Emotional Intelligence and Persuasion: A Lottery Ticket Tale

I recently had a fascinating experience while trying to purchase a lottery ticket.

I’m no regular lottery player, but there are a few dates – like my daughters’ birthdays – when I’m in the mood for risking $10 on a ticket.

You might wonder what a lottery ticket has to do with leadership and persuasion!

Well, it all comes down to how you handle adversarial gatekeepers who try to prevent you from reaching your goals.

Here’s what happened the other day:

I went into the store to buy my ticket. In my enthusiasm, I forgot to check if there was a line and walked directly to the store clerk. 

My first clue about the trouble ahead was the uninviting raised eyebrow I got from her and her finger pointing at a line of five people ahead of me.

OK, my bad. After a few minutes of waiting in line, my turn came. I asked the lady to get me a ticket for Saturday’s draw. Her smileless response confirmed my fears:

“I don’t pay much attention to that stuff and have no interest in those games. What ticket do you want? Oh, by the way, it’s cash only”.

Someone here was having a bad day. I quickly did a mental inventory of what was going on.

How come she didn’t know the PowerBall draw was on Saturdays? And how could she miss that you can pay for your lottery tickets with a debit card in California?

I could have started a “fight,” but I decided to keep it as positive yet factual as possible with a confident smile on my face. I went on saying:

“I think you’re right; what a waste of money to be gambling with zero-to-none odds of winning. But right now, you are my only chance ever to become rich, and I’m foolish enough to go with a $10 Powerball ticket for this Saturday, paid with my debit card”.

Guess what happened?

Not only did I get my ticket, paid with my card. I also got a smile back.

What did I do here?

I adopted a calm, non-threatening attitude with a soothing, respectful, yet assertive tone. And yes, I peppered it all with some humor. 

This simple situation reminded me of a few essential things to do when facing uncooperative gatekeepers. These can be coworkers, executive assistants, or front desk employees at potential customers.

Again and again, I’ve seen that adopting the right tone, using empathy, and sometimes humor will help you defuse unnecessary tension and reach your goals.

I used to struggle a lot with uncooperative people. I focused too much on the facts and less on emotions.

Then, after getting many doors slashed in my face, I started to pay more attention to the emotional cues these gatekeepers were sending me.

And even when they were wrong, and facts were in my favor, I realized I had to “sell them” on helping me out. Being right simply wasn’t enough in those situations.