Getting The Joke

One thing you can do to help someone be ready to hear is find the way in which learning the new thing decreases their overall pain, and increases the overall pleasure. Go through the following steps:

1. Build rapport. GENUINE respect and affection. This will motivate them to relax enough to reveal their real values, including why they currently do what they do in terms of pain and pleasure. Be sure your suggestion actually improves their lives, if adapted, by THEIR standards. If what you are saying is true, and what they believe false, then ultimately it should help them. If you cannot see how, you aren’t looking deeply enough, and the problem is you.
2. Interrupt their current pattern. You can do this by changing their focus, physiology, or language. Laughter works great. So do hugs, or taking walks.
3. Using language patterns that mirror their own (“speak their language”) show them how their new behavior connects to their own higher values. If you are sensitive and flexible, you will be able to try a dozen different approaches AND NOTICE WHICH ONE GETS A POSITIVE RESPONSE.
4. Do more of that.

The saddest thing I see in this regard is very smart people who complain that people aren’t logical in arguments. Here, I wonder if they know the saying “insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and get different results.”

They are trying logic, noting it doesn’t work. So they try harder. And then blame the other person, saying “well, I guess their minds can’t be changed.”