coercion vs leadership
Jim Hamilton
January 27, 2025
The ultimate persuasion case study:
Parenting.
After all, when you’ve got a little human who literally knows nothing about the world…
How do you get them to follow the rules?
Well, historically, the way many parents have done this is through some form of coercion.
- “Do this or else you’ll be grounded”
- “No screen time for a week”
- “Because I said so”
- Etc etc
You impose rules upon them regardless of what they think about them…
Because you know better.
Because it’s for the greater good.
And because eventually, when they look back, they’ll be thankful you didn’t let them get cavities or skip school every day or rot their brain with unlimited screen time.
... right?
Now, full disclosure:
I am not a parent.
And I would never presume to dole out advice on the topic.
However:
I listened to a fascinating episode of the Tim Ferriss Show recently with a guy named Aaron Stupple, who wrote a book called The Sovereign Child…
The premise of which is a very provocative idea called:
“Taking children seriously.”
And followers of this approach don’t force their kids to do anything.
- Don’t want to go to school? Stay home and watch YouTube all day instead!
- Don’t want to eat your broccoli? There’s ice cream in the freezer!
- Don’t want to be polite to strangers? Who cares!
I’m being a little facetious, of course…
But it’s not exactly a criminal mischaracterization of the approach.
On the flipside…
What this fellow Aaron emphasizes is how much effort he and his wife put into motivating their kids to engage in healthy behaviors through other means.
For instance:
He talks about how he and his wife will playfully smell each other’s breath after brushing their teeth…
Which has made their five children all want to get in on the fun…
Thereby leading them to brush their teeth.
Clever, I have to admit.
In other words…
They emphasize leading by example over coercion.
Now, does this actually work for raising kids?
I’ll leave that for the parents reading this to decide.
(Methinks Jocko Willink would disagree.)
Nevertheless, it’s a lesson that also applies to selling courses, coaching, consulting, or community to your newsletter subscribers.
In fact, it’s precisely why Email Storyselling works so well…
Because storytelling is the most powerful way to showcase your beliefs and values in ACTION.
It proves you’re not “above the law.”
Or trying to coerce your audience into doing something you don’t actually practice.
As Ben Settle likes to say…
People follow leaders, not experts.
So if you’re looking to harness the persuasive power of leadership through storytelling so you can sell more in every single email you send…
Then grab yourself a copy of my Email Storyselling MBA product below.
Inside, I reveal exactly how I’ve driven 7+ figures in sales for clients with simple text-based and story-driven emails like this one…
Including 20+ winning email breakdowns across multiple niches and clients.
Nothing held back.
If you’d like to learn more, you can do that on the next page:
Jim Hamilton
P.S:
If you want to listen to the whole 3-hour conversation on parenting between Tim, Aaron, and Naval Ravikant…
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