Influence needs to be earned
You don’t have to be the most liked person in the room for people to respect that what you have to say is worth listening to.
This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way.
Way back in my sophomore year of high school–and I need to describe myself during this phase of my life: long, curly hair just shy of my shoulders, wearing a Jesus Cross necklace, and I’m pretty sure a shirt that said something about sarcasm–this kid named Matt walks up to me after Algebra 2 and says, “I don’t like you.”
Honestly, looking back…I get it.
Stunned, I ask, “why?” (Because I legitimately can’t think of any negative interactions we ever had)
Again, looking back…I fully understand that I gave off some weird vibes and would wear super Christian-y shirts and apparel…and I won’t assume anything about his spirituality.
He looks me in the eye and says, “No reason. I just don’t.” And walks away.
For my 16 year old psyche, this was CRUSHING. And it took me years to uncover the reason why this bothered me so much.
I kid you not when I say that I sat up at night thinking about this interaction well into my college years.
In my teenage mind, I was afraid to be disliked because I thought that would diminish my influence in his life or the life of his friends or others that knew he didn’t like me.
I was feeling called to ministry at this age and was “all-in” with my faith, so I can understand now where this desire to have influence came from. Proselytizing. It came from wanting to convert people.
It was wild to assume I had any true influence at that age, and I don’t think I would have ever thought about it in such terms back then, but I realized in my Junior year of college that it really affected the way I thought about and interacted with others.
Even if I never “use” my influence with people, I felt like I needed to be able to have access to the ability to influence their thinking or actions one way or another.
See what I mean about the influence for ministry thing? I bet you are becoming a little bit disgusted with my line of thinking here, yeah?
And once I realized that, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like how I felt about that perception…of myself or others…until I considered that influence isn’t bad. It’s a currency we all use and exchange with all the time.
Influence is a social construct developed deep in our brains on how to determine who to trust. It’s a part of our survival instincts.
And there it is. Influence is just another form of social currency. You worry about it just as much as I do…but for different reasons than my 16 year old self wanted influence.
You want to “win friends and influence people.” Everyone does. It’s human.
But, if I can be blunt, you have no right or claim to be allowed to have influence over someone’s life.
It must always be earned.
When you relinquish that expectation, then you realize that influence can be earned. And that you don’t have to be the most liked person in a room to do so.
In fact, speaking the truth respectfully might lose you some friends but might earn some of that influence in other ways.
Just working at a major company doesn’t earn you influence. Just having written a book doesn’t earn you influence.
It is what you do, what you say, and how to treat others within those spaces that will earn influence.
So build authority and trust early on, without expecting any influence to be granted to you, and you will find it building more steadily than you thought possible.
