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You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today is a solo show. It's just me, you and the mic. I always, I always do that. It's not just today. We have three episodes dropping today. There's a co host show with my producer Eric, and there's an interview as well with an aspiring entrepreneur. You can go check those ones out as well. On this solo show today, we're talking about motivational interviews. Viewing. This is a tactic used by expert communicators to, it's really, it's really about persuasion, but it's, it's a more effective way to persuade people because it doesn't use this combative approach that says, you're wrong, I'm right. Believe what I believe it is asking people questions to lead them down a path to discovery that allows them to, on their own devices, come up with their own conclusions that will ultimately agree with the, this, the, the, the concept that you're trying to get them to agree with. And so motivational interviewing is the topic of today's show. I did a bunch of prep on this one, so I'm, I'm going to read some of this to you guys because I think it's relevant. Motivational interviewing is one of those ideas that sounds simple, almost obvious, and then you realize how rarely we actually use it. It was developed by psychologists William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick, and at its core, it's a way of helping people change without telling them what to do. Instead of convincing somebody that they should change, motivational interviewing, discover why they want to change. The big assumption behind it is this. Most people already know what they should do. And this is true across the board. The problem is not the information, especially not today. When you can look up Anything on perplexity, ChatGPT, Google, whatever, you can find more information now than ever before. Information is ubiquitous. The information is not the problem. The problem is ambivalence. All right, part of them wants to change, part of them doesn't want to change. And they might not need, they might not even know that, by the way, they might think in their mind, I want to change. But psychologically, something's holding them back from changing because it means they have to let go of something that they like about themselves or they like about the routine. Or they like about the vice that they're holding on to too long or whatever it is. So motivational interviewing sort of flips the dynamic and allows you to not have to push them, right, so you can't convince somebody else to change. I think this comes from naval, where he says something like, people think that they can't change themselves, and they can. And people think that they can change others, and they can't. And this is one of those reasons, because the more you push an ideology down somebody's throat, the more they're going to resist. They're going to dig into their original position and push back against the thing that you're trying to convince them of. So motivational interviewing flips that dynamic. Rather than arguing for change, you simply just ask some questions. You listen. Actually listen, though, do not do this thing where you're just kind of like nodding your head and then thinking about the next thing you're going to say. Ask the question, listen. You refle and you help the person say out loud their own reasons for wanting something different. And once someone hears themselves say it, the resistance tends to drop a little bit, and they allow that thought to take root in their mind. And what's wild is the data actually really backs this up. Across hundreds of studies in addiction health therapy and behavior change, motivational interviewing consistently outperforms advice giving and quote, unquote, just be disciplined approaches, not because it's magic, but because it respects autonomy, the autonomy of the person that's making the decision to change. People change faster when it feels like their idea. And the part most people miss about this motivational interviewing, it's not about being soft, okay? It's not about. It's not about, you know, it's. It's not the ideology of like, that is the savage way of doing it, and this is the soft way of doing it. It's just about being precise. It's about being effective. You're guiding the conversation toward change just without using force. And the. The best example that I can come up with this, for me in any way, was weight loss. I bucked up against the idea for a long time that I needed to lose weight, and. And then anytime somebody would tell me to lose weight, all it did. And I might be a special case here because I tend to, maybe even more so than most people, I tend to buck up against authority or I like. Like, my wife knows this about me. And it's funny because my kids have started, you know, saying stuff to me about, like, they're joking around or something. But it's like, you know, let's go, Daddy, get in the car. Like, get in the car now. And they tell me exactly what to do. And my wife looks back at them and she goes, if, you know your dad, telling him what to do is the exact opposite way of actually getting him to do it. So I think that exists in everybody. But I also think that entrepreneurs maybe, and I would be a part of that personality type that tends to resist a little bit more when you're. When you tell me something. And so I had people tell me that I was fat. People tell me that I was overweight or that I needed to lose weight, but anytime they told me that, all it made me want to do is just go gain more weight. It didn't. It didn't take root in my heart or my mind at all. The only thing that made me finally change was me recognizing that I needed to do this for me. Nobody else could have made me think that way. But also, nobody tried motivational interviewing. So who knows? Maybe if this would have been something that somebody tried with me, it would have worked a little bit more effectively. But I was not going to change until it was something that I felt that I needed to really change. So there's a couple of examples here of just some of the studies people have done so for alcohol use reduction. Motivational interviewing was originally tested with people struggling with alcohol use. In early clinical trials, therapists stopped telling clients why drinking was bad and instead asked. And instead asked them some questions. So the. This is what go. Goes back to that piece of the. The. The information piece, where it's like, you don't like people who are alcoholics. People who are over consuming alcohol do not need to be told that alcohol is not good for them. They know that nobody that's drinking alcohol has diluted themselves to the degree that they're actually convincing themselves that alcohol is actually good for them. You know, I guess a rare, rare exception would be somebody who maybe like, drinks red wine. You know, they have a glass of red wine with dinner because of the antioxidants or whatever. But that would be a rare exception to the rule. And to me, that's not really abusing alcohol to have a glass of red wine with dinner. So. So telling them why it's bad is not actually going to change the behavior. So instead of just telling their clients that drinking was bad, they instead ask a few questions. What do you enjoy about drinking? What worries you about drinking? How does this fit with the life that you want? And what happened surprised everyone. Clients who received motivational interviewing drank less, had fewer alcohol related problems, and stayed in treatment longer than people who were just told that alcohol was bad. The key insight being the more the client talked themselves into change during the sessions, the better their outcomes were later. Had nothing to do with a therapist's arguments, had nothing to do with the research or the data that was, that they, that they were giving to them, that was convincing them that alcohol was bad for them. It had to be in the client's own words. So that idea, which is called change talk, is now one of the strongest predictors of behavior change that we have. You have to get the person to internalize the new belief and, and in their own words, state why this thing is going to be detrimental for them or why this other thing is going to be good for them. Or, you know, insert context here. Real story number two, smoking cessation in healthcare. So motivational interviewing is now widely used in primary care settings for smoking cessation, for getting people to quit smoking. So instead of doctors saying you gotta quit, this is, this is bad for you, right? Which like everybody's heard. Again, people, if this was 1950, this would be a different conversation because not everybody was convinced that smoking was bad back then, right? Like, everybody smoked back then. Now everybody knows, like, if you're, if you're smoking a pack a day, you know, it's not good for you. You're not under the, you're not under the impression that, you know, no, this is actually really, really good for me. And I know that, you know, like nobody, nobody needs more data and needs more research to tell them that smoking a pack a day is a bad thing overall for your health. So instead of doctor saying quit, it's bad, here's all the reasons why it's bad. They say things like, what do you enjoy about smoking? What are some downsides that you've noticed? On a scale of 1 to 10, how ready are you to quit? When patients answer with the 4 or 5, the follow up isn't, you should be higher on that scale. The question is, why is it not a 2? Again, this is stuff that works for these, like behavior change things and you know, smoking, drinking, things like that. But also very much works in sales context. I don't know how many times I've used that in a sales context where, like, get to the end of the conversation, they say no or an objection overcoming stage. And I'll ask them the question scale of 1 to 10, you know, where are you on that in terms of your willingness to jump into this new thing and they say, honestly, like five or six. To be honest with you, man, okay, great. I'm not going to berate them for the for their answer not being a 10 or being an 8 or a 9. I'm not going to try to make them feel bad about that. I'm going to just say, okay, great, five or six. Cool. Why is it not a two? There's clearly some desire here, right? Or you would have told me one or two, in which case we could jump off of this call right now because you have no desire to do this thing that we're talking about. However, a five or six tells me that there's some reason that you feel that this could be potentially beneficial. Beneficial for you, but there's also some reasons that are telling you that it's not. Otherwise we'd be at a 9 or 10, right? So why is it not a 2? That single question pulls motivation out of the patient instead of pushing it in. It's the very difference between pushing somebody to make a decision and pulling them into internalizing a new belief that allows them to autonomously make the decision. Which is goes into the old trope of people, nobody wants to be sold, but everybody wants to buy. Like people want to buy stuff, but nobody wants to be sold. So they have to autonomous autonomously arrive at the conclusion in their own words. And so asking them, hey, why isn't this on a 2 allows them to be able to start talking through that, articulating why that, like the, the good things about this, why would you want to do it? Why is this something that might be a good move for you? So studies show that even brief motivational interviewing sessions, sometimes just 15 minutes, significantly increase quit attempts and long term abstinence for smoking compared to standard adv alone. In other words, less talking, better results, which is exactly what being a salesperson is all about. So again, if you're not in the business of trying to get people to quit smoking, you're probably in the business of trying to get people to do something, or else you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. And so talk less, ask more questions. Allow people to articulate their own desires and their own reasoning in their mind and arrive at their own conclusions in their mind. And if they arrive at a conclusion that's not one that you like, then instead of combating them on that conclusion, just ask some more questions as to how they arrived at that conclusion. So here's where motivational interviewing stops being a therapy concept, starts being a business weapon. Most business conversations Fail for one reason. We try to convince instead of uncover. We pitch, we push, we explain. You know, we present. And then the other person quietly, without saying anything, builds a case for why now isn't the right time. Because of the resistance that we mentioned earlier, right? Like with me losing weight, nobody could tell me that this is what I had to do. I had to decide that this is something that I needed to do. So motivational interviewing allows you to flip that. So stop the pitching, start pulling. Instead of telling a prospect why your offer is valuable, ask questions that force them to confront their own gap. So instead of saying, like, this will save you time and money, you know, like these, these sort of, like these, these statements that we think sound good in our minds, because it's like, I've presented a sound argument. It's not necessarily like a debate. It's more just a discovery process to understand. Person is thinking why they have made the decisions they've made up to this point, why they have not ever pulled the trigger on this before, and what is preventing them from pulling the trigger on this now. So instead of saying, this is going to save you time and money, you know, the, the questions of, well, what's, what's the what. What is this going to potentially cost you if we don't get this problem taken care of in the next six months? You know, how is this, how is this problem affecting other areas of your business? You know, how. How is, how is not getting more leads affecting the other areas of business? Well, you know, if I had more leads, I could get more sales. Okay, great. And what would that mean? It would mean that I would be able to hire a better person to do this job so that I wouldn't have to do that particular piece of this, and it would free up my time. Okay, great. What would you do if you had more free time? Well, I probably would do this, and then I would do that. And it's like, okay, so now we're getting to the point where they, in their own words, are now painting a picture of what success looks like based on the prerequisite of them doing business with you. What have you already tried? And then, you know, just continuing to, to, to ask more questions and then, and then summarizing what they're saying. And I think this, this part is really important because if you can explain somebody's problem back to them better than they can explain their problem, then they'll typically automatically assume that you have the solution to their problem. So as soon as I ask a bunch of questions, then you're going to sort of reflect it back to them and, and make sure that you say it back in a succinct way. So like, so you're saying that this is going growth. This is. You're saying that if we, if we don't figure out this one constraint, the business, that it's going to potentially make you go out of business, or that it's going to prevent you from making this higher that you really need to make, or it's going to prevent you from leasing this new space that you desperately need. So if I can, if I can better articulate the problem to them because of all the questions that I've asked, then they are much more likely to take action with me. And I've noticed this on sales calls where I've been in this type of discovery process asking a bunch of questions. And then sometimes I'll say it back to them and they'll correct me and they'll go like, no, not necessarily that. It's not necessarily a factor of those things. I'm like, okay, great. Well, what exactly is it? So I'm not, I'm not telling them what their problem is there. I'm just genuinely trying to articulate my understanding of their problem as they've said it to me. And then the times where again, where I've noticed, like, I don't have to do much objection overcoming and things like that, at the end of the sales conversation, it's when I take, when I articulated back to them and then they say something like, yes, exactly. I could not have said it better myself. That's exactly what I'm experiencing. It's like, great, cool. Well, let's go ahead and talk about this next thing. Because now they have a genuine belief that I truly understand the problem that they're experiencing. And if I can truly understand the problem they're experiencing now, I can tailor the entire rest of my part of the conversation where I actually start talking a little bit more. Like the pitch, the presentation, whatever you want to call it, I can tailor that directly to the. The problems that they were articulating to me at the beginning and that they agreed were things that were preventing them from having all these other things that they really want. So the motivation is coming from them. It's not coming from you trying to shove something down their throat. The scale of 1 to 10 question is a fantastic motivational interviewing tool that works really well, especially in, in these types of business conversations, you know, if they answer something that's not a 9 or 10, you know, some people are just going to say 9 because they're, they just, they don't give out tens. You know what I'm saying? Like, I tend to be one of those people where it's like, I don't know, man, a 10 out of 10, you gotta really, really, really impress me if I'm, if I'm gonna say 10 out of 10. But, you know, a 9 I, I looked at a 9 is basically the same thing as a 10. But if you, they say anything, you know, 5, 6, 7, 8, instead of arguing with them and trying to convince them, oh, well, I thought you said this problem was important to you. And now you're getting this com. This combative debate stage again, you know, well, why. Okay, great, a six. Okay, well, why is it not a two? Why is it not a three? And then they can start listing the reasons that, that it's a good thing for them. And they're not being persuaded by your craftsmanship of the words that you're using. They are being persuaded by their own mind, and that will always deliver more powerful results. You didn't sell them, you didn't persuade them. They did it for themselves. So think about this next time you're in your sales conversations, even maybe in a leadership perspective as well, working with employees or team members or partners or things like that. Instead of, instead of having this combative nature of like, well, you just got to step up. You need to do better. You know what I mean? Or it's. It's my way or the highway, or it's like, you got to do this or you're fired. Instead of coming out with this really combative nature. Well, how do you feel about your performance right now? What would, what would great look like to you in this role? What's getting in the way? What are the obstacles that you think are getting in the way from allowing you to perform at your highest level? If they are articulating their own standards, then they are much more likely to stick to those standards because they're the ones who articulated them and helped define them. So people want to act in consistency with what they believe or who they believe themselves to be. So if they have articulated to you that they believe themselves to be this type of a person, then they are much more likely to live up to the standards that they have set for themselves rather than living up to the standards that you have set for them. People don't change because they're convinced. They change because they feel understood and they allow themselves to articulate the truth. Motivational interviewing is not about being passive. It's about guiding conversation. So the motivation comes from the inside instead of being forced from the outside. So if you want better clients, better employees, better conversations, better outcomes, better persuasion, then stop trying to win arguments all the time and start being more aligned. Start asking better questions and use motivational interviewing as a tool to do that. There's a great book called Super Communicators. I believe it's Charles Duhager who wrote that, who also wrote Up Think the Power of Habit. He talks at length about motivational interviewing. That book I recommend Pick It Up Up. But this is one of those things that has been really helpful for me in multiple contexts throughout my, my, my professional life especially. So motivational interviewing. See how you can use it inside of your business, your side hustle, your job with your kids, whatever. It's something that I think you'll find to be extremely helpful. So thanks so much for tuning in to this episode. We'll catch you guys on the next one. That's it for today's show. Peace.
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