‘Influence Is Your Superpower: How to Get What You What Without Compromising Who You Are’, by Zoe Chance.

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What’s it about:

How to be A Big Deal. Kinda.

Using examples from her university course at Yale, Chance shows us how to build better relationships, have effective communications and, generally, get more positive outcomes.  

What Lynn learned:

• Love and play makes magic for children. Chance says of her mum, ‘she was imaginative and the most fun person I knew’ (p. 9). In my work with children, I hope to embody that.

• I’m a bit obsessed with saying, ‘no’. People pleasing makes us stressed, overwhelmed and rundown. When you say ‘no’, think of all the opportunities that you can say, ‘yes!’ to.

• Being rejected is muscle that we can build. So, all those doors slamming in my face was actually a rejection-work-out meaning I’m probably the World’s Strongest Rejection-Resilient Being.

• Ask strangers for favours. They say, ‘yes’ a surprising amount of times. By asking for something, I’m actually doing others a favour by letting them feel good about themselves.

• When you are in scarcity mindset, you can’t shift the focus from yourself. As I do loads of empathetic listening training, this resonates a lot.

• Requesting permission secures a ‘yes’.

• The empty podium rule is a great way to get people to your events, ‘ We’d hate to have an empty podium there with your name on it’ (p. 220).

Fave quotes:

• ‘Along with saying no, the easiest thing you can do to become more influential is just ask. Ask more often, ask more directly, and ask for more.’ (p. 65).

• ‘No one cam ignore the feeling of connection when a brave and vulnerable human being is standing in front of them.’ (p. 90)

• ‘The Kindly Brontosaurus is patient, polite and persistent. You ask for what you want, then you step back. You check back in. You wait, and you check, for as long as it takes.’ (p. 137).

Why relevant right now:

We live in the age of the influencer. Duh. Nah, this isn’t a guide to become a You-tuber, but definitely can inspire personal branding and squiggly career success.

Interest factor: 4/5

Coffee table cred: 4/5

Ignorance of external world while reading: 4/5

Book cover design: 3/5

Help the existential crisis: 4.5/5