Narrator: Imagine it's the early 1980s. In a large corporate office, a room full of women sits at their typewriters, part of a highly efficient typing pool. They’ve been doing this job, and doing it well, for years. One day, managers enter the room, beaming with excitement. "We have bought some totally new machines," they announce, "which are going to revolutionize how you do your work!" The managers expect applause, but instead, a wave of panic ripples through the room. Within weeks, many of these experienced typists have resigned, convinced they are too old or incapable of learning this "revolutionary" new technology. The company lost valuable, skilled employees, not because of the technology itself, but because of the words used to introduce it.

What went so wrong? According to Shelle Rose Charvet in her groundbreaking book, Words That Change Minds, the managers failed to understand the invisible language of motivation. They used words of radical change to an audience that valued stability and procedure. This book provides the key to decoding these hidden patterns, offering a powerful tool called the Language and Behavior Profile, or LAB Profile, to understand, predict, and influence human behavior.

Narrator: Before one can understand how to influence others, it's crucial to accept a fundamental truth: no two people experience the same reality. We don't operate directly in the world; we operate based on our internal maps of the world. Charvet explains that these maps are created through three unconscious mental processes inherited from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP): deletion, distortion, and generalization.

Deletion is the process of ignoring certain information. Our brains are bombarded with millions of bits of data every second, so we must filter most of it out just to function. Distortion involves changing our experience of sensory data, like a funhouse mirror. And generalization is where we take one experience and turn it into a universal rule.

A perfect illustration of these filters in action occurred in Paris in the mid-1990s when the city changed its phone numbers from seven digits to eight. This seemingly small change caused widespread confusion. People who had no trouble remembering seven digits suddenly couldn't handle eight. They were experiencing cognitive overload, forcing their brains to delete or distort the information. To cope, Parisians created their own strategies. Some grouped the numbers in twos, others in fours. Some just tacked the new "4" onto the front of the old number. The result was chaos. When asking for a number, you never knew what format you’d get. This simple event demonstrates that our perception isn't a perfect recording of reality; it's a heavily filtered and edited version, unique to each individual. The LAB Profile is designed to understand the specific filters a person uses.

Narrator: At the heart of the LAB Profile are Motivation Traits, which reveal what triggers a person to take action. One of the most fundamental patterns is Motivation Direction: are people motivated to move Toward a goal or Away From a problem?

Those with a "Toward" pattern are focused on achieving, attaining, and acquiring. They are energized by their goals and can easily visualize success. However, they often have trouble recognizing potential problems and can be poor at troubleshooting. In contrast, people with an "Away From" pattern are motivated by avoiding, solving, or preventing problems. They are excellent at spotting risks and troubleshooting, but they can get stuck in a reactive mode and may lose motivation once the immediate threat is gone.

Consider the story of a man who became a millionaire four separate times but lost his fortune three times. A therapist discovered the man had an extreme "Away From" pattern. He was powerfully motivated to work hard to escape poverty. But as soon as he became wealthy and the "problem" of poverty was gone, his motivation vanished. He would stop paying attention to his business until it collapsed, forcing him to start all over again, once again motivated to move away from financial ruin. This shows how an "Away From" motivation, while powerful, needs a constant problem to solve. Understanding this pattern is key to managing both oneself and others.

Narrator: Another critical motivation pattern is the Motivation Source: does a person judge their own performance based on Internal standards or do they need External feedback?

An "Internal" person has a built-in set of standards. They know when they've done a good job because they can feel it inside. They provide their own motivation and can have difficulty accepting outside opinions or unsolicited advice. A classic example is former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. During a Commonwealth meeting, 49 countries voted to impose sanctions on South Africa, while she alone voted against them. When asked about it, she famously declared, "I feel sorry for the other 49." This is the quintessential "Internal" response—her own judgment was the only authority she needed.

Conversely, an "External" person needs feedback from others to know how they are doing. They need to hear "good job" or see the results of their work in the world. They are motivated by recognition, feedback, and external validation. Giving an "Internal" person constant, unsolicited feedback can feel like micromanagement, while withholding feedback from an "External" person can leave them feeling lost and demotivated.

Narrator: How do people approach tasks? This is revealed by the Motivation Reason pattern, which splits people into "Options" and "Procedures."

A person with an "Options" pattern is motivated by possibilities and alternatives. They love to create new systems and find better ways of doing things. They feel constrained by rigid rules and are often energized by the chance to bend or break them. On the other hand, a person with a "Procedures" pattern thrives on following established processes. They want to know the "right way" to do something and are excellent at executing a proven plan. They get stuck when there is no procedure to follow.

The book highlights a fascinating paradox in multi-level marketing (MLM) companies. These companies often use "Options" language in their recruitment, promising unlimited income and the freedom to be your own boss. This attracts "Options" people. However, the actual work of selling the product relies on following a very specific, pre-defined procedure. The result? The "Options" people who were attracted by the promise of freedom are terrible at following the required procedure and often fail. The irony is that if the MLMs used "Procedures" language to attract the right people, their recruits would be far more successful. This mismatch shows how failing to align the task with the right motivational pattern leads to failure.

Narrator: The true power of the LAB Profile lies in its practical application. It’s not just a theory; it's a tool for solving real-world challenges in hiring, management, sales, and negotiation. By asking specific, targeted questions, one can quickly build a profile of an individual or even a group.

A powerful case study comes from an engineering company that was struggling to hire a production manager. Their initial job advertisement attracted 300 applicants, but only one was even remotely suitable. They were wasting enormous amounts of time and money. Charvet’s team was brought in to help. They first profiled the job itself, determining it required someone who was problem-focused ("Away From"), followed rules ("Procedures"), and could work under pressure.

They then rewrote the job advertisement using specific "Influencing Language" to attract this exact profile. The new ad spoke of "preventing problems," "adhering to proven standards," and "ensuring quality." The result was dramatic. The new ad brought in only 100 applicants, but eight of them were excellent candidates. By speaking the language of the person they needed, the company filtered out the wrong candidates before they even applied and attracted a pool of highly qualified individuals. This demonstrates how the LAB Profile can transform a process from a game of chance into a science of influence.

Narrator: If there is one central truth to take away from Words That Change Minds, it is this: effective communication is not about what you say, but about what the other person hears, processes, and is motivated by. Influence is not about having the best argument or the most logical presentation; it is about speaking the other person's unconscious language. By learning to listen for the patterns in how people talk about their experiences—their motivations, their reasoning, their values—you can build rapport instantly and frame your message in a way that is almost impossible to resist.

The challenge this book leaves us with is to become better listeners, but in a completely new way. The next time you are in a conversation, a meeting, or a negotiation, listen past the content. Ask yourself: Is this person running toward a goal or away from a problem? Are they following a map or drawing a new one? Do they look inside for answers or to the world around them? The answers are hidden in plain sight, in the very words they choose. Learning to hear them might just change everything.