Leaders have a hard time comprehending the importance of their influence. In order for you to understand how critical influence is I would like for you to complete this exercise. Make a list of the five people who have influenced you the most in your life. That person may be a parent, a teacher, coach, boss, or a dear grandmother. After you list the name of the person write next to it "how" that person influenced you. For example, one of the people who had a profound inpact on my life was my Training Instructor in the Air Force. I had only been in for about three weeks when I decided I had made a very big mistake. So, in order to correct my mistake, I asked to see the Tech Sgt. who was our Training Instructor. I told him I didn't believe I fit in the Air Force and wanted to go home. The only time he spoke nicely to me was the few minutes it took him to say, "Rausch, this is the easy part of life. If you don't go through the easy parts you will have big problems with the hard parts." Those few words and his influence had incredible impact on me. It changed my attitude about how I defined the level of difficulty of things that happened to me.
Who influenced you? We all have people who molded our behavior by their influence. Some of those people influenced us with their kindness or wisdom. Some on your list may be people who negatively influenced your life, which caused you to say, "I'll never be like that." In both cases influence is energizing.
God
Posted by: paige | Tuesday, January 24, 2006 at 10:29 PM