We all make mistakes. I myself regularly make mistakes.
When you do, you kick yourself, you beat yourself up, but hopefully you learn from them as well. And, I’m sure you’re in the same boat. It doesn’t matter how much we know or how little we know. We are all human and prone to making mistakes.
When it comes to influence, there is one mistake that I make and I see others making time and time and time again. Maybe it’s about time we started to root this out.
And, that mistake is simply not attempting to influence.
It’s easy. We know we want something. We want to do something. We want somebody else to do something.
But in our own little world, in our own little mind, we start to rationalise it, and actually we start to talk ourselves out of attempting.
We think they’re going to say no. We even fantasise about why they’re going to say no. We line up all the arguments and say they’re never going to say yes. What’s the point of asking?
Yet, what I also know is that those people who do ask, even in a clumsy way, even with poor levels of skill, succeed with their influence. Quite often all it takes is a well directed question aimed at the right person at the right time, to get the result. Often just like that.
So, I would encourage you (and I’m going to do this myself as well), that whenever you are resisting or feel yourself resisting an attempt to influence someone, recognise that you are probably making a big mistake and do something about it.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
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