Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don't Matter

by Scott Adams

Scott Adams -- a trained hypnotist and a lifelong student of persuasion -- was one of the earliest public figures to predict Trump's win, doing so a week after Nate Silver put Trump's odds at 2 percent in his FiveThirtyEight.com blog. The mainstream media regarded Trump as a novelty and a sideshow. But Adams recognized in Trump a level of persuasion you only see once in a generation. Trump triggered massive cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias on both the left and the right. We're hardwired to respond to emotion, not reason. We might listen to 10 percent of a speech -- a hand gesture here, a phrase there -- and if the right buttons are pushed, we irrationally agree with the speaker and invent reasons to justify that decision after the fact. The point isn't whether Trump was right or wrong, good or bad. Win Bigly goes beyond politics to look at persuasion tools that can work in any setting -- the same ones Adams saw in Steve Jobs when he invested in Apple decades ago.

• ISBN10: 0735219710
• ISBN13: 9780735219717
• Publish Date: 16 November 2017 (first published 31 October 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 March 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Portfolio
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kevin Costain]

In which the rich white, self-professed hypnotist and pariah gushes over the boorish rich white man he calls the “master persuader.” You can pretty much tell what you're going to get here. I’ve called it “polishing a turd.” I think Adams own word is more apt: LoserThink.

Some of this is so bizzare that you almost think Adams and Trump dreamed up political moves together via Twitter and were both so tickled to see it work on the masses. But, I don’t know if they did, and Adams will also repeat the same, ad nauseam in the book (but you know what he’s really sayin’ wink wink).

Adams might have better used his plaform for calling attention of the effects that Trump's douchy (New York humour) has had on the world's psyche, but more important matters needed to be attended to (like promoting his startup du jour).

The persuasion stuff is by far the most interesting part, but it’s probably been done much better and more interestingly elsewhere.

This book will not age well.