Understanding the Art and Psychology of Influence
Jan 08, 2024
According to the one and only John Maxwell, leadership is influence. I highly agree. So is any other area where you're attempting to build trust and motivate people to act on your ideas. That's one of the best definitions of influence that I've heard. It's like building trust and getting people to act on your ideas. It's very simple but it doesn't mean it's easy like so many other things.
We live in this highly distracted world and this ability to truly influence the behavior of other people is more important than ever. So how do you capture the attention of people when they're constantly distracted by a million other things?
Whether it's in business, relationships, your everyday interactions. We all have ideas that we want to share and hopefully have a positive impact on the people around us, the communities we're in and the world in general. However, getting other people to not only listen to us but also to act on our ideas can be a challenge. To really master the art and psychology of influence is a meta skill that's going to enhance every area of your life. And the power of influence really lies in this capacity that we must have an effect on an outcome and positively influence change. And it's crucial whether you're a leader, a marketer, a teacher, a manager, a parent, a police officer, a friend, it doesn't matter, but you have to learn to understand and maximize your skill and the art of influence and the psychology behind that. Because when you learn to harness this power of influence, it can transform your life and the lives of the people around you. It can increase your happiness and it can help you reach new levels of success.
The most powerful communicators and leaders recognize the importance of behaviors and how they drive results. Really powerful leaders understand how to modify or influence certain behaviors to achieve desired outcomes.
When you have the wisdom and the skill set to truly influence other people, you gain the ability to change minds and control outcomes in business and in life.
I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to go and volunteer for a charity function. One of the activities was this awesome snow hill that the kind folks from Ready Ice put together along with a skating rink. I spent a lot of the time at the top of the snow hill helping the kids get into the tube and slide down.
I had to hold the tube while the kids got in backwards and then I spun them around and let them go so they could go down forwards. Everybody was totally cool with it and followed my instructions except for one little guy, and he was, he wasn't very old but he looked at me. I said, "Hey man, just spin around and sit down and I'll spin you back around and shoot you down the hill and it'll be awesome. And he looked at me and he says, "You're lying. You're lying to me." And I kind of giggled to myself and I was thinking, man, this little guy definitely has an older brother, and he wouldn't hear me. I'm said, "No man, I promise. No problem, dude. Just sit down and I'll spin you around. It's going to be awesome." And he did not trust me and therefore he didn't let me influence his decision. And so he tried to climb in kind of forwards in a weird way. It's kind of like Kramer getting into like a phone booth or something. And he kicked my hand off of the tube as he was doing it. So the tube slipped out of my hand and he went down backwards anyways, which kind of manifested his own reality. But he didn't get hurt. He jumped up and he was smiling and happy. So hopefully it was a great experience for him. But, you know, if you can't build trust, you're not going to be able to influence people. And he didn't trust me. And so I wasn't able to influence him.
Mastering the art and psychology of influence, you can enhance your own life and the lives of the people around you. It sounds simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. A simple tip to building trust is being authentic. Because when you're authentic, when you're aligned with your natural truth, your genius, your being authentic and you're trusting yourself to use this authenticity to form connections with other people, because that's how people trust you, because you're being authentic, and they know you're being real, which makes people feel safe, and then they're way more open to taking action on your ideas.
Here's an action item for you on building influence and strengthening your influence muscle.
Think about the people that influenced you positively recently or anytime in your life. What types of things do they do? What did they say that made you feel safe? What did they do that made you really trust them and believe in them?
Then think about the alternative. Think about people who you don't trust or didn't influence you, who were attempting to. Why didn't they influence you? Why didn't you feel safe around them? Why didn't you trust them? Influence is such a powerful skill. The more you intentionally develop it, the better you're going to get at it. And the better you get at it, the more things will positively improve in your life.
People are going to start moving with you and start co-creating your vision with you. And that's how you really create quantum leaps in your life, in your business. That's how you really do what you came here to do.
Thank you for reading this. If you found some value in this, please share it with your friends, check out my website at www.kevinkepple.us you can also listen my podcast Unlock Your Freedom anywhere you listen. Thanks for being here.
I love you,
KK
