Pre-Suasion

Social psychologist Robert B. Cialdini argues that persuasion depends less on the message itself than on the moment just before it is delivered. Building on the research approach of his earlier Influence, he shows how communicators can make an audience receptive in advance by redirecting its attention, without needing to alter attitudes, beliefs or experiences. His term for that prepared state is pre-suasion: changing minds first requires changing states of mind. Examples range from advertising imagery and the treatment of opiate addiction to Berkshire Hathaway's annual letters, online marketing and wartime propaganda. The Financial Times put it on a best business books list, and it was the first book he had written alone in more than thirty years.

Alex Hormozi included it in a list of the only books he studies and rereads. Naval Ravikant said he skimmed rather than fully read it, finding he did not need the whole book to get the point but that what he read was still good.