How Does Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Elon Musk Influence The Public?

Donald Trump, Narendra Modi and Elon Musk: Three individuals so unlike each other, yet so similar. While Musk plans to shape the destiny of mankind with a dream that looks remarkably futuristic, Trump plans to shape the destiny of a nation with a dream that looks unusually inward-looking. Modi, meanwhile, is working on fulfilling a dream that looks extremely inspirational.   

However, there is one thing common to them: All three understand the power of emotions and instincts. And they use this power extremely well to their benefit.

Let’s understand these powers.

First, let’s understand ourselves. The human brain isn’t a homogenous lump of mass: it actually has three distinct layers:  

1. The innermost part - the instinctual brain - is responsible for basic survival instincts like food, breathing and autonomous movements. All reflexes and instincts are an outcome of this layer.
2. Surrounding the instinctual brain is the emotional brain that is responsible for emotions, and behavioural response.
3. At the outermost part is the logical brain that is responsible for logic, intelligence, analysis and rationale.

Now, here is the catch: Stimuli from the sense organs reach the brain in the reverse order: i.e. they are first screened by the instinctual brain (for survival threats) and emotional brain (for emotional content and responses) before being processed by the logical brain (for logical action). This makes the responsiveness of the instinctual and emotional brain a lot quicker than that of the logical brain.

Such a brain structure leads to below outcomes:

• While the logical part of the brain is the most intelligent, the emotional and instinctive parts of the brains are the most influential parts of a human brain.
• They are, in fact, so powerful that in every situation deemed an existential or emotional threat and they will hijack the logical brain and dictate the responses.
• The stronger a message appeals to the emotional brain, the lesser the threshold of logic required to appeal to the logical brain. Whether the emotions are positive or negative is immaterial to the emotional brain.
• Once the emotional brain has accepted something as true, the logical brain tries to find supporting reasons to justify this emotional position.
• The longevity of a message depends on the strength of its emotional connect as opposed to the strength of its logic.

Add all these together and it becomes clear that the message that resonates with the emotional brain complemented with supporting logic will influence the listener quicker, stronger and longer than content that resonates only with the logical brain.

Trump, Modi and Musk (and scores of influential communicators) understand this really well. However, they use it for altogether different purposes.

Trump’s manifesto reveals an emotionally charged message of fear and nationalism (illegal immigration killing Americans, death tax, China stealing jobs etc all indicating injustice against and harm done to Americans). These are precisely the kind of messages that appeal to the emotional brain. Individuals whose emotional brains resonate with this message now need a far lower threshold of logic to accept the message. Note that these people are not illogical: they emotionally connect so deeply with Trump’s pitch that the supporting arguments sound very logical. However, for those who haven’t emotionally accepted the manifesto, the very same supporting messages appear totally illogical. This explains the huge polarization caused by Trump.

Modi used the same powers in 2014 when he spun an emotional dream of “India on the rise” (corruption free economically advanced nation, set to reclaim its powerful status in the world order) to the aspiring Indian middle class: an agenda that helped him get to the Prime Minister’s post with a thumping majority.

Musk has a vision for humans that is highly emotional in content (driverless zero-emission vehicles leading to zero vehicle fatalities; homes and businesses that draw power from the sun and store it in batteries for later use; “machine that builds the machine.”). To a layman, there is virtually no logic in these statements. But so emotionally convincing is the vision and its outcome to Musk that no amount of logic can dissuade him from pursuing it. Musk obviously finds investors who are sold to this vision knowing fully well that ALL inventions and advances in mankind have been an outcome of such visions sold to the emotional brain.  

While Modi, Musk and Trump are using the SAME technique, the emotional sub-text is different. While Trump relies on negative emotions of fear and hate, Modi and Musk use positive emotions like hope and success. It is worth noting that once a message resonates with the emotional brain, the logical mind doesn’t differentiate between positive and negative emotions while providing supporting logic. That explains why all three create such a deep impact with their target audience and why this messaging technique works all the time. Everywhere. And why it can be used by anyone.   

You and I might not start the next Tesla or vie for the top job in our countries. However, knowing the functioning of the brain can help us get desired action in any audience interaction: in campaigns, promotions, presentations, pitches, debates or even routine discussions. Here is the how we can use the same technique used by Trump, Modi and Musk:

• Emotional Positioning: Appeal first to the emotions of the audience. Emotional connect provides the audience with a “why” to act. This is the most important point to be considered in every audience interaction. Appealing to logic without emotional connect is equivalent to putting the cart before the horse. Your influence with the audience is in direct proportion to the emotional connectivity of your message with them.
• Logical supporting statements: Back your emotional position with sound logic. Emotional content with no logical case will lead to either a confused audience with questions or an audience with blind faith. They will know what actions to take, but not know why. “Why” will come from emotional positioning.     
• Stickiness: If you don’t repeat your message long and strong enough, it will create initial euphoria but will soon die down. The audience will know what to do and why but won’t act. Repetition strengthens the bond and leads to sustained action.

Influence and communication is less of an art and more of a science. This trinity of Emotion, Logic and Stickiness provides the base to achieve effective communication.

What do you think?  Have you used these principles in your communication? How have you achieved influence and effective communication in situations in your life? Maybe you can start incorporating them in your life.