influence

All my life, I've heard about "power and influence".
It was a phrase and almost a single word.

People with "power and influence" were important people.  They lived in big houses and were on the fronts of magazines like "LIFE" and "Times" or today, "Forbes" or "Wall Street Journal".  Their names were known in regular households and spoken by local newscasters.

Every town had their own people of "power and influence" and every local knew what neighborhoods they were most likely to live in.

Parents wanted their children to grow up to have "power and influence" although most parents were either more realistic or not feeling so lucky that they skipped encouraging them to also make some regular people plans with their lives.

The point is not that we have always had people with power and influence, but that we all have power, personal power, and we all influence others every day.  Maybe even every minute of everyday.

Ask yourself, "who is the most important person in my life"?

That person has definitely had influence in your life.

But you don't have to be anyone's "most important person" to have influence.

We are all constantly influenced, for the good, for the bad, its all influence.  We make choices based on influences.

Common influences are churches, spiritual leaders, school teachers, parents, grandparents, scout leaders, librarians, nurses and doctors, the landscaper, the tree trimmer, the bowling alley attendant that helps you learn to bowl.  There are coaches and bosses, mentors and preceptors, best friends and old coworkers that all have there moments of influence.  There are also incidental influencers, from eavesdropped conversations or from chance interactions--like the bench at the park or on the bus or in the checkout line.

So you don't have to be a winning politician to influence the creation of a better world.  You don't need to have millions of dollars to help make a positive change.  You don't even need a huge audience or an advanced and impressive education.  Every one of us, everyday is influencing the people we interact with.
Sometimes we influence people without any awareness of it happening, like when we help someone solve a problem or share a personal story that ends up later helping them untangle their own problems.
Sometimes we influence people by stopping to aid someone in distress--not necessarily disaster-level distress but maybe a flat tire or out of gas or even a dollar short in the checkout line.
Sometimes we influence people by not people-pleasing.  That sounds the opposite of a positive influence, but if you have ever worked with a person that is always consistent and always honest, it is so much more impressive than the person that brags up everyone and volunteers to do things they don't have the time for or the ability to do. People-pleasers usually influence us by teaching us what NOT to do.

None of us were raised by Saints or perfect people.  Seeing someone do something differently than we were raised to believe it had to be done is both educational and very freeing.  Those people that show us that, are very influential.  (like vegetarians, if you had said that was possible when I was a child, I would have looked at you askance--a meal was not a meal without meat, our home ec teacher would have started talking about protein malnutrition, my cattle rancher relatives would have had them committed or arrested or hogtied)

Think about the important things in your lives, about the people that influenced your life.  Consider who hears you and sees you, not just listens to you.  Name a few names of those people with "power and influence" and ask yourself, which of those people can disappear from my life and leave the smallest ripples.

Don't stand in awe of the people with "power and influence".
Thank some of those people that actually had a positive influence in you life.

AND

Use your influence, your personal influence in the lives of the people surrounding you, to make a positive change in the world.  Do it big or do is small but never think you have no effect so be wise.

That is real power and influence.