Tag Archives: influence

“Distractions! Let them come. Let them be. Let them go.”

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“Distractions! Let them come. Let them be. Let them go.”

—Culadasa, former director of the Dharma Treasure Buddhist Sangha

Image from Unsplash by Nubelson Fernandes

How many people and things are competing for your attention each day?

How many are welcome, and how many divert you from your desired paths?

Where and how do you have control — or at least significant influence — on what enters your direct and peripheral attention?

Imagine you were a healthcare professional in an emergency department, caring for people who showed up at the door. How would you triage individuals with critical needs versus those with only minor difficulties?

In each case, determining who gets immediate care and admitted to the hospital and who gets sent home is what’s important.

EXERCISE:

How do you triage the distractions that enter your world?

How would your own mental and physical health benefit from a more clearly defined method to do this?

Although the best coaching may be offered by good examples

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Although the best coaching may be offered by good examples the next best may be found in bad examples. It is up to each of us to discover the lessons in both.

—Calm App Reflection

Who are the people in your life that set a wonderful example of living a rich and meaningful life?

How would you describe their character and best qualities?

How has their example impacted and influenced your personal and professional efforts?

Where in your world do you see terrible examples of how to live?

Where do you see people acting in ways that are contrary to what you value and believe?

How have their bad examples taught you valuable lessons that led you on a far better path?

EXERCISE:

Take an extra close look at the good and bad examples exemplified by people in your various communities.

What new or different choices and actions will you make and take from these observations?

Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become

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“Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become.”

Kevin Kelly, Founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine

Image from Unsplash by Christina Victoria Craft

How have you been influenced by the great resignation? What is it that makes large numbers of people leave their jobs to pursue other ventures, given the need many of us have for safety and security?

More and more people these days are insisting on thriving, not just surviving. Life is short and we only have one. Experiencing current regrets and projecting them into the future is not acceptable. Observing those around us in distress — and perhaps feeling our own — has many people throw more caution to the wind to chart a new and better course.

EXERCISE:

How good a fit is your current job? To what degree do you admire and respect the leadership within your organization? How proud would you be to see yourself in their shoes down the road? If the shoe doesn’t fit, what then?

Shape behaviors instead of shaming them

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“Shape behaviors instead of shaming them.”

—Sam Horn, CEO of The Intrigue Agency

Image from Unsplash by Lea L

How do you go about getting the things you want? How do you influence and persuade the people in your life to act in ways that you desire?

What are your current strategies and approaches with family members, neighbors, and your professional colleagues? As parents, grandparents, and other influencers of young impressionable minds, today’s quote is particularly relevant.

I recently attended an engaging webinar on Ethical Persuasion by Sam Horn, in which she introduced many practical and creative ways to gain attention and buy in to our ideas and intentions.

She shared what she called “words to lose” and “words to use” when we want to transform resistance into rapport. Here are just a few of her suggestions:

Words to Lose: but —should — you’ll have to
Words to Use: and — next time — If you would please

EXERCISE:

What are some of the words you use that are shaping or shaming the people in your life?

“Broad ideas influence more people. Specific ideas influence people more.”

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“Broad ideas influence more people. Specific ideas influence people more.”

—James Clear, author, entrepreneur, and photographer

Image from Unsplash by Mark Fletcher-Brown

On any give weekday it is possible for thousands of people to be influenced by this blog via email, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

For the past ten years I have attempted to share daily nuggets of wisdom to influence many people with thought-provoking and/or motivational quotes, a coaching commentary, and an exercise to dig deeper and apply these ideas.

With many of us overwhelmed by far too much information from far too many sources, my efforts to have people invest five to ten minutes per week are not always successful.

During the same five days, four to six individuals invest an hour to engage me in a variety of specific ideas and approaches through one-on-one coaching, to impact and enhance aspects of their personal or professional lives.

EXERCISE:

What impact are you attempting to have with people in your various communities?

Where are specific — rather than broad — ideas the way to go to have the level of influence you intend?

 

Friday Review: Influence

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FRIDAY REVIEW: INFLUENCE

How do and can you use the influence you have over others for positive results? Here are a few influence-related posts you may have missed.

 

“The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.”

 

 

 

“No one agrees with other people’s opinion. They merely agree with their own opinions expressed by somebody else.”

 

 

 

“The next best thing to being clever is being able to quote someone who is.”

 

 

 

 

 

“You are full of unshaped dreams…/ You are laden with beginnings…/ There is hope in you.”

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“You are full of unshaped dreams…/ You are laden with beginnings…/ There is hope in you.”

—Lola Ridge, 20th Century Irish-American anarchist poet

Image from Unsplash by Sharon McCutcheon

What are your dreams for 2021? To what degree are they still unshaped or in a formative state?

What projects have you already begun, and where are you tentatively waiting to take that first move?

How hopeful do you feel about your ability to influence and impact the future in your various personal and professional communities?

EXERCISE:

Where are you holding back to dream, to begin, to hope?

How can and will you courageously and passionately release your fullest potential to realize the possibilities and opportunities that await?

“You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.”

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“You cannot antagonize and influence at the same time.”

—J.S. Knox, 19th Century British Author

Image from Unsplash by Elijah Macleod

How would you rate yourself as a salesperson, a leader, an effective parent, or simply as a person having a positive impact on others?

Fundamental to all those capabilities is the ability to influence others and engender in them an idea that already resonates within them.

Who are the people in your world that influence you to buy in to their ideas and vision, which already align with your own?

Alternatively, who are the people who antagonize or at least rub you the wrong way? How do you respond to their ideas and efforts to persuade you to think and act as they wish?

EXERCISE:

How can and will you adjust your approach with others in your personal and professional communities to have far greater influence in your world?

“Life is actually an essay, not a series of responses to someone else’s agenda.”

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“Life is actually an essay, not a series of responses to someone else’s agenda.”

—Seth Godin, American Author

Image from Unsplash by Thought Catalog

In order to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools and other learning institutions closed for the year.

Once the initial “extended summer vacation” excitement wore off and the reality set in, we were given an extremely important assignment.

Our homework is to write and experience the next chapters of our life stories. Some of us might look to the limitations and constraints. But we can also see new levels of creativity, innovation, and freedom to express ourselves through the amazing examples set by others in our various communities.

EXERCISE:

What will you include in your Hero’s Journey essay? How can you continue to influence your communities, expand your capabilities, and make an even more purposeful difference in the world?

What would happen if more of us put down the remote and picked up our pens to pursue our personal agenda?

“Lovely days don’t come to you. You should walk to them.”

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“Lovely days don’t come to you. You should walk to them.”

—Jalāl ad-Dīn Rūmī, 13th-century Persian poet

Image from Unsplash by Bob Canning

The term snowbird was first applied to humans in the early 1900s, to describe northern laborers who flocked down south to work as the cold, harsh winter set in up north.

Today, northerners of all kinds – including vacationers and retirees – are migrating south as the first frost arrives, to experience more lovely warm days.

Rumi surely wasn’t referring only to the weather. Perhaps he wanted all of us to look around – and deeper within – to determine exactly what a lovely day means, and just how much influence we have to create our own weather, wherever we happen to be.

EXERCISE:

What are some additional ways you can use your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual energies to walk or even run toward far more lovely days in the future?