My daughter is a piano student. At first, when beginning any instrument, students have to learn a number of things from reading music to understanding tempo to really grasping the emotion of a piece. All of these things to into music. It's not common that a person can hear a piece once and then sit down to play it as if they've been practicing for years.

Even advanced pianists learn pieces hands alone--learning one hand separate from the other--eventually putting them together to play the piece.

There's a long road from beginning student to a sonata.

Breaking things down to their element and practicing, practicing, practicing... that's the goal with learning anything, from the piano to persuasion.

I think everything is powerful in its simplicity and when we start junking it up with too much complexity, that's when it goes awry.

When I first got involved in the world of persuasion, I thought about all the trainers and teachers in this field who have not succeeded. I realized that it's partly because they are trying to do all these complex things all together and none of it works.

Even to this day I drill myself on the basics. Mastery of the simple details, the patterns, the embedded commands, the pacing, the leading. . . these are all ingredients that when combined become delicious persuasion.

So I started working to do that and I started to put those things together. But all of a sudden the more complex things just started happening.

Well now I get it, and I'll tell you something, the most profound things in the world are that which are really simple. And when you get really good at it, the big things start coming together more and more.

Take a few moments and evaluate the core of what you're persuading people to do. What are the simple principles? Focus on these, and watch your results begin to climb.