8 Influence Tool Categories (from Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance)

The 99 Influence Tools in the book "Student to CEO: 97 Ways To Influence Your Way To The Top In Banking & Finance" are grouped into the following 8 chapters.  Below are links to posts summarising my view on the contents of each of these chapters and the key take-away points, for quick reference:

1. "Know Your Map" Influence Tools
2. "Know What You Want" Influence Tools
3. "Be Willing To Do It" Influence Tools
4. "Be Passionate" Influence Tool
5. "Believe You Can Do It" Influence Tools
6. "Date To Be Different" Influence Tools
7. "The Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top" Influence Tools
8. "Do It In Service" Influence Tools

“Do It In Service” Influence Tools

The “Do It In Service” influence tools are all about ensuring that everything you do is for a good cause and that you focus on the value that you are delivering for others (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

In the words of Chinese Taoist Philosopher Lao Tzu, “A leader is one who serves”. This applies to everything in your life. Whether you are working for someone, or have people working for you, your success lies in helping those around you to succeed. As a leader, this means shielding your team from issues, removing obstacles and enabling them to do their jobs to the utmost of their ability. When working for others, it is all about fulfilling your responsibilities and exceeding expectations to deliver to the needs of those that you are working for.

When you do something for someone, you are helping them. They will appreciate it and it will make you feel good to have helped them. You should not do things to expect anything back: just knowing that you have helped should be enough. However, the great thing about doing things for others is that it creates a feeling of goodwill, it builds good relationships and more often than not, in the future, those people will repay the favour. Not only that, but the more value you deliver to others, the more your reputation will grow in the eyes of others. It will open up new opportunities to help others and lead to more and more success.

“Doing it in service” is in many ways one of the easiest things to do but also one of the most powerful. Whatever you do, think about how you are doing it to help others and make sure you keep this in mind to ensure that you deliver more value and success every day.

“The Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top” Influence Tools

The “Skill Of All Skills To Climb To The Top” influence tools cover more advanced concepts about the way that people perceive you and respond to things that you do. They are about building relationships that deliver mutual value and success to you and those that you interact with (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

These influence tools cover concepts such as:

• Do lots of things that help other people: do not expect anything in return, but know that if you do something for someone, they will feel implicitly that they should do something for you in return and the more that you help people the more they will be there for you when you need them;
• Take an interest in others and show it: focus on them, ask questions and listen rather than talking about yourself, find out about them and use this to help engage with them more effectively;
• Bring all of these things together: building on all of the previous influence tools, you must consistently deliver when you say you are going to do something, keep positive when talking to and about people, use the intelligence that you gather by finding out about people to add more value than anyone else.

“Dare To Be Different” Influence Tools

The “Dare To Be Different” influence tools are all about what you can do to stand out from the crowd, what you should do to ensure that you do not make the mistakes that many people make and instead take the less trodden path of success (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

Key themes include:

• Be different: learn from other people's mistakes, don't keep doing the same thing if it isn't working for anyone else, take a different approach and keep adapting until you find one that works (and the order in which you do things makes as big a difference to your success as the things that you do);
• Focus on relationships: build and maintain great relationships, develop a powerful support network but avoid stepping on other people's toes if they have helped you out;
• Think big: don't be a cog in the machine, design and run the machine! Utilise the people around you in constructive and mutually beneficial ways to get more done than you can on your own;
• Build your personal brand: your reputation is one of your most valuable assets. It is what people think of you and directly affects every interaction you have with everyone in your life. Make sure that accountability and reliability are part of your reputation, then nurture and protect it at all costs;
• Focus on results: quantifiable, tangible results are far more important and impressive than academic grades. What have you actually done? Can your successes be converted into financial value? Make sure that you document your successes throughout your career – both as evidence to use when opening opportunities and for your own personal development and reflection.

“Believe You Can Do It” Influence Tools

The “Believe You Can Do It” influence tools are all about your beliefs, values and attitude towards opportunities and challenges. They are also about how you behave and deal with situations and experiences (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

You need to believe in yourself and your own abilities to be successful. You also need to have psychological control and to consistently take action in a way that is empowering to yourself.

Key themes include:

• Believe in yourself
• Avoid and ignore negative psychological influences
• Act in a way that is authentic, responsible and decisive
• Continuously review progress and remind yourself of where you are going and why

“Be Passionate” Influence Tool

The “Be Passionate” influence tool has one short and simple message: whatever you do, throw yourself into it and do it with enthusiasm and energy (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

Doing anything with passion will increase your levels of success, because you will care more about it, spend more time on it and will have the drive to make it happen.

You will know if you are passionate about something because being passionate is an emotional thing: you will feel emotionally connected, will be interested, excited and enthused. When you get up in the morning you will want to get working on it; you will want to talk about it and will be proud of it.

Finding and living your passion is also satisfying and fulfilling. What would you rather be working on: something that you find a boring chore or something that you are passionate about and love to do?

"Be Willing To Do It" Influence Tools

The “Be Willing To Do It” influence tools are all about taking massive action towards your outcomes, building on the “Know What You Want” influence tools to maintain energy and drive, overcoming any challenges that come your way and doing things that others don’t do, to become the “top 1%” of achievers and void the pitfalls of “the 99%” (read more about Student to CEO Influence Tools here).

The areas these influence tools cover are similar to the “Know What You Want” influence tools, but are even more action-oriented and include some very specific pieces of advice in relation to how to deal with situations and how to act. The key themes covered include:

• How to deal with criticism, overcome challenges and stay committed
• How to set expectations, hold yourself accountable and drive action
• How to do more than anyone else and stand out from the crowd
• How to continuously grow, learn and develop
• How to develop an attitude that is empowering and successful whilst turning negatives to your advantage