How to not get beaten up:

Last night I watched a movie called Enders Game.

The main idea of the movie is that aliens attack Earth. They are defeated, but they go back to their own planet and start getting ready for another attack.

Humans want to make sure that doesn’t happen… so they recruit kids and send them into the war.

The main character is one of those kids, Ender Wiggin.

Now, just before I get into it, I want to say that this movie has a LOT of copywriting, marketing and persuasion lessons hidden deep inside.

I at least picked up 5 and I wasn’t even searching for them.

Here’s one:

There’s a scene where Wiggin pulls Bonzo(the team leader) to the side and questions him saying he wants to train(he was denied the right to train previously). Bonzo denies it again and gets mad at Wiggin for threatening him.

Wiggin isn’t quite right with that.

It gets to a point where they nearly start a fight, but Wiggin ain’t trying to get himself beaten up so he comes up with an idea on how to not get into a wheelchair and still get his training back.

But he isn’t selfish about it like most people.

He knew Bonzo well enough to know what he deep down desired…

Like most people, respect and recognition from others.

So after seeing that trying to force his selfish wants onto Bonzo didn’t work, because Bonzo wasn’t able to see what he would benefit from them, he changed strategy.

He came up with an idea that would benefit both.

And clearly explained HOW it would do that.

Bonzo was still mad at him and wanted to beat the shyt out of him for trying to command the team leader, yet he didn’t harm him because his desires were much much higher in priority.

Like it is for all of us.

But if Wiggin were to try to force his wants onto Bonzo, without coming up with something that would benefit both, he would have gotten beaten up real good.

And this brings me to my point:

It’s easy for all of us to yapp on about what we want for hours.

But the more we do that the angrier other people get, we are wasting their time.

It’s only once you involve their desires too and highlight what they could gain from the operation that they will consider agreeing.

Make it always about them.