Psychotactics Blog

When I was younger, I could easily get myself into quite a few friendly arguments.

Like everybody, I have opinions, and some of them are stronger than others.
The biggest problem with an opinion is that it is almost never tied to facts. You would think that facts would convince people otherwise, but they don't seem to matter at all — which becomes problematic, because if opinions are treated as facts and facts dismissed as opinions, where does that leave you as a communicator?

The reality is that you will always need to rely on facts, and you may not have a willing audience.
It's because most people have their own ideas firmly in place. This is where misdirection helps tremendously. Misdirection isn't as strange as it sounds. It is simply what a magician does: he gets you to look at one thing while he does something else entirely, and produces a result you weren't expecting.

This same principle can be applied when making presentations, writing articles, or creating any content meant to last. The trick is not to go head-on with someone who has a fixed point of view. That usually ends in a slightly ridiculous argument, and even if you win, it leaves both sides with an unsettled feeling. In presentations, articles and books, however, the reader or listener has time to sit with what you've said — to mull it over and quietly shift their thinking, because you have presented the facts the way a magician would.

Here is an example.
Almost everyone you know will say something like: “I can remember people's faces, but I can't remember names.” This idea has been repeated so many times that it has almost become a fact. If you try to convince someone directly that they can indeed remember names, they will smile and shake their heads. So you take the back door instead.

The first step is always to ask permission.
You might say, “Can I ask you a couple of questions on that subject?” Most people will agree — they are curious to know why you see it differently. Your first question: Can you remember the names of your family members? Your parents, cousins, friends, relatives, many of your teachers, and people you've worked with?

Generally, people will nod. Of course they can.
Then you move on to movie actors, politicians, musicians, sports stars — and suddenly hundreds of names are streaming through their minds, and they have to agree that yes, they remember all of those too. You ask permission to continue, and they agree, perhaps sensing the trap is already closing. You then list names of countries — some they've never visited: Afghanistan, New Caledonia, Fiji, Bangladesh, Azerbaijan. You might slip in one they don't recognise, and they'll say so — but the overall conclusion is now unavoidable.

They know thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of names.
Add in the names of everyday objects — sofa, pen, pencil, bird — then colours, plants, types of animals — and the argument is effectively over. There is nothing wrong with their ability to remember names. There is simply a belief that they can't, built on something else entirely.

And what is that something else?
The brain has a region called Broca's area. When you see someone's face, even briefly, it is stored in your memory. You might not see that person for years, or encounter them in an entirely different context — but the face remains. The name, however, has no dedicated retrieval system connecting it back to that face. We remember faces because we have a specialised mechanism for it. We remember names when we build that same kind of system.

What just happened there?
You've been misdirected. There's a reasonable chance that, before reading this, you believed you weren't good at remembering names. Yet you now recognise that you carry tens of thousands of them in your head. The only reason names sometimes slip away is that we don't pay attention to them in the moment — or because the name is genuinely unfamiliar, like Lakshman Sivarama Krishnan. If you're Indian, that's no problem at all. If the name is outside your experience, it takes effort, and without that effort, it doesn't stick.

Let's take another example: this one from the book Suddenly Talented, which examines how people become very good at learning quickly.

One phrase you hear constantly is: “I'm not good at maths.”
I had this conversation with my niece Keira when she was in Year Seven. I asked how she was getting on in maths, and she said it was a little difficult. I could have simply told her it wasn't — but as her uncle, she might have just smiled and agreed to keep the peace. That wasn't the point. I wanted to misdirect her so she would arrive at the conclusion herself.

So Keira agreed that Year Seven maths was difficult.
But what about Year Six? If given an exam from the previous year's syllabus, would she struggle? You can see where this is heading. I worked backwards — Year Six, Year Five, Year Four — and by the time I reached Year Two, she was rolling her eyes.

So it's just the current year that's difficult, then?
She had no trouble agreeing because she had already admitted that every prior year had been manageable, and going further back would have been almost insulting. The same thing happens with adults. Anyone who says they are bad at maths will walk through the same sequence as Keira.

They will agree that maths became difficult at a particular point — but hand them a Year Three paper and they'd sail through it. The last few years might need a little revision, but a couple of weeks of effort is a long way from a decade of dread and self-doubt. The belief that they were bad at maths was an opinion, not a fact — and a fragile one, once examined.

This is what misdirection actually does: instead of arguing, you agree, then gently lead the person down a side road. You get them to see a flaw in their own thinking without making them feel attacked or diminished. They arrive at the conclusion themselves, which means they own it. You haven't won an argument — you've opened a door.

I experienced this firsthand while writing The Brain Audit around 2002.
The central concept — that problems matter more than solutions in marketing — was quite radical at the time. Sales books told people to lead with benefits. To get readers to rethink this, I didn't directly challenge the prevailing wisdom. Instead, I showed them examples.

Seven identical red bags arrive on an airport carousel. One is missing.
When does the passenger leave? Only when all seven bags are accounted for. Nobody is thinking about the pleasant flight, the on-time arrival, or the excellent seat. They are focused entirely on the problem.

Add to that examples like a police car in your rear-view mirror, a small stain on a white shirt, or a storm warning on the news — and the pattern becomes undeniable. Problems command the brain's attention before solutions get a look in.

Once readers recognised that, they didn't need to be argued with.
The solution didn't become less important — it simply needed to come second. That single shift helped many people improve their sales because they finally had their customers' attention.

Misdirection, then, is not a manipulation tactic.
It is not about scoring points. It has a genuine practical use: most of us need to shift perception slightly — in customers, in colleagues, in students, sometimes in ourselves. It's only when people are willing to reconsider that real change happens.

And people become willing when they don't feel cornered.
A few well-placed questions can achieve what hours of argument cannot. The goal is not to defeat someone's position but to walk alongside them until they can see it differently — and feel that the new view was their idea all along.

In summary:
The next time you find yourself needing to change someone's mind, resist the urge to go head-on. Ask permission to explore the subject together. Lead them through their own knowledge and experience. Let them arrive at the contradiction themselves. That is misdirection at its most effective — not a trick, but a form of respect. Eventually, they see things a tiny bit differently because you've brought out that wonder.

It's like magic.