People Don't Always Think Like You

IF YOU ARE a citizen warrior, you try to share what you have learned about the core teachings of Islam with your fellow citizens, and you have no doubt come up against a level of resistance that seems perplexing.

Seth Godin, author of many books on marketing, including Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, said in a recent blog post:

When you're trying to sell your idea, it's natural to assume that the people you're selling to think the way you do. If you can only show them the facts and stories that led you to believe what you believe, then of course they'll end up where you are... believing.

The problem, of course, is that people don't always think like you.

Go watch some videos of people of different political ideologies talking about why they support a candidate other than your candidate. These people are stupid! They can't conjugate an idea, they have no factual basis for their beliefs, they are clueless, they are ideologues, they are parroting a talking head who knows even less than they do! (And those epithets apply to anyone you disagree with, of course). In fact, they're saying the same thing about you.

Same goes for diehard fans of the other brand, or worse, the clueless who should be using your solution, but don't even care enough to use your competitor's product.

If they only thought like you, of course, and knew what you know, then there wouldn't be a problem.

The challenge doesn't lie in getting them to know what you know. It won't help. The challenge lies in helping them see your idea through their lens, not yours. If you study the way religions and political movements spread, you can see that this is exactly how it works. Marketers of successful ideas rarely market the facts. Instead, they market stories that match the worldview of the people being marketed to.

We can't be stupid about this. We can't just blurt things out willy-nilly and then decide our listeners are wrong for not joining us. People already have a mindset. We must reach through that mindset and change it. In order to do that, we must avoid putting the person on the defensive. We can't defeat them in arguments. We can't make ourselves out to be an opponent. We must be on the same side.

We cannot ignore the already existing beliefs in the other person's head. We have to show them that we share core values with them, and then help them understand what we understand.

Learn more about influencing your friends:

• How to approach a conversation about Islam
• Answers to objections when you talk about Islam
• How to think outside the persuasion box