How to Actually Influence People

On the power of beauty and how great leaders truly change people's minds.

Great leaders throughout history have had the skill to influence, move, and inspire people to change their ways. As Christians, one of the most important aspects of living out our faith is the apostolic duty to spread the Gospel, share the good news of Christ, and in love, help as many people as possible see the Truth.

In that sense, we are all tasked with being leaders. Maybe some will be called to positions of great influence and some others will be called to lead just their home, but we will all carry some of the burden of leadership and thus should understand enough about human psychology and emotion to successfully approach those who haven’t yet found the joy and peace that comes when you surrender your heart to Christ.

You see, one mistake we often make —not just when we attempt to evangelize but also in any sort of cultural discussion—, is that we believe our task is to “own people with facts and logic”. If we demonstrate the logical inconsistencies of the opposing position, our thinking goes, they will obviously see that and change their minds.

And while this approach might work for those who are genuinely interested in actively finding out the truth, in most cases, logic and rational arguments are simply not the right way to influence someone.

People are usually not rational creatures. We don’t make decisions rationally, nor do we behave rationally the vast majority of the time. And yet when it comes to influencing others, we forget this simple fact and try to win people over by presenting exclusively scientific studies and logical arguments, only to be surprised when this only does not help at all, but counterintuitively prevents people from coming over to our side.

This is a crucial mistake that many on the more conservative side of the political spectrum make: believing that rational arguments will convince people to change sides.

Logical, rational arguments have a place and a time, and of course it’s important to understand the reasons why you believe what you believe and to be able to explain why our faith and our moral code is the correct one logically, philosophically, and metaphysically. But most times, the best evangelizers and the most influential people are not those with the best arguments or the most peer-reviewed studies.

It’s a Matter of the Heart

You see, trying to convince someone who thinks differently by presenting them with “facts” and “logic” doesn’t really work because most of the times it’s not people’s intellect that’s the problem, but their hearts.

This is why conversations about relevant cultural topics almost always end up becoming heated emotional debates filled with anecdotal examples and appeals to “empathy”.

Emotions have a strong effect on matters of the intellect, so any attempt to evangelize or convince that focuses solely on the rational will fall short or backfire tremendously.

Christ spoke in parables and communicated the deeper Truths of God in ways that were simple to understand and easy to relate to emotionally. My humble opinion is that He knew that the most effective way to evangelize wasn’t through sophisticated intellectual arguments but by speaking to the heart.

The best leaders, the ones who cause real social change, the ones who truly inspire people and lead them towards something better understand this, and while intellectual knowledge serves as the rock-solid foundation for their beliefs, they understand that they need to speak to the heart of those listening, not to their brains.

Rational discourse has no impact on a closed heart. And most people, as a consequence of the prevalent sins of our age, and due to the prideful notion that we’re now smarter than ever, suffer precisely from hardened, closed hearts.

The way to truly influence people is by softening their hearts, and there are really only two ways in which you can do that.