A neuroscience insight that might surprise you:
When someone isn't buying into what we are trying to help them with, teach them or convince them of… our instinct is to explain harder. Add more arguments. Give them more reasons to say yes.
But the brain doesn't work that way.
The brain is constantly scanning for risk. These scans are based on the vibrations and frequencies a person is detecting from the people and stimuli around them and within them.
The more the nervous system can detect that a person’s vibrations are signaling:
‘I am not trying to change you - I am here to create optimal conditions for learning and connection’,
the more their systems surrender into the brain-body-blood-flow and electro-chemical patterns needed for learning and openness.
In other words: attempts to convince and change someone doesn’t trigger their brain to want to lean in and learn.
It signals that you are attempting to change that person’s current default pattern. And that triggers caution, hesitation — or even shutdown and resistance.
The people who are able to influence the hearts and minds of others aren't the ones who try the hardest to explain or know the most.
They're the ones who have earned and who own what they are trying to distill. They know it so clearly — because of their lived experience of the benefits of what they're teaching — that the listener's nervous system can receive it without resistance.
Neurologically speaking, our system must signal an intention for connection, not control.
This is key because autonomy and agency are naturally occurring intrinsic motivators for humans.
Buy-in doesn't start with your message. It starts with your signal.
Your nervous system is broadcasting before you open your mouth. And the people in front of you? Their brains are reading your vibrational broadcast (more than your words) to decide whether to lean in or pull away.
This is what researchers call neuroception: the nervous system's below-conscious scanning of safety and threat cues. It happens in milliseconds, before any evaluation of your ideas even begins.
Which means something profound for anyone whose work, wisdom or message depends on people trusting them:
When you're trying too hard to change someone when you speak, the person you're trying to reach registers those signals. A subtle "something's off" that triggers their system into caution, rather than curiosity.
This is why the exact same ideas, presented by two different people, can get completely different responses.
It's not as much about our words and information as we might think.. It’s about the frequencies and signals of coherence, learning and connection that we are transmitting.
These are some of the core principles I'm teaching in The Science of Buy-In master class on February 18th, and it will change how you communicate your ideas and anything you are hoping for others to learn, believe in, emulate.
You'll learn:
→ Why people resist even when your work is exactly what they need (and what's actually happening in their nervous system when they do)
→ The 3 Phases of Buy-In and how to reach people at the nervous system level where decisions actually get made and where commitment to follow through is ignited.
→ The Resonance Language Bank™ — language swaps across four layers that replace defense-triggering terms with phrases that reach people regardless of background or belief system
If you've ever felt like your wisdom and your deepest messages are clearer in your heart and mind than your ability to really put them in words, this class was built for you.
→ Reserve your spot: https://neuroscience.stefaniefaye.com/master-class
Can't attend live? Sign up and get the recording.
And if you can't attend? No worries at all.. I will continue to share insights about all this in upcoming emails, podcasts, articles and YT videos. 🙂
