Note: Blog entries before 1 September 2010 have been archived.
In the movie, “Jerry McGuire,” football player Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding, Jr.), says to agent Jerry (played by Tom Cruise), what has become a famous line, “Show me the money!” It’s understandable. If you are going to hire somebody who will improve your contract and make sure that you are being paid what you are worth, you want to see the most important evidence. It’s a concept that we all need to keep in mind regardless of who is promising what. We need to ask to “see the money,” whether the “money” is actually money or something else we value.
In the movie, when the Tom Cruise character says that he can improve his client’s financial well-being, the Cuba Gooding character is essentially saying, “Prove it.” He is also providing his evidence procedure. He needs to see physical evidence in the form of money. In NLP terminology, the related questions would be, “How do you know,” or “What’s your evidence procedure.” Most people like to think that they have an adequate evidence procedure. Those who have done at least some of their NLP training with Richard Bandler may think of this as having a well-developed bullshit detector. The fact is that most people don’t.
Ann Landers (the original one) often said, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Nevertheless, people keep buying “stuff” on promises that the product, service, political idea, or politician will perform “like magic.” Whether it is the ShamWow chamois (shammy), the Thigh Master, a new car, or a politician, we should have a “Show me the money!” attitude, keeping the following caveates in mind:
- Seeing isn’t necessarily believing. You can’t believe everything you see, especially on television. Those for whom the primary “convincer strategy” is visual can be fooled. The saying, “All that glitters is not gold,” is worth remembering. Magicians get paid to entertain us with their “sleight-of-hand” tricks. Card sharks use many of the same techniques to win at poker. When what you are seeing is on television, the problem is compounded. Sometimes “special effects” are obvious, and sometimes they are not. Have you ever been able to mop up a huge kitchen spill with a quick swipe of a paper towel?
- Promises and performance aren’t the same. Remember all my previous blogs about hypnosis? One of the tricks of induction is to begin by saying things that can be easily verified: “As you sit in this chair, you can feel your feet on the floor, hear the hum of the air conditioner, and notice the changing focus of your eyes as you look around the room.” You can then lead the person in the direction you want him or her to go: “Can you allow yourself to relax more fully now by taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, as you think about the reason you came here today….” And, before you forget why you came here today, you can begin to recognize that many sales people, clergy, and politicians use a highly similar presentation style.
- Even direct, hands-on experience may deceive. A restaurant that’s really good on your first visit, may not be so hot on your second. The same may be true for dates. Just because a thing or a person is good once, doesn’t prove that the goodness will continue. It may have resulted from chance or from a deliberate effort to provide the proof necessary to persuade you. In most cases, you need to look at consistency of performance over time for a degree of assurance, but even organizations with well-established records can stumble. The main rule of life is, “Things change. That was then; this is now.”
While Life offers few guarantees, you can increase the chances of getting what you pay for (regardless of what you are paying to whom for what) by looking for the appropriate evidence. Fortunately, not every “purchase” requires the same degree of diligence in seeking evidence. You may recall that the purchase decision (see my previous blogs on TOTEs) for a pack of gum would/should have fewer “operations” than the TOTE for buying an automobile or a house. The investment in evidence gathering should be proportional to the risk and to the financial and emotional investment. A first date can be over when you leave the coffee shop. A marriage, on the other hand, is (at least for most people) more difficult to end.
Would you believe that some people in the U.S. vote for president based on which person is taller or which person has better hair? It’s true, even though that isn’t what I would call a good evidence procedure for electing a president. Would you believe that negative ads (yes, all negative ads) are less than honest and are making a deliberate attempt to deceive? It’s true, even though you may not have an evidence procedure for evaluating the claims the ads present. It is far too easy to let emotions override reason when evaluating negative information.
Risk aversion is the brain’s Number One rule. That’s because risk aversion is essential to self-preservation. The amygdala, which processes fear, is fully functioning at birth, and it responds to anything and everything it finds threatening. It takes 3 or 4 years for the hippocampus, to develop. The hippocampus mediates fear-based responses by learning to include time and space in formulating a response. A roller coaster would be really scary for an infant, but most adolescents think of them as fun because they provide the experience of being scared while the body is safe.
Positive appeals invite investigation, whereas negative claims tend to insist on immediate acceptance. Positive appeals work on the hippocampus. Negative appeals are directed to the amygdala. Even so, bring your hippocampus into play by asking the question, “Is it true?” Then subject your answer to your evidence procedure. How do you know that it is (or isn’t) true? What evidence can you find to support or disprove the claims?
When it comes to prospective spouses and politicians running for office, consider their record over time. Do they make promises that seem to good to be true? Will they cut taxes and spending, create more jobs, and reduce the deficit all at the same time? How exactly will they do that? Ask what taxes and what spending specifically? Look at the historical record. What has happened in the past when taxes were cut? Did the number of jobs go up or down? The rise and fall (or perhaps the fall and rise) of the deficit is another observable piece of evidence to consider when you hear political promises about reducing it.
It isn’t just politicians and prospective spouses, of course, but you can easily use those aspects of life to establish an effective evidence procedure that will help innoculate you against the “disease” of bad decisions. You can be sure of the principal rule governing marriage and politicians: Marry in haste and repent at leisure. Check your evidence procedure to make sure that it is adequate for the task at hand, so that when you choose, you can choose with confidence.