Brendan Kane argues that influence comes from how you make people feel, not what you say. People remember being made to feel seen, having promises kept, and being treated the same regardless of status. Influence is built through relationships that consistently make others feel valued.
This is how you become a person of influence, like somebody people truly respect and look up to. There's a powerful idea from the writer Maya Angelou who said, "People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel." And what she meant is that influence is emotional before it's intellectual. So instead of focusing on what someone says, pay attention to what they do. Influential people make other people feel seen even in small, ordinary moments. They do what they say they'll do even when it's inconvenient. They don't change how they treat people based on status or situation. It doesn't look like power, but it creates something far stronger. You see, influence is not about having control over people. It's about building relationships that make them feel seen.
