Invisible Influence: The Power to Persuade Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

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Intentional Reality

You’re about to meet someone and the stakes are high.

You’re about to ask them a question that really matters. Perhaps the answer will determine your income, your job security, whether you’ll have the date with the cute girl next week … or not.

But I have bad news.

They are going to say no.

You can change that right now, if you can wrap your mind around the fact that the birthplace of influence is in your own brain.

What the person is going to be like, and what their response to you and your request is going to be is, in significant part, happening right now between your ears.

In His Own Image

The Bible says that God created man in “his own image.”

It turns out that God gave man a touch of that creative power as well.

This story about how you shape others in your own image has a few twists and turns, and a surprise ending with a lot of Ahas and Wows in between. You may never see yourself or others in the same way.

The truth is that yes and no often rest squarely on the creative power of your imagination.

Let me explain that. Go back with me to a time in the not-so-distant past. We’re at the University of Minnesota, in 1977.1

Fifty-one men and women are paired up to have a telephone conversation. They are told they are part of a nonverbal communication study that looks at the process of how people become acquainted when they do not meet in person, and there are no nonverbal elements present.

The women in each pair fill out a brief background profile, giving ...