Page 115 - The Power to Change Anything

104 INFLUENCER

need to refer to individuals by name and with respect for their
needs.

Win Hearts by Honoring Choice

Let’s get tactical for a minute. As you do your best to help oth-
ers take more pleasure from healthy activities and less pleas-
ure from unhealthy activities, you’ll need to choose your tactics
carefully. When you attempt to help others reconnect their
behaviors to their long-term values or moral anchors, you often
come off as preachy or controlling and generate a great deal of
resistance. Of course, the more you try to control others, the
less control you gain. This is particularly true with individuals
who are addicted to their wrong behavior. They have already
suffered through the impassioned speeches of their loved ones,
listened to the clever audio CDs from the experts, and
squirmed in their pew as their minister has harangued them for
their self- and other-defeating actions.
Nevertheless, these offenders have been able to withstand
the shrill cry to return to the right path because they aren’t acci-
dentally disengaged from their moral compass; they’re purpose-
fully disengaged. The lack of a connection between their
actions and their values is so obvious and the resultant disso-
nance so painful that they openly and aggressively resist any-
one who has the nerve to shine a light on the humiliating
discrepancy. Verbal persuasion and other control techniques
aren’t going to work with these folks.
William Miller is the influence expert who has found a way
to help addicts connect to their moral compass and thus greatly
improve their life habits. He started his impressive research by
asking the simple question, “What’s better—more therapy or
less?” and found that the length of time therapy lasted was irrel-
evant. This finding, of course, made him extremely unpopu-
lar with the vast majority of people who worked in the field.
Next he asked, “Is there one therapeutic technique that works