THE POWER OF INFLUENCE by Sheryl Jordan

 

Do you ever think about what influences you or how you influence people? I have been thinking about this lately and realize how much influence is a part of life.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.

Merriam-Webster states influence is the power to change or affect someone or something—especially the power to cause changes without directly forcing those changes to happen. 

Influence is neither good nor bad, but as with everything in life it can be used for good or evil purposes, therefore the outcome of influence can be positive or negative.

When I thought about influence in the past, I viewed it as being a means by which politicians sway constituents to agree with their platforms thereby winning the votes of the people or getting other politicians to support their agendas. I also thought about marketing influencers on social media platforms and media advertisements companies use to persuade consumers to purchase their products. I thought about influence from a worldwide perspective.

In reality, influence is all around us. It can be intentional or unintentional and have tremendous or minuscule effects. We see it in all aspects of life. We are influenced by our parents, grandparents, other family and friends. co-workers, writers, music, movies, news, religious practices, society, etc.

We also influence others, although we may not realize we are influencing a person or thing at the time, we do it in some form or fashion. If you think about it, influence is powerful.

My husband and I have the pleasure (sometimes not so pleasurable, 😊) of having my daughter and her children residing with us. We have always been actively involved in their lives, but living in the same household brings a whole different level of involvement. I watch how they interact with each other all the time. I see how they influence each other, whether in good ways or not-so-good ways. It’s amazing to witness how one behaves and then see another react in the same manner later.

I recently realized how much influence we have on them. As a writer, I often sit at the kitchen table to research or draft a story. A couple of days later my nine-year-old granddaughter emailed me a short story she wrote asking me to read it. Sometimes she will print the stories and set them on my desk to read when I have time. A few weeks ago, she wrote a short play about a tea party. I read it and told her how beautifully written it was and pointed out a couple of things she could do to enhance it. She did her “edits” and brought it back to me. I praised her, telling her it was a wonderful play. A couple of days later, my husband printed copies of the play so we could act it out. My granddaughter assigned everyone their parts of course. She was so happy to hear and see her play in action. Unbeknownst to any of us, she took the play to school to show her teacher. Her teacher had children in the classroom act out the play. The children were excited to do so, and the teacher praised my granddaughter telling her if this had been an assignment, she would have received an A plus.

This made me look at the influence which inspired her to do all of this. She sees Nana writing and she starts writing, Papa suggests we act out the play so she can hear and see it in action, so she takes it to school. These influences were unintentional but made me think about how much we are influenced or how much we influence throughout our lives whether we know it or not. This is one aspect of influence that makes it powerful in my eyes.

As I reflect on who and what has influenced me, I think of my parents, siblings, husband, children, friends, fellow writers, colleagues, my religious beliefs, teachers, and people I meet passing. I ponder on how each has influenced me in some capacity.

This has brought a new awareness of how I influence others and being cognizant of what I allow to influence me. Influence is all around us. How do you think you are influenced by or influence others?