Tyrion Lannister is a genius. Despite being
a mutilated dwarf whose family hates him, he manages not only to stay alive, but to
become one of the most powerful players in the Game of Thrones, and that is because his
genius is with people. He's able to get people to do exactly what he wants them to do. How?
He is constantly asking one question of the people around him. What do you want? That is the question. Because
people act like homing missiles towards their deepest desires. Tyrion finds a way to put
the strength of their own desires directly in line with his goals. And if you understand
the subtleties of this art, you can begin to influence people in the way that Tyrion
does. So, in order to figure out what people want,
Tyrion uses three major tools. First, cold reading. And, by the way, spoilers through
season five for the rest of this video At this point, Tyrion has not spent much time
with this character, Bronn, who's a mercenary, originally hired to guard him. How does he
know all of these about Bronn? How does he know what he wants? It's by paying attention to
the clues that he gave during their short interaction. Tyrion has heard Bronn talk about women and
he sees the look, right here, when Bronn hears about a reward, plus, he knows that Bronn
is a sellsword. So it isn't a huge leap for him to know that riches and women are what
motivate Bronn. This might seem so simple, but many of us do exactly the opposite. Rather than cold read someone else's desires,
we shout how they should do exactly what we want or how they should do what is fair. We
ignore all of the evidence that would tell us the truth, that they just do not care about what
we want or what we think is fair. So watch now how another character, Lommy,
a boy who's just been injured in a battle completely ignores the fact that he is speaking
to a soldier, who just killed some of his friends. If you take one thing from this video, please
let it be this, "Don't be like Lommy!" Pay attention and figure out what other people
want rather than demanding that they help you from the kindness in their hearts. It's
gonna go much better for you. But what if you have terrible cold reading
skills? We are actually gonna come back later to this video to a few more tips, but the
good news is that there's also other ways of learning what other people want. And all
that the second one requires is that you listen, because people tell you what they want all
the time. Watch how, even after being captured, Tyrion is still listening carefully for what
his captors want, and then, he's able to quickly find a way to get them what they want by keeping
him alive. If Tyrion had pulled a Lommy in that situation,
he would have screamed about how they couldn't or shouldn't, right up until they cut his
throat. But by listening, he was able to find a way to give them what they wanted by keeping
him alive, and, again, this seem simple, but how often do we act like this instead? The young king, here, just finished telling
his mother how he believes men should tell women what to do. And instead of appealing
to his sense of superiority, his mother does exactly the wrong thing. She tells him what
he needs to do. He basically spelled out that he would ignore her advice, spelled out that
he wouldn't take commands from a woman, and she immediately commanded him to do something--exactly wrong. So, in your own life, be on the lookout for
the things people say because that will give you a clue to the keys to influence them.
And, of course, the last way, if your powers of observation fail you and you haven't been
listening, or you just don't have a chance, you can always ask about people's stories,
which is exactly what Tyrion does, and the immature Jon Snow does not. Watch, here, as Jon Snow continues to only
see from his own perspective. He is selfish and he lacks one of Tyrion's most prominent
character traits--empathy. Empathy is the ability to look at someone
else and realize that they live a life as complex as your own, with experiences that
might have led them to very different world views. It's the ability to step into someone
else's shoes and understand what they might feel, and it is a vital skill because you cannot
persuade someone that you don't understand. At this point, we've covered three ways to
understand what other people want: Cold reading, listening when they tell you, and straight
up asking about their story. But Tyrion's genius is not just in knowing
what other people want. It's in how he uses that information. First off, Tyrion speaks
the language of the person that he is talking to. I talked in another video about why it's
important to match your word choice to your audience's understanding. Two different people
might be motivated both by money, but one might need to hear about an asymmetrical investment
opportunity and another might need to hear about getting filthy rich. Speak the language
of the person that you're talking to. And in this next scene, clearly, the jailer's
got a more basic understanding of things. It's at this point that Tyrion realizes he's
going to need to change the way he speaks in order to get through to the jailer. So watch
how he uses common phrases and simple words in order to communicate his message. Clearly the issue here is not that the jailer
wasn't interested in Tyrion's offer. The issue was that he couldn't understand it. So, once
Tyrion dumbed down his language, he was able to communicate clearly and get his message
delivered. So the second thing that you should note about
Tyrion and the way that he uses information about what people want is that he cycles through
different possibilities very quickly. He might appeal to gold, to giving you land, to your
personal pride, and, then, to the friendship that you share, all in the same conversation.
He doesn't get stuck on just one angle. He's looking for whatever angle is going to work
in that moment. So, here, watch all of the ways that he tries to convince his sellsword
friend, Bronn, to fight on his behalf. If you watched this show, you know that conversation
doesn't work out for Tyrion. But it's the sheer volume of options that he explores that
I find so impressive. Now, I breezed over this scene because I'm running incredibly
long on this video, but let me know in the Comments if you want more on Tyrion's frame
games or if you've had enough at this point. Either way, I hope that you have taken the
key point in this. First off, don't be a Lommy, but, second, that influence is not about convincing
people to want different things than they already want. It's about showing them that
the way to get what they already want, what they have always wanted, is by following you. If you're creative, there's almost always
a way to get more for both of you, and that is the point of this video. Tyrion, sometimes,
does this underhandedly, but you can do all of these without being a liar. You can do
this by being perfectly honest. So, start, just by seeking to understand people's
motivations, and, then, spot the ways that you can help. If your intentions are truly
for both of you to get ahead, you're going to find that it's actually quite easy to demonstrate
some of Tyrion's persuasive genius in your own life. We've covered some of the things that make
Tyrion so likable to the characters. You take the time to get to know him, but, of course,
to the fans as well. And if you're curious about what you can do in your own life to
become more likable during your first impressions, we've set up, actually, another video that covers
the 4 emotions that guarantee an amazing first impression every time. If you hit those 4
emotions and if you hit them in the right order, which is what we cover in your any
kind of environment--the boardroom, all the way to the bar or a party, it doesn't really
matter, it will work. So, if you're curious what those emotions
are, go ahead, click the box, it's going to take you to a page where you can submit your email
and get immediate access to that video, and begin to use those 4 emotions in your interactions
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that, and you'll get lots more breakdowns like this, but most of them are gonna actually
be on real people. In fact, it's very rare that we do a TV show. I just happen to love
Game of Thrones and it seems that people like it, too. We also covered the best tips that I have
for being your most charismatic, confident self in the moments that count the most. If
you have any video suggestions, if you want to see more Game of Thrones, whatever direction
you'd like to see this channel go, please, write it down in the Comments. I am absolutely
keeping a close eye on what you ask for, which is why this second Game of Thrones breakdown
exists; not just because I love to do it, but because a lot of you asked for it. So, let me know what you'd like to see in
the coming weeks. As always, thank you for watching and I will see you in the next video.
