Kurt W. Mortensen is one of America’s leading authorities on persuasion, negotiation and influence. Kurt has spent 20 years researching persuasion, negotiation and motivational psychology. Kurt is the author of Persuasion IQ Laws of Charisma and the best-selling book Maximum Influence. Over the years, Kurt’s experience teaching hundreds of workshops nationwide and other associations with people from all over the world. Through extensive research and personal experience, he developed the most comprehensive resource to meet the needs of individuals who want to master the skills and techniques necessary to achieve unlimited income.
I Am Driven By | Teaching others a life skill that is critical to their success, income and happiness. This skill must be learned to achieve success. It drives me because we should have learned this skill in school.
My Highlights | Family of 4 children, Published author of 3 books in 28 languages and Serving youth in the community
The Difference Between Good And Great | That would be charisma. When people are charismatic the are more influential, better leaders and others want to do what you want them to do – and the like doing it. This is the difference between mediocrity and success.
A Key Talent | Persuasion permeates every aspect of our lives. How can someone be an effective manager, entrepreneur or parent without persuasion skills? We have all seen the old style of management: Do it or you’re fired. Sure, this results in short-term compliance, but it also results in long-term resentment, mistrust, and hurts people’s ability to lead. And it definitely does not result in effective, long-term persuasion. So, I dedicated my life to finding the powerful, honorable, win-win forms of persuasion, negotiation, and influence.
The Characteristics Of Success | The psychological edge gained by successful people cannot be overemphasized. How do successful people prepare their minds for success? What is their mental process? This mental aspect is one of the most important (and usually neglected) traits of success.
Almost everyone wants to accomplish their dreams, achieve more, become a better person, or pursue bigger and better goals. And we often know exactly what we need to do to make these things happen. So why don’t we do them? Why do we fall short of our dreams and aspirations?
Writing down your goals coupled with a strong desire to reach them won’t automatically bring success if you overlook this one vital detail: Successes are not achieved if they aren’t first conceived mentally. We are told all the time to be positive, to change that attitude, to have a good outlook. In fact, we are so bombarded with these messages that they are easy to tune out. We gloss over “think positive” messages, saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ve heard that before. Now get to the meat.”
The Best Advice I’ve Received | Jim Rohn – for things to change, you must change and for things to get better, you must get better.
On Inspiring Others | Motivation is everything to a great persuader. Motivation is critical not only for achieving the big, milestone steps toward your objectives, but also for making all the little steps in between. If you’re not driven or motivated, then not only will nothing be accomplished, but you probably won’t even get started. Motivation takes on a dual role in the world of persuasion mastery. Motivation is first and foremost about keeping yourself motivated. Then, once you are a consistently self-motivated person, your focus turns to inspiring and motivating others to take action. Since great persuaders have mastered each of these skills, this chapter is about mastering both of them.
Notice that I said, “once you are a consistently a self-motivated person.” Consistency is the key. You can probably think of countless examples of times when you’ve gotten really excited about something and felt gung-ho about it, ready to take on the world—and then what happened? After a little while, your enthusiasm, excitement, and commitment wore off. Great persuaders stay consistently and predictably motivated.
We have to understand human nature and the psychology of why we do what we do. Sometimes we’re super-motivated, and sometimes we can’t get out of bed in the morning. Why is this? So often, we don’t have a system or understanding in place to keep the motivation going after the initial spark. Motivation doesn’t serve us when it comes exclusively in sporadic bursts. The initial spark is important, but then we need to make sure there’s a way to keep the flame going. Motivation is another one of those key success skills that are not taught in school.
Part of keeping motivation constant is being honest with ourselves and realizing that our emotions, our circumstances, and our discipline will all fluctuate every hour and every day. It is inevitable that we’re all going to have some bad days. You have to be prepared with a motivation safety net. You’ve got to have a system. When your energy, excitement, and motivation are high, think through the ways you’re going to keep the motivation alive on a consistent, daily basis. Envision it as a steady stream rather than a big wave that hits all at once. This concept may sound simple—and it is—but it is very simplicity that makes it one of the most commonly overlooked persuasion tools. Studies through the Persuasion Institute found that when persuaders were asked about their ability to motivate and energize themselves on a daily basis, over 50 percent felt it was a problem. I believe this statistic is as high as it is because people just don’t realize that motivation must be maintained day by day, sometimes even moment by moment.
A lot of our motivation challenges would be remedied if we treated them like physical nourishment. We never say, “Well, I’ve had a big meal. That should do me for the rest of the month.” Obviously, our bodies need nourishment day in and day out. Motivation is the same. Our greatest successes will always occur when they have been accompanied by clear and steady motivation.
We live in a world where we want everything now. We want a quick fix. We want instant gratification and quick results. Not only do we want instant gratification, but we also want it with minimal effort. For example, if you were to ask a random group of people off the street if they wanted to be financially independent, to lose weight, or to have better relationships, most everyone would say yes. But how many of them would then be able to outline a detailed action plan they are actually following to make those things happen? Few, if any, I’d bet. This lack of follow-through is just uneducated human nature. When encouraged, most of us feel the sparks, but we don’t ever actually get the fire started. Or if we do, we don’t have a plan for keeping the fire alive.
The Legacy I Would Like To Leave | I would like to leave the world a better place. Also I want everyone to master the skills of influence – we should have learned this in school.
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