Page 22 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

FIRST, UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE 13

very hearts. The primal mind is like a cagey beast sniffing the wind,
trying to pick up the scent of blood. The primal mind is also a
mother wolf, gently protecting and suckling her cub with great love.
The primal mind reacts to the gut. It senses things, vaulting over the
oblivious intellectual mind to pick up vital clues and signals. It is
driven by our most basic needs: sex, shelter, creativity, power, work,

love, hope, food, fear, and fulfillment. It wants to be recognized, to
be reassured. It can be lured open like a rose giving itself to the sun
or snapped shut like a frightened clam burrowing itself deeper into
the mud.
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Go for the heart, and the mind will follow.
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This is the fellow we are dealing with. This fellow doesn’t listen
to our data, to our arguments, to our appeals. He’s not interested in
our intellectual aplomb. He doesn’t really care if we’re smart or even
if we’re dumb. Yet this is the guy, whether we know it or not—or
whether we like it or not—who actually makes most of our impor-
tant decisions for us—and the conscious mind be damned.
This is the guy who acts on warm feelings and on deep dislike.
He’s the profoundly unknowable Instinct Man (or Woman) inside
each of us. He’s the one who kicks the tire and decides to buy the
new car; the one who steps through the door, says, “This is it!” and
decides to buy the new house; the one who shakes the hand and
knows right then and there that this is the right person for the new
job. In other words, this is the guy who makes all the important
decisions and runs our lives. Once he’s made up his mind, there’s no
going back. He simply says, “This is my decision,” retreats back into
the murky depths, and alerts the intellectual mind to make a list of
ways to justify that decision.