🐊 Your Alligator Brain & Influence
You’re at a restaurant, starving.
The server hands you a menu the size of a small novel.
Pages upon pages of options. Pasta. Sushi. Burgers. Breakfast?
Why is breakfast on here?
Your brain starts spinning.
Do you go for the safe choice? Try something new? What if you order the wrong thing? You’re overloaded and ready to ralph because you’re ravenous and have too many choices.
Then, your friend—calm, collected, and significantly less hangry—says, “I’m getting the burger. It looks amazing.”
Relief washes over you. You close the novel-menu and say, “Same. I’ll get the burger.”
Just like that, your decision is made. Effortless. Instant. No more stress.
What happened here? Your 🐊alligator brain took over.
The Science of the 🐊Alligator Brain
We like to think we make decisions rationally, but most choices happen fast, instinctively, and emotionally.
Psychologists like Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) describe this in dual-process theory:
System 1 – Fast, automatic, instinctive, emotional (a.k.a. the alligator brain).
System 2 – Slow, deliberate, rational, and effortful (the part we think is in charge).
The kicker? System 1 drives most decisions. System 2 just justifies them afterward.
That’s why your friend saying, “The burger looks amazing” worked so well. It instantly checked all three alligator-brain boxes:
✅ Helpful – Great, someone I trust made a decision. I’ll follow their lead.
✅ Safe – If they’re getting it, it must be good.
✅ Easy – No more menu overwhelm. Done.
This shortcut to decision-making is persuasion at its finest.
How this applies to you and your presentations
If you want to influence someone—whether in a presentation, pitch, or even a casual conversation—you need to engage System 1 first.
Here’s what not to do:
❌ Overload with details (“Let me walk you through all 37 features of our product…”).
❌ Make them work too hard (“First, I’ll talk through an extremely complicated process…”).
❌ Ignore the emotional hook (I’ll just stick to the facts…).
Instead, persuade like the friend who confidently orders the burger:
✔️ Make the benefit instantly clear (“This will help you right now.”).
✔️ Eliminate risk (“Others have done this, and it worked.”).
✔️ Remove friction (“It’s easy—just say yes.”).
Real-World Example: The persuasive power of social proof
A company once ran an experiment on hotel towel reuse.
1️⃣ Approach A (System 2 Appeal): "Help save the environment by reusing your towel."
2️⃣ Approach B (System 1 Appeal): "75% of guests in this hotel reuse their towels—join them!"
Which one worked better?
✅ Approach B. By a landslide.
Why? Because it engaged System 1. It was helpful (clear benefit), safe (everyone else is doing it), and easy (just hang your towel up).
Le bottom line
If you want your audience, manager, or heck, even your mother-in-law to say yes, don’t just appeal to logic. Speak to their alligator brain.
Will this help them? Make the benefit immediate and obvious.
Will this harm them? Remove friction, doubt, and unnecessary effort.
Is this easy? Make the next step effortless.
And if you’re still skeptical? Think back to the last time you stared at a massive menu (cough, I’m looking at you, Cheesecake Factory), overwhelmed—until your friend made the decision easy.
We all crave clarity, safety, and simplicity.
When you provide that? Influence becomes effortless.
Ready for your team to speak to the alligator brain in their next presentations? 🐊🎤
Your team’s audience doesn’t want to work hard to understand them. They want clarity. Simplicity. A message that sticks.
Let’s turn information overload into influence overload with a corporate training workshop series that makes communication effortless (and, dare I say, enjoyable?).
📅 Book time to talk about a workshop series today—because if your team is making their audience wrestle with too much info, the alligator brain is already saying nope.
👉 Click here to chat before another presentation gets lost in the swamp!
