Page 32 - The Power to Change Anything

You’re an Influencer 21

tinued learning. We can become powerful influencers. We
don’t have to wait for everyone else to miraculously change. We
won’t have to constantly seek serenity.
It also means that the changes we need to make won’t be
too intrusive. We don’t need a lobotomy, a pep talk, or an infu-
sion of tenacity. Instead, we simply need to expand our self-
image by seeing ourselves as influencers; it’s the one job that
cuts across every domain of our life. In addition, like any ded-
icated person, we need to study the works of the influencers
who are already good at the job. As we learn the strategies influ-
ence masters have been implementing for the past five decades,
we’ll be in far better shape to take on the profound and per-
sistent problems that have been plaguing us for years.
Notice that we have used the word “strategies.” We’ve cho-
sen the plural because there is no one strategy—no silver
bullet—for resolving profound, persistent, and resistant prob-
lems. When it comes to the problems that have us stymied, it
takes an entire set of influence methods. We’ll help you create
your own set of tools by sharing the strategies used by every
influencer we’ve studied.
These influence strategies, by the way, are value-neutral.
They can be used either to break or to cause a heroin ad-
diction. They can be used either to create or to destroy a
customer-driven corporate culture. Naturally, the influencers
we studied routinely aimed their strategies at deserving, even
noble causes. But not everyone does or will. We knowingly
share the powerful methods of the world’s best influencers as
a way of making them both accessible and transparent. To the
degree that people understand new strategies, their ability to
make their own life better grows exponentially. To the degree
that people understand the forces that are already influencing
their behavior, they are more empowered to choose their
response.
Any one of the influence strategies we explore, combined
with what you already know, could be enough to put you on