Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen

Rediscover the superpower that makes good things happen, from the professor behind Yale School of Management's most popular class

“The new rules of persuasion for a better world.”—Charles Duhigg, author of the bestsellers The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better
 
You were born influential. But then you were taught to suppress that power, to follow the rules, to wait your turn, to not make waves. Award-winning Yale professor Zoe Chance will show you how to rediscover the superpower that brings great ideas to life.

Influence doesn’t work the way you think because you don’t think the way you think. Move past common misconceptions—such as the idea that asking for more will make people dislike you—and understand why your go-to negotiation strategies are probably making you less influential. Discover the one thing that influences behavior more than anything else. Learn to cultivate charisma, negotiate comfortably and creatively, and spot manipulators before it’s too late. Along the way, you’ll meet alligators, skydivers, a mind reader in a gorilla costume, Jennifer Lawrence, Genghis Khan, and the man who saved the world by saying no.

Influence Is Your Superpower will teach you how to transform your life, your organization, and perhaps even the course of history. It’s an ethical approach to influence that will make life better for everyone, starting with you.

Zoe Chance is a writer, teacher, researcher, and climate philanthropist. She’s obsessed with the topic of interpersonal influence, and her science-based but fun and life-changing book is called Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. She earned her doctorate from Harvard and now teaches the most popular course at the Yale School of Management (Mastering Influence and Persuasion). Her research has been published in top academic journals and covered in global media outlets. She speaks on television and around the world, and her framework for behavioral change is the foundation for Google’s global food policy. Before joining academia, Chance managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie brand, helped out with political campaigns, and worked in less glamorous influence jobs like door-to-door sales and telemarketing. She lives with her family in New Haven, Connecticut.