According to psychologist Dan Simons, there's only a 50% chance you would!

It's called "inattentional blindness" or "change blindness" - being too focused to see things right in front of our eyes.

According to a fascinating article in "The Carleton Voice," by Jack El-Hai, when Simons had subjects watch a basketball video and told them to count number of players' passes, half of them didn't notice when gorilla walked across.

"We have to rewind tape to show them [the gorilla]," said Simons. "That's what I find most interesting about all this - size of errors we can make. We really believe that something important will attract our attention much of time."

Where is greatest need for Power in your life? For most people, it is in persuading others to go along with our ideas. Whether we are trying to sell a product or service to a prospect, trying to discipline our children, trying to convince our boss to give us a raise, or trying to seduce that beautiful stranger, a greater degree of Power will help us achieve our goals much easier.

In one respect or another, we are trying to sell someone on an idea in practically every situation of our lives. If we could improve our ability to control situation, our effectiveness as a person would go up considerably, and we would be a more powerful person.

Logic will not always win, even when logic is on our side. I'm sure you've been in situation where every deciding factor was in your favor, yet other person still would not go along with your plan. Sometimes we take this as a rejection of ourselves, other person simply did not like us. Sometimes we feel that trust was issue to blame, or maybe issue was fear of some sort or another.

The human mind is a very mysterious system. There are so many factors which govern a person's behavior, and so many variables which we are almost never aware of, that trying to predict exactly what will cause a person to accept our proposal is usually a guaranteed way to fail.

But we don't have to predict what a person will do. We only have to influence their decision so that they are more likely to do what we want them to do, and our success rate will be better than it was before. In any complex system, a small change can sometimes have dramatic results!

In our study of mind, we find that subconscious mind, that part which is outside of our conscious control, is very suggestible. What's more, subconscious mind is also far more in control of our actions and behavior than our reasoning, conscious mind. For those of us who look for any and all means to achieve our goals, there is a hint of Power in this knowledge.

What if we could find a way to influence subconscious mind of person we are trying to win over to our point of view? If we could find a way to suggest to other person's subconscious mind that they want what we are offering, and want it with a fierce desire, then our goal of persuading them will be much easier.

Advertisers have long studied methods of influencing subconscious mind. You have probably heard of experiments with subliminal messages played in movie theaters. A whole industry grew up around concept of subliminal messages to help a person change their behavior and their habits. While results are generally disappointing to many who have tried products offered, disappointment was as much to do with general nature of suggestions buried in material as it was due to any other factor.