Rodney: There are a lot of myths that I describe at length in the first chapter of my book. One of the ones that comes up early on when I'm working with or teaching people about influence is this idea that if I am advocating for myself asking for stuff, it puts me at risk of having this other person not like say no. Rodney: When the difference or boundaries get muddied and we're pretending that it's a relationship when it's really just a transaction those are the situations when people feel bitter afterwards.
Being influential sounds great, even desirable. But doing influence? That’s when alarm bells go off in our brains—because we tend to imagine the act of influencing as manipulative, coercive, and 100% transactional. And sure, we’ve all had icky experiences with influence. But when we flatten its inherent complexity, we risk missing out on influence’s ability to instigate positive impact.
Yale School of Management professor and author Zoe Chance believes influence is an untapped superpower; that’s why she recently published the book, Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. And it’s why we asked her onto the show to help us break down some common misconceptions about influence, better harness its power to catalyze systemic change, and learn how to ask what she calls the “Magic Question.”
Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com
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