Hey, I want to thank you for reading this blog post today. It just goes to prove what an intelligent, creative, and thoughtful human being you are. I mean that sincerely. Why do I say that? Well, that’s who this blog is aimed at. And there aren’t that many of us. So, you are one of select group.

Do you want to extend your influence? Here’s a quick tip… find a common ground between yourself and the person/people you are trying to influence. It doesn’t matter whether you are trying to sell someone something, or to persuade them to a certain way of thinking, or to get them to do you a favor. If fact, it works if you’re just trying to get someone to like you.

We like people who are similar to us. We all know that. And studies have both verified it and quantified it. We also are suspicious of people we don’t like. And of people who are not like us. Them durn foreigners. (Of course, that term can be applied to people who are just like us EXCEPT for ….)

So we like people who are similar to us and we dislike people who aren’t. So what?

The “so-what” is that we LISTEN to people we like and we IGNORE people we dislike. (If you don’t believe it, try listening to talk radio for a bit. Talk about seeing/hearing the principle in action.) How are you going to influence someone who is ignoring you? (They might not appear to be ignoring you, but their mind is filtering out anything you say that they don’t already agree with.)

In order for us to get people to hear us (so that we CAN influence them) we have to get them to like us in some measure. And to do that, we need to find something that THEY acknowledge makes us similar.

It can be based on almost anything… from the same town or region; or the same school or college; the same industry; the same hobby; the same love of a particular piece of music; the same initials or name; the same birth date or month; and on and on.

However, it has to be something that differentiates you and them from the crowd. Just the both of you having two eyes or two ears or other common things won’t work. It doesn’t have to be exclusive to just the two of you, but the more selective it makes the two of you, the stronger the effect.

Now, re-read the first paragraph. Every word I wrote in it is true. And sincere. It is also an example of the principles of this tip for influence. (And I don’t mind pointing this out because I really don’t have anything to hide.)

Try this out and tell me out it works for you.

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Recently I posted about the Kimbell Art Museum and almost missing an exhibit that I wanted to catch. As a follow-up to that, I wanted to share what we can do to reduce the procrastination and to accomplish what we need to accomplish and what we want to accomplish (which are not the same things.)

Do you want to get something done? There are three things to do to make it happen.

1. Make sure it doesn’t conflict with an inner value.

If you are at war with yourself, you will lose out. An inner unity to accomplish something achieves power to do it.

2. Become accountable to someone for it.

When you tell someone that you are going to do something and ask them to hold you accountable for it, you create a strong need within yourself to keep your word to them. This provides serious motivation to accomplish the task.

3. Set a hard deadline to accomplish it

Without a hard deadline, you (me, all of us) will put it off, rationalizing that we have time later. “And after all,” we tell ourselves, “I never said when I would get it done.” It is amazing what a hard deadline can cause us to accomplish. (One word of caution here. If you set the deadline too short – so short that your inner self can’t really believe that you can meet it – you will set yourself up for inner conflict (see #1 above.))

Did you find these helpful? My newsletter subscribers got a lot more information on this in the last issue, with more on its way. It’s another good reason to subscribe.

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