Posted by Steven
We see persuasion every day in our lives. Persuasion is not about facts and arguments; it’s about your personal choices. What persuades people is the person doing the persuading, not the fact themselves. The soulful element of persuasion makes you more inspirational and persuasive as a person. Another thing that we are all capable of doing is developing habits that we were not born with, and we can also perfect the habits we were blessed with that are already in our lives.
I believe there should be a few principles we should all strive to live by each day. Number one is to be yourself; everyone else is already taken. So making peace with your authentic self can make every experience on this path of life much more interesting and entertaining. When you’re at peace with yourself, you’re more open to being present, which means you’ll notice and enjoy the intricacies of the “small stuff.” When you’re in tune with you, you automatically, yet non-verbally give those around you permission to get to know and like the real you as well. It took me many years to realize this, but I could really tap into who I really was once I did. At that moment is when I figured out my passions and interest in life. Being yourself is the building block of persuasion and a positive trait to be passing onto your kids or others. I’ve always made it a point to verbally let my daughter know that expressing herself physically, emotionally, and mentally are important factors in being yourself and never holding back on what you feel or even what you want to wear. These factors have allowed her to tell me when she feels sad, happy, or doesn’t feel like doing life that day. My goal is to have her be her authentic self in life and carry that onto the real world.
The second principle is generosity. Generosity can come in many forms: words, money, time, things, influence, and attention. I know that if I’m having an off day and someone does an act of generosity, it will positively impact me. The best communicators use stories because they are captivating and remembered. Few things will have a greater impact on others than sharing stories about how and why we engage in generosity. The purpose of this principle is to help the person be better off than when you found them. Generosity can also bring incredible benefits through multiple generations of family. I know that it is important to teach my kids to be wise with money so that they can live their best possible life. Finally, generosity goes a long way in the art of persuasion because it truly shows the person that you care about them. From my experience, when you show someone that you care about them, it makes it easy to persuade them. However, the goal is simply to be generous, not always to persuade. If we apply these principles to our lives, we’ll find it a lot easier to influence and inspire people.