The impact, effect we have on others
Jerome Emanzi
What you need to know:
- I thought the football players, musicians, movie stars, and the like were the only people who had influence.
Most of us seek to acquire a higher capacity of it, some think they have plenty of it, however, most seldom understand or even see it within themselves. What am I talking about? Influence. Influence is defined as the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.
In my childhood and teenage years, my heroes were movie stars, football players, musicians, and the like who had the fame. Looking back now, I realise there is a piece of the puzzle that I was missing. Did I really understand what influence was?
Do not misunderstand me, these are inspirational people depending on what we are looking for in life. However, how much influence did Cristiano Ronaldo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jose Chameleone, and the like have in effecting my character, development, behaviour, etc.… not as much for the most part.
Before we get further, let me take an extract from John Maxwell’s book, Developing the Leader Within You. In the first chapter, Maxwell says: “Leadership is influence, nothing more nothing less.”
The book highlights three important understandings about influence: 1) Everyone influences someone, 2) We don’t always know who or how much we influence, and 3) the best investment in tomorrow is to develop your influence today.
Having read (listened to) the book several times, it finally dawned on me that I still have lots to learn and understand about influence. Let us do a little deep dive in the insights about influence.
Everyone influences someone. If you’re like me, there was a time in life where I thought only adults and other people had influence and not me. What we should realise is that we all have the power to influence within us and this has been the case since our childhood and continues to be so.
As I mentioned before, I thought the football players, musicians, movie stars, and the like were the only people who had influence. However, when we take time to think about influence, we discover that at any given time we are influencing someone, and someone is influencing us.
Right now, in my life, the most immediate people I am influencing are my family. I have really come to appreciate my parents, siblings, and immediate family that influenced me in my formative years. I would not be who I am today or be where I am without them. Thank you! This leads me to the next insight on influence.
We don’t always know who or how much we influence: In the book Maxwell says, “One of the most effective ways to understand the power of influence is to think about the times you have been touched in your life by a person or an event.” Think about every experience we have had in our lives, all people we have encountered, what mark has that left on our lives? Whether it is/was seen as good or bad, in some shape or form it has influenced us.
When we take time to reflect, we can start to realise the true influencers in our lives. I can think of people and events that have left a mark on how they influenced me and some of the people do not even know they did.
The final insight on influence is that the best investment in tomorrow is to develop your influence today. Now that we know we have influence, what are we intentionally doing to develop it today? If the sociologist estimate that the most introverted person influences at least 10,000 people in their lifetime is true, in my view this is a very fascinating statistic.
One of the most challenging parts of having our awareness raised is taking action to follow through. Investing to develop our influence is a journey and for every journey sometimes there are ups and downs. Embrace it and develop the influence within you so that we can make a positive impact in our world. I believe in you. In virtue and wisdom lead the world.
Jerome Emanzi is a transformational leader Coach with the Maxwell Certified Leadership Team.
