Michelle: You know that old saying, Mark, "It's not what you say, it's how you say it"? Mark: Of course. It’s the golden rule of not getting into trouble at family dinners. Michelle: Well, it's mostly wrong. What if the secret to influence isn't your tone, or your body language, but a hidden linguistic code that, once you crack it, can get people to not just listen, but to actually change their minds and act? Mark: Okay, a 'hidden linguistic code' sounds like something out of a spy movie. I’m picturing a secret decoder ring. Are you telling me we’ve all been speaking conversational Morse code without realizing it? Michelle: That’s not far off, actually. And the key to decoding it is in a book called Words That Change Minds by Shelle Rose Charvet. What's fascinating is that the author, Shelle Rose Charvet, developed these ideas not in a university lab, but by working for over 30 years with huge organizations like IBM Europe and even CERN, the nuclear research facility. Mark: Wait, CERN? As in, the Large Hadron Collider, trying-to-find-the-God-particle CERN? Michelle: The very same. She was on the front lines, trying to solve real-world communication breakdowns among some of the smartest people on the planet. She found that even geniuses talk past each other if they’re not using the right words. Mark: That I believe. So this isn't just abstract theory. This is a field guide from the corporate and scientific trenches. Where do we even start with cracking this code?

Michelle: We start with the most fundamental question: What actually gets you to do something? The book calls these "Motivation Patterns," and they are the invisible engine driving our behavior. The first, and maybe most dramatic, is the split between being "Proactive" and "Reactive." Mark: Proactive, I get. That’s the person who has their to-do list done by 9 a.m. Reactive is… me, before my first coffee. The person who waits for an email with a red exclamation mark before they start moving. Michelle: Exactly. Proactive people initiate. They jump into action. Reactive people wait for the right moment, for more information, or for someone else to act first. And companies that don't understand this difference can make catastrophic mistakes. There's an amazing story in the book about the "Golden Handshakes" in the early 90s. Mark: Oh, I remember that era. Companies were downsizing and offering these huge buyout packages to get employees to leave voluntarily. Michelle: They did. And they framed it as a fantastic opportunity. They’d say, "Here's a pile of cash, go start a new life!" So, who do you think took the offer? Mark: Let me guess. The go-getters. The ones who were already dreaming of starting their own business. The Proactive ones. Michelle: Precisely. The most dynamic, ambitious, and self-starting employees saw this as their chance. They grabbed the money and ran, starting a massive wave of home-based businesses. The corporations, meanwhile, looked around and realized they had just paid their best people to leave. They were left with a workforce of largely Reactive people, who were much less likely to take initiative. Mark: Wow. So they basically paid a premium to get rid of their own engine. That's a spectacular own-goal. It’s like a sports team trading away all its star players. How does this play out on a smaller scale, though? Like in a team meeting? Michelle: It’s everywhere. The Proactive person says, "Let's do it, let's get started, jump in." The Reactive person says, "Let's think about this, let's understand it fully, let's consider the consequences." A Proactive manager will get frustrated with a Reactive employee for being too slow, while the Reactive employee thinks the manager is reckless. They’re speaking different motivational languages. Mark: And neither is good or bad, right? You need people to analyze and consider things, just as you need people to act. Michelle: Exactly. The book is very clear: there are no good or bad patterns, only patterns that are appropriate or inappropriate for a given context. But it gets even deeper. There’s another layer to our motivational engine: are you moving "Toward" a goal, or "Away From" a problem? Mark: Okay, "Toward" is moving towards pleasure, "Away From" is moving away from pain. Classic psychology. Michelle: Yes, but the language reveals everything. A "Toward" person will talk about their goals, what they want to achieve, attain, and get. An "Away From" person will talk about problems to be solved, threats to be avoided, and things they want to get rid of. They’re motivated by prevention. Mark: I feel like I’m a bit of both. I want to achieve success, but the fear of failure is a pretty powerful motivator too. Michelle: Most people are a mix. But some are at the extremes, and that's where you see incredible things happen. The book tells the story of a therapist's client who had become a millionaire four times. Mark: Four times? What happened the first three times? Michelle: He lost it all. The therapist dug into his patterns and discovered the man had an extreme "Away From" motivation. He grew up poor, and his entire drive was to get away from poverty. So he'd work relentlessly, build a business, and make millions. But as soon as he was rich and comfortable, his motivation vanished. There was no problem to solve anymore. He’d stop paying attention, his business would crumble, and he’d lose everything. Only when he was poor again did his motivation kick back in. Mark: That is both tragic and utterly fascinating. His success was programmed to self-destruct because his motivation was tied to a negative he had already solved. This is fascinating, but I have to ask, this is all based on NLP—Neuro-Linguistic Programming—right? Some people find that field a bit controversial. Is this just about putting people into neat little boxes? Michelle: That’s a fair question, and one the book addresses head-on. The author is clear that this isn't about creating rigid personality labels. The most important word in the entire system is "Context." You might be Proactive at work, but Reactive in your relationships. You might be "Toward" your career goals, but "Away From" when it comes to your health. The LAB Profile is a snapshot of how you operate in a specific situation. It’s a tool for understanding, not a box for labeling. Mark: Okay, that makes more sense. It’s a diagnostic tool for a specific context, not a permanent personality tattoo. That context-driven approach feels much more nuanced and useful.

Michelle: And that idea of context is the perfect bridge to our next set of patterns. It's not just about why we're motivated, but how our brains are wired to handle the world around us—our mental operating system. And there's no better example of a company getting this wrong than the infamous 'New Coke' disaster. Mark: Ah, the business school cautionary tale to end all cautionary tales. They had the data, the taste tests all said the new formula was better. And it still blew up in their faces. Michelle: It did, because they misunderstood a fundamental pattern in our operating system: our relationship with change. The book breaks this down into a spectrum, from "Sameness" people who want things to stay stable, to "Difference" people who crave constant, radical change. Most of us are in the middle, we like "Sameness with Exception"—we want things to be better, an improvement, but fundamentally familiar. Mark: So, evolution, not revolution. Michelle: Exactly. Coca-Cola's customers were "Sameness" people when it came to their drink. It was a cultural constant. By launching "New Coke" and taking the old one away, they triggered a massive backlash from people whose sense of stability was violated. They didn't want different; they wanted the same reliable thing they'd always had. Mark: It wasn't about the taste at all. It was about identity and consistency. Michelle: Precisely. The book points to a brilliant counter-example from a Labatt Blue beer campaign. Their slogan was: "Tired of the same, old thing? Neither are we." Mark: (Laughs) That’s genius! They’re literally saying, "We know you like things the way they are, and we promise not to mess with it." They were speaking directly to the "Sameness" pattern. Michelle: It’s a perfect use of influencing language. In contrast, remember when the Saturn car launched? Their slogan was "A different kind of company. A different kind of car." They were appealing only to the "Difference" people, a much smaller segment of the car-buying market, which generally values reliability and consistency—in other words, Sameness. Mark: That explains so much about modern life. It’s why people get absolutely furious when their favorite app changes the user interface overnight. It’s not about logic; it’s about disrupting their sense of stability. So what are some of the other 'operating system' patterns? Michelle: Another huge one is "Scope," which is about how we process information. Are you a "General" person or a "Specific" person? "General" people love the big picture, the overview, the concept. "Specific" people need the details, the facts, the sequence, the procedure. Mark: I feel like every meeting has this conflict. The big-picture visionary versus the person asking, "But what are the exact steps to get this done by Friday?" Michelle: It's a classic clash. And it can be a huge problem if you don't recognize it. The author tells a story about leading a seminar at CERN. There was this one brilliant engineer who kept derailing the conversation. Mark: At CERN? I imagine the bar for being a 'brilliant engineer' is pretty high there. Michelle: Extremely. But he kept stopping the flow to ask for hyper-detailed definitions of every single word. "What, precisely, do you mean by 'communication'?" The other participants were getting incredibly frustrated. It turned out he had an extreme "Specific" pattern. He couldn't grasp the general concept until he had every single piece of data lined up perfectly. He literally couldn't see the forest for the trees. Mark: So for him, the big picture was just a blurry mess without the individual pixels being perfectly defined. Michelle: You've got it. And if his manager was a "General" person who just said, "Go figure out a solution for this problem," that engineer would be completely lost. He needs a procedure, a sequence. But if you give that same instruction to an "Options" person—someone who loves creating new ways of doing things—they'd be thrilled. Give them a strict procedure, and they'll feel suffocated. Mark: It’s like giving someone who loves to cook a detailed recipe versus just telling them what’s in the fridge and saying, "Make something amazing." Different operating systems require different inputs. Michelle: That's the perfect analogy. And once you know what input someone needs, you can communicate in a way that they can actually process. It's not about being a better speaker; it's about being a better listener and a better decoder.

Mark: So, after all these patterns and codes—Proactive, Reactive, Toward, Away From, Sameness, Specific—what's the one big takeaway here? Are we all just programmable robots responding to keywords? Michelle: The big insight isn't that people are programmable. It's that we're all constantly broadcasting our operating instructions, but most of us aren't listening. We're too busy broadcasting our own. This book gives you the user manual for other people. Mark: I like that. It’s not about hacking them, it’s about finally reading the instructions they’ve been giving you all along. Michelle: Exactly. The real shift, the core idea, is moving from broadcasting your own message to decoding theirs. When you understand someone's patterns, you can frame your message in a way that fits their model of the world. That’s the foundation of genuine influence and connection, not manipulation. It’s about meeting them where they are. Mark: That feels a lot more ethical and, frankly, more effective. So what’s one simple thing our listeners could do this week to start seeing these patterns in the wild? Michelle: Here’s a simple, powerful experiment. For the next week, just listen to how people answer one question: "What do you want in a job?" or "What was important about your last vacation?" Notice if they talk about goals they want to achieve and attain—that's "Toward" language. Or if they talk about problems they want to avoid, hassles to prevent, or things to get rid of—that's "Away From" language. Mark: So you're listening for whether they're running toward a prize or away from a monster. Michelle: A perfect way to put it. Just listen without judgment. You'll be amazed at what you start to hear in everyday conversations. Mark: And we'd love to hear what you discover. Drop us a line on our socials and tell us the most surprising pattern you noticed this week. Are you a 'Toward' or 'Away From' person when it comes to your career? It’s a fascinating question to ask yourself. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.