so welcome to influencer the power to change anything let me ask you a couple of questions how many of you find it difficult and challenging to change another person's behavior raising hands and how many of you have heard it said if only I had the authority or the power I can get him to change now a totally different set of questions how many of you find it difficult and challenging to change your own behavior and we have all the authority and power right we have all the authority and power so so what is it about influence that challenges us I think most of us would probably agree that it takes a little bit more than just commitment to change and that's where influence comes in now my assumption here and hope it's a good guess is that this isn't your first rodeo it's not the first time you've been thinking about influence and leadership so we all come to our work today with some successes with some challenges and with some struggles and we all come with a theory the problem is that we've rarely stepped back and asked ourselves what is it that I really believe about influence in other words what is my theory and so when we play it out and it doesn't work we're stumped how could this possibly be our job today is going to be just take a step back and cast a bigger frame around influence than perhaps you've been used to doing before what I'm going to bring is something broader something perhaps more complete job number two is to step back and examine our theory of influence so that we can actually do some different things and accomplish a lot more so how does that sound for a plan sound good what I'd like to have you do is if you haven't already introduce yourself to the person next to you and just declare that you're gonna buddy up for the next 45 minutes or so so go ahead and do that wonderful and before I give you your assignment I'm gonna share with you what my reflections have been on my own personal challenges in the area of influence I actually sat down and did that at the beginning of the year influence challenge number one look at this group of successful courageous young women and back in November of 2008 we got together and formed the charter group an initial investor group of an organization called the moxie movement now the moxie movement is a national membership organization that has the mission to significantly increase the number of women in leadership positions in on boards in major corporations around the country so influencer challenge how you get busy successful women to part with their time their energy and make a commitment to their own professional development and those of their peers for a fee so how do I get him to join up influencer challenge another influencer challenge that came up with for me was this gentleman here on the left his name is Ron and we've been married for the last 42 years now one thing that ron has done successfully and consistently over the last 42 years is to gain one maybe one and a half pounds a year so I just want you to focus in on that profile okay now this little guy on the wooden stump in front of him is our oldest grandson max max is 8 and he's got three little cousins how do I get Ron to adopt a lifestyle and an exercise routine that will insure me that maybe he'll be around to accompany me as Max and the kids grow up and some of you might be saying well that's a husband problem but in all reality it's just like the prior problem it's an influencer problem how do I get him to do that so with those just a couple of examples what I'd like to have you do is take some reflection time for yourself I'm going to give you two minutes and here's the exercise if you had a magic wand what would you like to change either in your behavior or in the behavior of somebody else and just take two minutes to brainstorm and we'll come back together and process some of our some of our examples go