Self-confidence is for kids, gaining certainty is what adults are looking for.

Jay Abraham once said, “People are silently begging to be led”.

But people follow who? what characteristics do you need to have? and what are the reasons they follow you?

Is there a way to achieve this?

One key element to understand is that people want to become like you (If you show them where you are). Because you’ve completed a journey they want to complete, they see you as their tour guide (Leader).

So, there is a gap between where you are and where your followers (Audiences) want to be. The gap motivates them to take action and make the necessary changes.

You need to show them where you were and where you are now. This creates a belief in your followers that they can be like you if they take the necessary actions.

Famous influencers and media personalities on social media are using this technique to their advantage.

People like Andrew Tate or Dan Bilzerian. They live the life their follower dream of living.

But there is more to sharing your message and gaining influence than just living the life.

You need to be certain in your voice and message.

Gaining certainty can take time. Finding your voice can take time.

The more you share your thoughts, beliefs, and message, the finer your message will get and the more certain you become. That’s why it’s important to post, write or record daily.

There are steps to this but before we dive deeper, understand this.

People can get common advice elsewhere for free. Your message and sharing should be unique, you should believe in it.

What value, stories, or experiences do you provide for them?

What’s the thing you stand for?

Be Interesting Character

To become an interesting character, you need to be yourself, stand for what you believe, and live a life that your followers dream of living.

If you are talking about being a writer, you need to live being a writer. That comes by writing daily and sharing what you wrote with your followers.

If you are a gym trainer and your message is to have a healthy body and healthy mind, show them your gym workouts, daily steps you took, and how you did meditation to stay mentally healthy.

You need to live what you teach.

People can sense the slightest doubt in your message, you need to keep certainty all the time, and certainty only comes by sharing your message daily and believing in it.

The other part of being an interesting character is showing people you care a lot, you care about them.

There’s an old saying that goes, “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”

If your followers think you are in this just for money, your message won’t last long. Your following will not grow.

If you are certain in your message and certain how you can help them, you will teach and train them for free, because that’s how much you care about them.

And last but not least, provide value, your followers want to see some sort of value in exchange for the time they spent listening to you or reading your writing.

The Real Motive

You need to understand people make decisions to feed their hidden motives, so if you want to share your message with them you need to talk to those motives.

Zig Ziglar, used to say, “People buy on emotion and justify on logic.”

We are all emotional beings.

But those motives are not only applicable in sales and marketing, we are talking about influence here.

When you meet someone for the first time, your subconscious mind constantly works toward judging and understanding the status of that person and comparing it with your status in society.

Is this person I’m considering listening to going to increase my status or decrease it?

Every decision we make in life is guided by status.

What schools did you go to? who did you date? what car do you drive? What company do you work for?

All of our decisions are tied to status.

We constantly and subconsciously ask ourselves this question: Is this thing I’m considering going to increase my status or decrease it?

If status is such an important factor in our minds, then to land your message you need to talk to your follower’s status.

By repeating and refining your message, talk more about things that elevate their status and eliminate things that decrease their status.

But what factors elevate status:

· Anything that makes them look smart (Philosophy, books)

· Wealth, power, happiness

· Weight loss, makeup, supplements

· Style (Think Louis Vuitton, Lamborghini, Rolex watches)

For example, if you are a fitness trainer and you teach them about different diets and supplements and you live a life of being happy and physically powerful, then in your audience’s mind you are a person who can elevate their status.

Another example is, if you are a social media influencer and your message is about being productive and successful, then sharing books you read, wearing Rolex watches, and driving Lamborgini is to show them that they are listening to a person who can elevate their status.

But the true power is not only in showing your status, it’s in showing them how to gain this status for themself.

How?

In your message, whether that’s a Tweet, article writing, podcast, or anything. You list benefits they can get by doing this or that, because you did this and got that.

Example: If you Tweet about writing or audience building.

You can say something like:

I have gained 2,000 followers in the last 90 days and made my first $5k per month.

Here is how you can do the same, leave your 9–5 and have a happy life.

Then explain the steps…..

In this message/Tweet, first, you gained status by talking about 2,000 followers, 90 days, and $5k

Then telling them how to do it, to elevate their status.

Learn Storytelling

Not sure why, but it took me many years to understand storytelling.

I always thought storytelling was like telling fiction stories, telling imaginary stories, like the way grandmothers used to tell when we were kids.

We tell stories to connect, to relate to create this belief in others that they can do so.

Stories are the highest form of communication and the strongest way to share your message.

It’s not about teaching your best content and telling them the ins and outs of a path you walked. If they don’t believe they can do the same, they won’t take any action.

You need to create this belief in your followers that they can do the same.

The bridge between where you are and how they can get there is built on a story. The story is a vehicle to shift your followers’ beliefs from can’t to can.

Stories break and rebuild false belief patterns that stop them from taking necessary actions they need to change.

This simple realization took me many years to understand.

How to tell a good story?

Every story has three fundamental elements:

. Character

. Challenge

. Desire

All stories are about a character (poor, good, bad, ugly, superman) who is after some changes and along the way faces challenges to achieve those changes.

If you got these three things right, then you got a good story.

For example: If your message is about getting into reading books to be smarter, learn more, take action, and elevate your status.

Then your message won’t be effective unless you add a story that followers can relate to and believe they can do the same.

You can say something like:

When I was a kid I was always struggling to focus. My mind was constantly jumping from one place to another place. I was never good at paying attention and getting the job done. (Character)

I’m not sure if I had ADHD, or if I was just different. But this inability to focus cost me many bad grades, and challenges in school and made me believe I’m a stupid person all the time. (Challenges)

But when I grew older, I realized, that focus and attention are like muscles that can be trained. I learned productive hacks to gain control over my focus. One of the things that helped a lot was the time boxing technique and blocking 50 minutes of my time on a timer to focus and do a single task. (Acheving desire)

This was the time I started reading book after book, article after article, and was able to be smarter day after day.

By telling stories like this, people can relate, and they can believe things like focus and attention are trained and learned.

Storytelling is a way to persuade people to believe in what you are doing or saying.

Learn persuasion

There are a lot of ways to persuade someone.

You can read many books, and listen to many gurus, but no one said it better than Blair Warren:

People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions, and help them throw rocks at their enemies.

The value you are going to provide to your followers should be wrapped in persuasion and packaged in a story then delivered to them.

What do I mean by that?

If your followers are after receiving values from you, then first we need to understand what are values to them?

When we discuss someone’s needs, wants, concerns, fears, mistakes, and motivations, we’re focused on understanding them better and helping them in various aspects of their life.

Sharing our experiences, giving advice, and supporting them to achieve their goals and overcome challenges.

These are values they are looking for.

By encouraging their dreams, we talk about their needs and wants, we tell them how is possible to reach their dreams.

By justifying their failures we take the blame for their past failures, mistakes, procrastination, laziness, and lack of action. This way we connect with them on a deeper level and we gain authority in their mind.

By allaying their fears, we put rest to their fears, we give them hope and support them until reach their goals. We are bound with them as close friends, someone who they can lean to.

By confirming their suspicions, we confirm that changes are possible, when you can confirm in story format that you had similar suspicions and describe how you overcame them, it will connect people to you.

And finally, by throwing rocks at their enemies, you tell them it’s ok that we all pay taxes, life as 9–5 is sucks, the income gap is growing, and we have all these enemies. But we are together as a team and we will make it.