It’s been quite a while since my last post on this site, back in December 2024. If you have been following along, you know this space is all about one core purpose: determining your True North.
But to find your True North, you have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone. You have to challenge your assumptions. On December 16, 2025, I was fortunate to be considered for a structured coaching intervention by our company. I decided to move past simply consuming personal development concepts on YouTube or scrolling through social media feeds and instead bring a true Shoshin—a beginner’s mind—to how I view leadership and growth.
Nearly 10 months into the coaching brings a lot of self-reflection, but the absolute biggest “Aha!” moment happened when my coach and I began talking about a gear we use every single day, yet rarely examine: The Art of Influence.
In professional life, how often do we confuse authority with influence? We assume that a designation, a title, or a box on an organisational chart is enough to make people listen, align teams, or unlock their latent gears. But titles don’t move people. True influence is homegrown, built on how we connect with others at a human level.
Through my coaching journey, I realised that real influence isn’t about manipulation or power plays. It comes down to six timeless principles, and when you understand them, they completely change the way you interact with the world:
- Reciprocity: We have a deeply ingrained human instinct to give back when we receive. True leaders build trust by giving first—giving credit, extending value, and showing appreciation before they ever ask for anything in return.
- Scarcity: We value things more when we realize they are rare or fleeting. Whether it’s a unique window of opportunity or a hyper-focused strategy session, recognising scarcity forces us to operate with more intentionality.
- Authority: This has nothing to do with shouting commands. It’s the calm confidence that comes from deep preparation, true expertise, and a track record of reliability. People don’t follow the title; they follow the person who knows the way.
- Consistency: We all want our current actions to align with our past commitments and values. When we help our teams openly declare their personal goals, their internal drive for consistency naturally pulls them forward.
- Liking: It sounds simple, but people naturally say yes to people they genuinely like. It is built entirely on empathy, active listening, and finding common ground rather than focusing on points of friction.
- Consensus: When things feel uncertain or ambiguous, we instinctively look to the collective group to validate our choices. Highlighting the tribe’s shared momentum is often the gentlest way to guide an individual safely through a storm.
Over the past ten months, I have deliberately increased my social and professional interactions, and I have enjoyed every single bit of it. Stepping into larger circles gave me a front-row seat to watch these six principles play out in real time. I noticed how a simple, genuine act of reciprocity completely shifted the energy of a tense room, and how quiet consistency carried far more weight than an assertion of raw authority.
In my last post, while diving into Adam Grant’s Hidden Potential, I shared a quote I really liked: “This book is not about Ambition. It’s about Aspiration. Ambition is the outcome you want to attain; aspiration is the person you hope to become.”
Unpacking the core elements of influence this year wasn’t just about hitting a professional target. It was about aspiration. It was about understanding the human psychology that connects us all so we can build better scaffolding for ourselves and those around us.
As I restart this regular writing practice on Po10shall, I am incredibly excited to share these real-world coaching frameworks alongside the best personal development insights I gather along the way. Let’s keep exploring what it takes to unlock our latent gears, articulate our goals clearly, and confidently claim our space.
The lights are back on. The journey to our True North continues.
NB – I used Google Gemini AI with prompts to restart my blog by feeding it my last 13 blogs (https://po10shall.com/) and 310 blogs (https://rightimpacttochangehearts.com/) to generate this blog.
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