The Art of Influence: 28 Ways to Win People's Hearts and Bring Positive Change to Your Life

by Ryuho Okawa

Your degree of success often depends on your ability to work with, motivate, and inspire people around you. In this book, author Ryuho Okawa shows how mastering the art of influence will help you become a tougher, influential, and stress-free leader who can win the hearts of many and bring positive change to yourself as well as those around you.



In The Art of Influence, Okawa offers insightful answers to the 28 questions he received from people who are aspiring to achieve greater success in life. In the first part of the book, he answers questions about getting ahead at work. He offers advice and solutions to such questions as "How can I win over people above me?" "What kind of mindset should I have when I failed to achieve the goal I pursued?" and "How should I deal with jealousy and criticism at work?" The second part of the book focuses on the topic of winning people's hearts, as the leadership capability to influence and lead others is essential to achieving bigger success. Okawa shares his wisdom for becoming a better leader by answering such questions as, "What is the best way to admonish people who work under me?" "How can I balance my personal happiness and happiness of the whole?" and "How can I garner support from my co-workers?" In the last part of the book, Okawa offers keys to building confidence and maintaining a calm and peaceful mind by answering questions such as, "What is the cause of slumps and how can I avoid them?" "How can I overcome inferiority complex?" and "How can I differentiate true confidence from arrogance?"



At times of trouble, setback, or stress, these pages will offer you the inspirations you need at that very moment and open a new avenue for greater success in life. The practiced wisdom that Okawa offers in this book will enrich and fill your heart with motivation, inspiration, and encouragement. This simple, practical, yet profound guide will show you how to cultivate yourself and influence people up, down, and across.

Genres: Nonfiction

180 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 15, 2019

About the author

Ryuho Okawa is a renowned spiritual thinker, leader, and author in Japan with a simple goal: to help people find true happiness and create a better world. To date, Okawa’s books have sold over 100 million copies worldwide and been translated into 31 languages. His books address vital issues such as how our thoughts influence reality, the nature of love, and the path to enlightenment. In 1986, Okawa founded Happy Science as a spiritual movement dedicated to bringing greater happiness to humankind by uniting religions and cultures to live in harmony. Happy Science has grown rapidly from its beginnings in Japan to a worldwide organization. The spiritual workshops Happy Science offers are open to people of all faiths and walks of life and are rooted in the same simple principles of happiness that inspired Okawa’s own spiritual awakening. Okawa is compassionately committed to the spiritual growth of others; in addition to writing and publishing books, he continues to give talks around the world.

Reviews

[☘︎ elisabet ☘︎ · Rating 1 out of 5]

At first, I did appreciate the spiritual aspect in the book but couldn’t believe the utterly shameless disrespect to all authors in chapter seven: first saying one has to read a thousand books on a topic in order to have an opinion on a subject and then going on to self promote in a very disgraceful and vain way, quote “Happy Science has published more than two thousand books of Truths that cover a wide range of subjects. The culture and knowledge you’ll gain from reading one hundred Happy Science books are equivalent to reading ten thousand other informative books.”

Excuse me, but I will restrain from taking advice on personal development from such conceited person...The style of writing was of a superior role, like Buddha himself yet his teachings are basic human common sense. Throughout all(!) of the book I rolled my eyes thinking “thank you, Captain Obvious”..

I truly wanted to like this book, the title was so very promising!!

[Hillary Nguyen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Coming from East Asian culture, I completely understand a lot of Ryuho Okawa’s explanations about harmonious relationship; but in one simple plain wording, this is a book about how to please people and simplify one’s feelings. Some of the details in this book revealed sexism as Ryuho stated women should learn from men to improve on their professional life because they technically can’t control their own feelings and would let it affect their professional manners or attitudes towards a partner or a co-worker. And I’m not saying it should be categorized as black and white since there were so many elements and aspects tied in together in order for Ryuho to express what he did, but ultimately there are layers and complications when it comes to relationships rather than just trying to make others happy and let go of negativity.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful book that will help you to navigate the world with positive change. The book does have a lot of common sense advice, but some people need it. I found the book a helpful reminder of how in small steps we can create positive day to day changes in our lives. In making them routine, we can change our brain to keep with the authors advice.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the E-arc copy of this book.

[Vaishnavi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a little too spiritual for my taste. The chapters about stress, how to manage ppl and delegate work are good. Ryuho talks about life after death, influence of bad spirits etc. I am not yet there in my life to understand and believe such concepts. But may be in a few years I'll have a broader perspective of life and i might enjoy this.

[Aisha · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is terrible. If you’re new to self help books you may find a nugget or two of information worth implementing. It’s extremely surface level and vague in writing. A lot of responses lead to referring to another book of his to learn a lesson. It’s a quick, easy read but would never recommend it to anyone.

[Sabina-Nicoleta Furtună (Sally) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Deceptive title as the book is only a collection of life advice from a person who can talk to spirits.