What My Dryer Taught Me About Influence

I never could have imagined that my dryer would teach me a critical lesson about influence…

Yes, you read that correctly…. my dryer.

Let me explain.

It was moving day, and the inside of our house looked like we had grown a forest of cardboard boxes. Thankfully, we were smart enough to hire a team of movers to help us and watching these guys with biceps bigger than my head lift our piano like it was a teddy bear made me realize it was the best money we had ever spent.

But seriously… bigger than my head.

Anyways, after they left, I had to prove I still owned my “Man Card” to my wife and attempted to hook up the dryer. And so I swaggered into the laundry area with my pitiful bag of tools and yelled, “I’m hooking up the dryer!”

My wife didn’t even hear me, but… at least my pride knew.

Alrighty. A normal dryer. Simple enough, right?

Wrong.

2 hours, lots of tape, muttered curse words, and 3 DIY YouTube videos later, I had finally hooked everything up… and it was time to flip the switch. The anticipated moment came and….

Nothing.

I hit the button again, and nothing. The barren dust-swept deserts of Mars showed more promising signs of life than my dryer, and I wracked my brain wondering what went wrong?

Exhausting the limits of my handyman intelligence, I found the breaker box, flipped the switches (like anyone with a “Man Card” would do)… but still nothing.

That’s when I realized something… the breaker for the dryer had been OFF to begin with. In the mass confusion of the move, somebody had turned the switch off before I even got there, and so turning it on and off didn’t reset it… it just turned it off again.

But the thing is, in my stress and anxiousness, I hadn’t noticed it was off in the first place.

(PHOTO: Actual proof that I should be nowhere near electronics)

The thing is, I had just ASSUMED it was correct to begin with. But I had no idea it was wrong.

Which brings me to influence. Most of the time when we are communicating our value, we THINK the words we are using are working.

We think the power is on, we think these are the right things to say, and we think they leave an impact.

But most of the time, what we say ISN’T working… and despite how many times you flip the switch and try again and again, you just won’t have the impact you want.

That’s because the words we often use are NOT influential to begin with. That’s right… the words we THINK are working, were never designed to succeed in the first place.

But what if you had words that were designed to be influential from the get go… and you knew EXACTLY how to use them? What if they were switched ON in the first place?

That’s why I created “10 Phrases To Get People to Choose You”. It’s free, and I want to give you a head start on influence. You’re going to learn “what” to say and “why” it matters.

So get your copy by heading to the link, and I’m going to be following up in the next few weeks by diving into some of my favorite phrases, and how I frequently use them.

And the dryer? Once the Electrical Panel GENIUS over here flipped the right switch, the dryer turned on and purred like a kitten.

The “Man Card” (and my pride) were both officially saved.

Save yourself the hassle, and start using the phrases that WORK today.

(And get REAL tips from an electrician)

Until next week,

Christian

CHRISTIAN HANSEN has gone behind the scenes in some of the biggest organizations in the world to find out the reasons why some people get chosen and why others don’t. As the #1 bestselling and LinkedIn Top Ten ranked author of “The Influence Mindset: The Art & Science of Getting People to Choose You” Christian helps teams and organizations who want increase their earning potential by standing out from the crowd and influencing people to choose them. With degrees from Brigham Young University and The London School of Economics, he’s helped thousands of individuals position and sell themselves. A fan of international communication, history, and choral music, he currently lives in Utah with his wife. Reach him at: TheChristianHansen.com