Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

Winning Either Way Choices

Winning Either Way Choices

[This is part of the series: 31 Persuasion Tips That I Learned From Scott Adams]

A choice where you find yourself winning either way is the best kind of choice.

This is natural in your personal life, of course, but this can also be used to persuade others.

I see this as simply another way of framing and associating a given idea.

You give someone – maybe even your parents – two ideas to choose from.

Both of these alternatives are completely fine with you, but you don’t let on about that, do you?

Take the high-ground.

PERSUASION TIP 24: If you can frame your preferred strategy as two ways to win and no way to lose, almost no one will disagree with your suggested path because it is a natural High-Ground Maneuver.
-Scott Adams, Win Bigly

This Feeling Will Keep You From Achievement

This Feeling Will Keep You From Achievement

This feeling will keep you from achieving what?

What feeling?

Unfortunately for some, there is a profound sense that the choices they make don’t matter.

That their position – or status – in life is fixed and there is nothing they can do to change that.

This, I believe, is an issue of culture.

Once you believe it, and through actions and habits, your children believe it – soon your grandchildren will believe it.

It is a pernicious lie that seals away hope.

Choices matter.

Everything you do matters. And, it matters forever.

I’m not saying ability doesn’t matter. It certainly helps. But there’s something powerful about realizing that you’ve undersold yourself—that somehow your mind confused lack of effort for inability. This is why, whenever people ask me what I’d most like to change about the white working class, I say, “The feeling that our choices don’t matter.”
–J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy
Sterling Terrell