowing me to finish my pitch on my agenda, my timeline, and my topics.

Perhaps, in a broader sense, this is why we tell each other intriguing narratives—to participate in powerful emotional experiences involving high-stakes situations that we hope we will never have to face ourselves.

The analyst frame filters your deal like this: 1. It focuses on hard facts only. 2. It says that aesthetic or creative features have no value. 3. It requires that everything must be supported by a number or statistic. 4. It holds that ideas and human relationships have no value.

Use the elements of surprise and tension, and as you approach the most interesting part of the story, move away from it and leave the audience intrigued—until you are ready to reveal.

Prizing is a way to deal with threatening and fast-approaching frames that are likely to push you into a low-status position. When you prize, you frame yourself as high value in the eyes of your target. Prize correctly, and your target will be chasing you.

Who is the prize, or who is chasing whom, is one of the underlying social dynamics that influences most meetings. The answer establishes a person’s motivation and tells us how they will probably behave in the meeting. The basics: • If you are trying to win your target’s respect, attention, and money, he becomes the prize. • When your target is trying to win your attention and respect, you are the prize. (This, of course, is what you want.)

Prizing is the sum of the actions you take to get to your target to understand that he is a commodity and you are the prize. Successful prizing results in your target chasing you, asking to be involved in your deal.

Getting rid of those negative labels and ideas is an important step. When you are no longer performing for the money, the frame changes drastically.

The prize frame is the window through which you look at the world that allows you to see yourself as the prize: The money has to earn you, not the other way around. You’re flipping the script.

If you trigger curiosity and desire, the croc sees you as something it wants to chase. You become the prize. Let’s consider three of the most fundamental behaviors of human beings: 1. We chase that which moves away from us. 2. We want what we cannot have. 3. We only place value on things that are difficult to obtain.

Framing money as the prize is a common error—and often a fatal one. Money is never a prize; it’s a commodity, a means for getting things done. Money simply transfers economic value from place to place so that people are able to work together.

The prize frame works only if certain conditions are fulfilled. In Prizing 101, you learned two basic ideas: 1. Make the buyer qualify himself back to you. Do this by asking such questions as, “Why do I want to do business with you?” 2. Protect your status. Don’t let the buyer change the agenda, the meeting time, or who will attend. Withdraw if the buyer wants to force this kind of change.

Money cannot do anything without you. The money needs you.

“I’m glad I could find the time to meet with you today. And I do have another meeting right after this. Let’s get started.” This is always a good start because it tells the audience that there are many like them but only one of you.

Remember, small acts of defiance and denial, combined with humor, are extremely powerful in maintaining your frame control and in reinforcing your high status. Humor is important here—don’t leave it out, or I guarantee that you will encounter unpredictable responses.

Within seconds, we each need to decide, for the sake of our own self-preservation, who in this room is the dominant alpha? And if it turns out that someone else is the dominant alpha and we are the beta, there is a second, even more valuable question: In the short amount of time we have to orient ourselves in this social interaction, can we switch out of the beta position and take the alpha?

It doesn’t matter how well you argue, the way your points are crafted, or how elegant your flow and logic. If you do not have high status, you will not command the attention necessary to make your pitch heard. You will not persuade, and you will not easily get a deal done.

I talk about the ways to win the game, and possible ways to lose it as well, I should cover the real advantages held by the person with the highest status, the alpha. The alpha enjoys most of the attention in a social interaction, even when he’s not demanding it. And when he does demand it, the alpha captures the group’s attention immediately. When he makes a statement, it’s regarded as true, and the claims go unchallenged. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that the alpha in a group is trusted and followed without question.

When you take the high-status position in a social interaction, you feel it, and it is also felt by your audience. Do not underestimate the importance and value of status to your overall success.

In social interactions and business meetings as in nature, those who hold the dominant alpha rank are able to accomplish more than those holding a lesser rank. Alphas call the shots, give the orders, and create the outcomes they want with a minimum of effort. It’s important to them emotionally and economically to remain the highest-ranking person in their social group.

In general, public spaces are the most deadly beta traps and should be avoided. For a real pitch, coffee shops are an absolute last resort. I will mention one more public beta trap because it’s common: trade shows and conventions.

If you need to pitch someone attending a conference, rent a hospitality suite or a hotel conference space or borrow someone’s office conference room—pitch anywhere but on the floor of the convention hall.

When you are held down in beta position, the only tool you have at your disposal is emotional manipulation. At best, it works in the moment, and maybe you can land a deal. But your success is random, and it’s not satisfying because the buyer really does not want to buy. He is doing so to please you now and will regret it later (buyer’s remorse).

Your social value is fluid and changes with the environment you are in—or the environment you create. If you wish to elevate your social value in any given situation, you can do so by redirecting people into a domain where you are in charge. This is easier to do than you might think.

The first impression we make on another person is based on that person’s automatic calculation of our social value.

The person makes a hasty judgment using three measurable criteria: your wealth, your power, and your popularity.

The first thing you do when you meet with a target is to establish local star power. If your meeting happens to be on your turf, like the golf pro or the French waiter, use your domain expertise and locational knowledge to quickly take the high-status position. If you are meeting in the target’s domain—his (or her) office or at an off-site location—you must neutralize the person holding high status, temporarily capture his star power, and redistribute some of his status to others in the room who will support your frame.

In general, just ignore conversation threads that don’t support your deal, and magnify ones that do.

• If you think you’ll start a meeting from the beta position, always be on time for the appointment. When you are late, you are giving away power. It’s difficult to establish strong frames when you can’t play the game of business by its most basic rules. • Momentum is key. Create high status immediately. Do not hesitate. Choose a frame, and force a collision at the most opportune moment—and do it early. The longer you wait, the more you reinforce the status of your target. • Avoid social rituals that reinforce the status of others. Idle social banter diminishes your status. • Have fun. Be popular. Enjoy your work. There is nothing as attractive as someone who is enjoying what he or she does. It attracts the group to you and allows you to build stronger frames and hold them longer.

Global status is fixed. It’s only situational status that you can grab and control.

  1. Politely ignore power rituals and avoid beta traps. 2. Be unaffected by your customer’s global status (meaning the customer’s status inside and outside the business environment). 3. Look for opportunities to perpetrate small denials and defiances that strengthen your frame and elevate your status. 4. As soon as you take power, quickly move the discussion into an area where you are the domain expert, where your knowledge and information are unassailable by your audience. 5. Apply a prize frame by positioning yourself as the reward for making the decision to do business with you. 6. Confirm your alpha status by making your customer, who now temporarily occupies a beta position, make a statement that qualifies your higher status.

One of the best ways to get a customer to confirm your alpha status is to make him defend himself in a light-hearted way. Not only does this let you know that you are still in control, but more important, it also reminds the customer that he holds a subordinate position.

The most important scientific discovery of the twentieth century can be pitched in five minutes.

As soon as the pitch or presentation begins, one critical thing must happen: The target must feel at ease. In the vast majority of cases, they don’t because they don’t know how long they’re going to be stuck listening to you, and you’re a stranger. Most people just don’t want to sit through an hour-long pitch. To put them at ease, I have a simple solution: It’s called the time-constraint pattern. This is what you say, exactly, to let the target know he isn’t trapped in the typical hour-long-meeting: “Guys, let’s get started. I’ve only got about 20 minutes to give you the big idea, which will leave us some time to talk it over before I have to get out of here.”

You’re going to make the pitch in four sections or phases: 1. Introduce yourself and the big idea: 5 minutes. 2. Explain the budget and secret sauce: 10 minutes. 3. Offer the deal: 2 minutes. 4. Stack frames for a hot cognition: 3 minutes.

The key to success here is making it about your track record. Things you built. Projects that actually worked out. Successes. Spend less than two minutes on it and definitely not more—and don’t worry. Before your pitch is over, the target is going to know a whole lot more about you.

Research has shown that your impression of someone is generally based on the average of the available information about them, not the sum.

  1. Economic forces. Briefly describe what has changed financially in the market for your big idea. For example, are customers wealthier, is credit more available, is financial optimism higher? Increases or decreases in interest rates, inflation, and the value of the dollar are considered as prime examples of forces that have significant impact on business opportunities. 2. Social forces. Highlight what emerging changes in people’s behavior patterns exist for your big idea. An obvious example in the market for automobiles, concern over the environment—a social force—is driving demand for electric vehicles. 3. Technology forces. Technological change can flatten existing business models and even entire industries because demand shifts from one product to another. In electronics, for example, change is rapid and constant, but in furniture manufacturing, change is more gradual.

The backstory of the idea is always interesting to the target. Once this story is told, everything you say in your pitch will be legitimized by it.

  1. Explain the most important changes in our business. Forecast the trends. Identify important developments—both in your market and beyond. 2. Talk about the impact of these developments on costs and customer demand. 3. Explain how these trends have briefly opened a market window.

Your brain grows accustomed to things that are not changing, and they effectively vanish.

We are not wired to see or hear a static pitch: “That was the old way, but this is the new way.” That can trigger change blindness, where the target won’t get your deal at all. The formula I’ve just given you, the three changing market forces, overcomes the potential for change blindness. With three market forces coming into alignment, you are literally showing the mind’s eye how the market is moving to benefit your big idea.

The Idea Introduction Pattern This idea introduction pattern goes like this: “For [target customers] Who are dissatisfied with [the current offerings in the market]. My idea/product is a [new idea or product category] That provides [key problem/solution features]. Unlike [the competing product]. My idea/product is [describe key features].”

The rudimentary model of how attention works goes like this: We notice things that have movement through space and time because they are likely to be important. But there’s a catch—a lot of the time things that move are also things we have to run away from. Starting from this premise, in the pitch we want to create attention without threat.

What they found is that social threats engage the same threat-response system in the brain as physical threats do.

The opportunities to scare the croc brain seriously multiply when you start to explain how stuff works.

What you really want to do is tune the message to the mind of the target.

ideas you come up with using your problem-solving brain—the neocortex—must be intentionally retuned for the croc brain that will receive them.

Realization 1: It doesn’t matter how much information you give, a lot or a little, but instead how good your theory of mind is. In other words, it’s important how well you can tune your information to the other person’s mind. Realization 2: All the important stuff must fit into the audience’s limits of attention, which for most people is about 20 minutes.

Attention will be given when information novelty is high and will drift away when information novelty is low.

when a person is feeling both desire and tension, that person is paying serious attention to what’s in front of him or her.

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter of desire. Norepinephrine is the neurotransmitter of tension. Together they add up to attention.

To give a dopamine kick and create desire, offer a reward. To give a norepinephrine kick and create tension, take something away.

You create novelty by violating the target’s expectations in a pleasing way.

A short product demo provides novelty. A new idea provides novelty. Good metaphors for otherwise complex subjects provide novelty. Bright objects, moving objects, and unique shapes, sizes, and configurations all provide novelty.

People enjoy some intermediate level of intellectual complexity.

When a signal from the pitch tells the target there is something new to be discovered, dopamine is released in the brain.

Tension indicates consequences and therefore importance.

The two parts of the attention cocktail are novelty and tension, which in a pitch work together in a feedback loop for about 20 minutes until—no matter what you do or how hard you try—they get out of balance and then stop working altogether.

But in narrative- and frame-based pitching, you can’t be afraid of tension. In fact, you have to create it.

To hold your target’s attention, there must be tension—a form of low-level conflict—guiding the interaction. If there’s no conflict, the target may be politely “listening,” but there’s no real connection.

Conflict is the basis of interesting human connections.

A pitch narrative can be thought of as a series of tension loops. Push then pull. Create tension. Then resolve it.

Your financial projections, whether for a product or a company, are supposed to answer such basic questions as, How strong is the company? What if plans go awry, does the company have enough cash to last a few bad quarters? Do you know how to budget well?

Unrealistic budgets and miscalculating costs are the greatest risks to a growing company, especially startups.

  1. How easy it is for new competitors to jump in the game? 2. How easy it is for customers to switch out your product with another?

It does not matter if you are offering a product, a service, an investment, or an intangible—there will be a fulfillment process involved, and that is what you must explain. Keep it brief but rich in high-level details so there is no question as to what the audience is going to get. And remember, the most important deliverable in your deal is you.

The target can like your deal (or be afraid of it) before he knows much detail about it—and the target probably can decide “Yes” or “No” without even knowing what it is. This is hot cognition at work. Deciding that you like something before you fully understand it—that’s a hot cognition.

we feel decisions in our body, not our mind.

There’s a whole side to us that computers don’t have and the “rational economic man” economists like to talk about doesn’t have either. Our bodies “know” the situations we meet in life and how we should respond.

“Your decisions are strongly prepared by brain activity. By the time consciousness kicks in, most of the work has already been done.”

“This might sound mysterious but, in fact, human thinking is constantly guided by subtle bodily tensions. Traders need to learn how to isolate and identify these bodily tensions and relate them to the analysis of the market problem at hand.

Your audience/target will be doing only one thing in paradigmatic mode—trying to analyze. All your creative concepts, future projections, and human inferences are going to be ignored by the analytical/paradigmatic thinker. The only thing that will count are cold, hard facts.

To avoid cold, reasoned analysis, unemotional judgment of ourselves and our idea, we are going to create hot cognition by stacking frames.

When the target starts getting analytical and cold, it’s time for the four-frame hot cognition stack to enter the pitch.

Hot cognition 1: the intrigue frame. Hot cognition 2: the prize frame. Hot cognition 3: the time frame. Hot cognition 4: the moral authority frame.

The targets have given you their time because they want to visit a new world to learn about new things and interesting ideas and become involved in the lives of unique, interesting, and talented people.

People want to know how you have faced obstacles and overcome them. They want to see you in situations that reveal your character. They want to know that you are someone who rises to whatever level necessary to overcome obstacles and someone who travels in the company of interesting people who are players in whatever game you are playing.

The target’s brain does not love abstract concepts—every abstract concept has to be kicked up to the neocortex to be worked on, slowly and painstakingly.

A narrative that feels correct in time will convey a strong sense of truth and accuracy.

Short and strong narratives that introduce characters who are overcoming real-world obstacles can ignite hot cognitions—which, in turn, push the target out of paradigmatic and analytical thinking mode.

• Put a man in the jungle. • Have beasts attack him. • Will he get to safety?

Things don’t always need to be told in terms of extreme events—but they always should be extreme in terms of the character’s emotional experience. This is what makes a good narrative.

When we listen to your narrative, it’s not what happens to you that makes you interesting, but it’s what you do about the situations you are in.

I’ve delivered the prize frame, and the basic elements include 1. I have one of the better deals in the market. 2. I am choosy about who I work with. 3. It seems like I could work with you, but really, I need to know more. 4. Please start giving me some materials on yourself. 5. I still need to figure out if we would work well together and be good partners. 6. What did your last business partners say about you? 7. When things go sideways in a deal, how do you handle it? 8. My existing partners are choosy.

the prize frame relies a great deal on how strong your conviction is.

I am the prize. You are trying to impress me. You are trying to win my approval.

the addition of time pressure to a decision-making event reduces decision quality.

There’s a scarcity bias in the brain, and potential loss of a deal triggers fear.

“Guys, nobody likes time pressure. I don’t like it, and you don’t like it. No one does. But good deals with strong fundamentals are like an Amtrak train, or more like a deal train. They stop at the station, pick up investors, and have a set departure time. And when it’s time—the train has to leave the station. “You have plenty of time to decide if you like me—and if you want this deal. If you don’t love it, there’s no way you should do it; we all know that. “But this deal is bigger than me, or you or any one person; the deal is going ahead. There’s a critical path, a real timeline that everyone has to work with. So we need to decide by the 15th.”

  • time constraints

The acid test of whether your pitch goes well will be: Does the target want to buy your stuff, be a part of your team, or invest in your idea?

No pitch or message is going to get to the logic center of the other person’s brain without passing through the survival filters of the crocodile brain system first. And because of the way we evolved, those filters make pitching anything extremely difficult.

  • croc brain . why is it difficult to pitch?

You can trigger a hot cognition instantly, but cold cognition can take hours or days.

“The human brain acquired its reward-reinforcement system for food, drink, ornaments, and other items of cultural value long before money was discovered.”

“The philosophers of the Enlightenment put their faith in reason; … and they expected reason to provide a full and accurate picture of reality. Reason was supposed to work like a searchlight, illuminating a reality that lay there, passively awaiting discovery.”

Showing signs of neediness is about the worst thing you can do to your pitch. It’s incredibly bad for frame control. It erodes status. It freezes your hot cognitions. It topples your frame stacks.

Broadcasting weakness by seeking validation is often a death sentence.

  1. Want nothing. 2. Focus only on things you do well. 3. Announce your intention to leave the social encounter.

Eliminate your desires. It’s not necessary to want things. Sometimes you have to let them come to you. Be excellent in the presence of others. Show people one thing that you are very good at. Withdraw. At a crucial moment, when people are expecting you to come after them, pull away.

I don’t need these people; they need me. I am the prize.

  1. This deal will be fully subscribed in the next 14 days. 2. We don’t need VC money, but we want a big name on our cap sheet that will strengthen our initial public offering (IPO) registration. 3. I think you guys are interesting, but are you really the right investor? We need to know more about you and the relationships and brand value your firm can bring to our deal.

three rules of eradicating neediness: 1. Eliminate your desires. It’s not necessary to want things. Sometimes you have to let them come to you. 2. Be excellent in the presence of others. Show people one thing that you are very good at. 3. Withdraw. At a crucial moment, when people are expecting you to come after them, pull away.

The slightest perception that you are taking away free will (scientists call this reducing the autonomy of choice) will trigger a threat response.

Every croc brain responds the same: • When something is boring: Ignore it. • When something seems dangerous: Fight/run. • When something is complicated: Radically summarize (causing information loss) and pass it on in severely truncated form.

Frames are psychological referencing systems that all people use to gain a perspective and relevance on issues. Frames influence judgment. Frames change the meaning of human behavior.

Frame control is about controlling which angle your deal is seen from. A frame helps to package a deal in a way that encourages certain interpretations and discourages others.

Importantly, the humor is not there to relieve tension. Instead, it’s there to signal that although the tension is real, you are so confident that you can play around a little.

People who have lots of options are not uptight, and they don’t take themselves too seriously.

This is a game where you set the rules and then change the rules as needed to maintain your continuous advantage without ever upsetting your opponent.

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