Welcome back to Season 11 of the Neuroscience Meets Social and Emotional Learning Podcast, where we connect the science-based evidence behind social and emotional learning and emotional intelligence training for improved well-being, achievement, productivity, and results using practical neuroscience.
In today's episode, number 336, we continue our 18-week Self-Leadership Series based on Grant Bosnick's tailored approaches to self-leadership. We delve into Chapter 10, exploring the neural science of persuasion and influence. This topic emerged as a key focus area for 2024, providing insights into why understanding persuasion and influence is essential for long-term success.
We revisit past episodes and notable works like Jack Carew's You'll Never Get No for an Answer and Mark Waldman's Words Can Change Your Brain. Learn about the three modes of persuasion—logos, pathos, and ethos—as well as practical strategies for improving your persuasive approach.

Discover how to apply six scientifically validated principles of persuasion by Dr. Robert Cialdini, focusing on reciprocity, scarcity, and authority. These principles can help you build lasting influence and effectively communicate your ideas.
Join us as we explore the difference between persuasion and influence and how to use these skills to achieve your goals while helping others. This episode is dedicated to Monica Gilfillan, a highly influential figure in education, whose support and inspiration remind us of the power of helping others first.
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On today's EPISODE #336 we will cover:
✔ The difference between persuasion and influence.
✔ Strategies to improve our persuasion muscles and ways to become more influential for longer lasting relationships and impact.
✔ 3 Tips to Put the Science of Persuasion and Influence into Practice in our Daily Lives.
✔ Dedicated to Monica Gilliflan, a highly influential figure in education, whose support and inspiration remind us of the power of helping others first.
On today's episode #336 we continue with our 18-Week Self-Leadership Series based on Grant Bosnick’s “Tailored Approaches to Self-Leadership: A Bite Size Approach Using Psychology and Neuroscience” that we first dove into with our interview on EP #321[i] the end of January.  The goal was that each week, we focused on learning something new, (from Grant’s book) that builds off the prior week, to help take us to greater heights in 2024.
For Today, EPISODE #336, we are moving on to Chapter 10, covering “The Neuroscience of Persuasion and Influence” which came as a surprise to me that Pathway Two, showed up as my highest area of focus for 2024. When I looked at the topics that are listed in this pathway, I can see why this area is a work in progress for me, and this self-assessment picked up that I need to make these 3 areas listed in this pathway, a priority in 2024. I’m paying attention to what neuroscience says about persuade and influence, in addition to inspiration, motivation that we covered on EP 324[ii] and presence, that’s the last chapter in this book, and I think the most important. (at least for me).
If you’ve taken the leadership self-assessment[iii], look to see if Persuade and Influence is of a low, medium or high priority for you to focus on this year.

Thinking back on past episodes, I know we have not yet covered this topic entirely, except for the time I was asked to review Jack Carew’s classic book from 1987 called You’ll Never Get No For an Answer that was covered on EP176.[iv] We explored “Why Our Brains Don’t Like the Word No” and revisited Mark Waldman’s book from 2013 Words Can Change Your Brain where we were reminded that  “Words can heal, or hurt—if you were in an fMRI scanner (that can take a video of the neural changes happening in your brain) (and you were told a firm NO! for something) we could record, in