When I set out to write my book, “Motivational Marketing” I had to deal with an internal conflict: do I share the most powerful, most effective “emotional motivator” or do I simply not mention it.

The conflict I had was that I understood the raw power to motivate people to take action with this one thing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I had no illusions that not talking about it would somehow save the world. I already knew that this was being used all day, everyday, by advertisers and the media, so it was no secret.

What is a secret, is that you and I, as the consumers of both advertising and media have no idea what is happening!

So for that reason, I shared it in my book and I’m going to share it you here once again so that you too will now be aware of how you’re being manipulated.

The elections are now done, yet there is much despair in our society. Once you understand what really happened, it will make sense to as why this is.

Let’s start by understanding the “emotional motivator” I mentioned earlier. Simply put, you and I are motivated more by emotion than by logic. So it makes sense that advertisers and the media use emotion as the primary tool to get us to act the way they want us to act.

The emotional motivator that tops the list as being the single most effective tool to get people to take action is: FEAR.

In most cases, you’re scared into buying something to avoid a scary situation. In other cases, they use emotion to motivate you to cast your vote for one candidate or another creating fear around voting for the other candidate.

We know what happens when we’re scared, we RUN! We do whatever we have to do in order to get to a safe place and we do it now! It’s hard-wired into our DNA. This is probably the best way to cure procrastination!

So what happens when you use fear to motivate people to buy your products or services? Or what happens when you use fear to move people to vote for your candidate?

In short, it works, but it’s not perfect. But don’t worry, there is a solution to that and it comes to us from the world of NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) and it’s called “Future Pacing.”

So you take something people fear in the present moment, and make it bigger, brighter, louder, and scarier into the future!

OK, so now you have a set of two rather simple tools that are like lightening in a bottle.

Here’s what it looks like in practice.

“If you vote for this candidate, not only will xxxx happen, but in 5 years time, xxxx, yyyyy, and zzzz will also happen!”

In marketing speak, what this is saying is if you take this action, you will suffer this immediate consequence (pain) and in the future (future pacing) you will also suffer these other consequences too (even more pain on top of the initial pain).

Not only are you scared in the immediate term, but for years to come too!

If you buy into it, and it can be hard not to since you hear from the “experts,” you can now be manipulated into taking certain actions. You might donate, you might post something on social media, you might try to convince your friends and family members by using those same “logical” fearful “facts” that they too should vote for the candidate that you’re voting for.

So now they too are scared and will fall into line. It’s hard not to be scared when the “facts” are being repeated day and night by the experts, right?

Remember, none of the experts predicted the outcome of the election correctly. Not one.

Now, when you can step away from the emotion of it all, you’re smart enough to know that you can’t predict what will happen in the future. Maybe some of these things will happen, maybe not. But once you’re worried, you are trapped. You have to do something, so you go cast your vote and hope the right person wins.

The problem with all of this is that it leaves people who were voting for the losing side feeling hurt, lost, and depressed. Some will act on that in the form of anger and rage. Others will turn to “substances” to help dull the pain.

Again, if you step out of the emotion of it all, it’s clear as day that it’s all a big lie. I tell my friends and family that it’s all theater and just to look at it all as entrainment and not to get drawn into the emotion of it all.

We have been conditioned to think a certain way by the media. The way they portrayed the candidates on both sides would have you believe that the world was going to end no matter who won!

The first lesson I ever learned in college media class was that the media is the most powerful force in any society.

Friends, we were played.

The media played on our emotions and tried hard to motivate us to act in the way they wanted us to act (on both sides). So today, whether you’re feeling happy about the outcome or sad about it, you have the media to blame.

It’s not your fellow citizens, they too were played, this time around better than at any time in history.

So pick yourself up, know that it was just a game and you were not much more than a pawn in a much bigger game.

Trust me, the world is not going to end, and most of what the “experts” predict will happen simply never will.

The quicker you can put it all behind you and get back to being focused on your here and now, the faster you’ll be back to living and enjoying your life, your friends, and even your Facebook news feed too!

In the words of Abraham, “All is well.”

Be outstanding!
Robert Imbriale
Best-Selling Author, Speaker, Consultant
http://www.RobertImbriale.com