As we continue another writing on influence, one important reminder is that whether we care to admit it or not, we all have influence on those closest to us. Our influence may have a positive or negative impact, or it simply maybe dismissed through apathy or pre-judgment by the receiver.

Here is a quick summary of the past few writings on the pathway to positive influence:
Part # 1 Intent: Our intent is aligned with a desire to help, to serve, and to give to others. We can effectively open the door to be a positive influence on others when we realize our efforts are not about “me” and my own personal gain, but they are about helping you.
Part #2 Listening: We need to increase our focus on listening and lessen our efforts on responding. We don’t need to be brilliant to listen, we just need to care. Simply put down the screen and listen.

In part #3 of this message, we focus on the importance of empathy and trying to “walk in the shoes” of another in order to have a positive influence. Empathy is about seeing experiences from the lens of others, understanding their perspective, and feeling what they feel.

We all don’t see the world as it is, we see the world from our own unique perspective.

If I were to ask you what the American flag means to you, I would hear a multitude of responses. They would all be responses based on your lens of experience, not mine. Empathy helps me understand your response a little better.

If I were to ask you about the rising rates, across all age groups, of mental illness in our country, I would hear a multitude of responses and a different perspective from:

• Those who personally struggle with depression, anxiety, etc.
• Sons and daughters who had a parent struggle with mental health and perhaps covered it with alcohol or drugs.
• Parents who struggled to help a child walk through depression.
• Children who lost a parent to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
• Adult children caring for a parent with dementia or Alzheimer’s.
• Those who have not been directly and personally impacted by mental illness.

Empathy helps me expand my ability to see what you see, understand you better, and feel what you feel.

Below are a few additional thoughts to encourage all of us to focus on empathy as an important step along the pathway to having a positive influence on others:

1. After ensuring our physical survival, a great human need is to be understood, validated, and accepted for who we are today. Empathy helps us open the door to meet this need of those around us.
2. Instead of projecting our own story on others and making assumptions and interpretations about others, empathy helps us get into the heart and soul of those around us.
3. Empathy is very difficult to achieve over a text message. Empathy is most embraced when we listen not just with our ears but focus our eyes, heart, and physical presence with another.

When we start with our intent to help, listen to others, and focus on empathy, we build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive influence on those we care about most.

As we mentioned last week, whether we care to admit it or not, we all have influence on those closest to us. Our influence may have a positive or negative impact, or it simply maybe dismissed through apathy or pre-judgment by the receiver.

Part # 1 on this message was a reminder that the pathway to positive influence begins when our intent is aligned with a desire to help, to serve, and to give to others. We can effectively open the door to be a positive influence on others when we realize our efforts are not about “me” and my own personal gain.

In part #2 of this message, we focus on the importance of listening instead of talking as the next step in having a positive influence on others. Listening goes against the popular opinion that we need to be up front and on stage with our intelligence and experience in order to have influence.

The reality is much different than the popular public perception of influence. We need to initially focus on listening instead of talking to most effectively move forward in having a positive influence on others.

Below are a few additional thoughts to encourage all of us to be more effective on listening as a second step along the pathway to having a positive influence on others:

1. No effective response needed. Many of us hinder our ability to effectively listen because we have been conditioned that in order to have a positive impact on others we need to know what to say in conversation with others. Even though it may sound counterintuitive, we need all our energy focused on listening with the hope to understand instead of listening with a desire to respond with something “brilliant.” If we don’t initially focus on listening, our “brilliant” response will most often fall on deaf ears.
2. Ask additional questions in follow-up. Using some thoughtful questions followed by silence will help to encourage others to keep sharing. Asking a follow-up question and simply shutting up is often difficult for us but allowing silence to hang after a question will open the door for others to fill the gap and continue to share. Even something as simple as, “Please tell me a little more about that experience” can keep the discussion going.
3. Focus on him/her, not everything else in “my” world. In today’s massively distracted world, keeping smart phones, laptops, etc. out of site will help send a message that the focus is on them and not anything else. We send a huge billboard sized message that says, “You are not that important to me” when we show up to listen and we are constantly “stepping out” of conversation with the casual glance at notifications on our phones. Our ability to positively influence others will be severely limited when we allow simple distractions to creep into our attempt to listen to others.
4. We don’t need to be brilliant to listen, we just need to care. Listening, not talking, is the most simple and powerful way to demonstrate to someone that they matter and to meet a human desire to be accepted for who we are today. Listening is the gateway for truth in a conversation and can encourage others, at least for a moment, to take off our mask and end the “costume party” we all typically live in.

When we start with our intent to help and then begin to listen to others, we build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive influence on those we care about most.

Whether we care to admit it or not, we all have influence on those closest to us. Our influence may have a positive or negative impact, or it simply maybe dismissed through apathy or pre-judgment by the receiver.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character in order to reach our full potential and have a positive impact on those around us, it is important that we learn and follow a well-established, principle-based, pathway for positive influence.

In our public world where the loud and proud get most of the attention, this process may seem out of touch with the present reality. However, when we chronicle the archives of history both in the home and in the public square, we will come to appreciate these steps as the most effective pathway to long term, sustained positive influence on the lives of others, especially those we care about most.

Over the next few weeks, we will journey together on a road less traveled in today’s public forums and look closely on the pathway to positive influence on those we care about most.

The first step in any major effort to have influence is to examine our intent. When we look at the opportunity to have influence on others, what is our intent?

Do we strive to influence others for our own personal gain, credit, or some hidden agenda? Is our desire to influence from a pure selfish motive?

Or

Do we strive to influence others based on a desire to help where we see a need? Do we simply want to help fill a gap in knowledge or skills created by youth, inexperience, or lack of awareness or resources? Do we simply care and want to help?

Examining our intent is the foundational first step on the pathway to positive influence.

The pathway to positive influence begins with our intent being aligned with a desire to help, to serve, and to give to others. We have come to humble realization that life is often difficult and we all need some help along the way.

There are no “self-made” men and woman. We don’t live alone on an island. We have all received some help along the way. Whether it was some encouragement in our home, a positive role model on the field of play, a friend or mentor’s advice, a stranger’s kind offering, or a teacher from our past, we all have received some help. Those who desire to have a positive influence on others recognize that we all need some help along the way.

When we start with our intent being grounded in a desire to help, serve and give to others, we build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive influence on those we care about most.

We have all experienced that feeling of being overwhelmed when we see a huge task in front of us like an unexpected termination of employment, a deep break in a once trusting relationship, a financial shortfall that came on quickly, a sudden change in health, or probably the most challenging, when we sense that still small voice that says, “This is your purpose and passion, change direction and go for it.”

Psychologists and our own experience would remind us that at the initial point in time of feeling overwhelmed, we tend to take a quick turn toward the negative with thoughts like: “This is going to really hurt.” “Why does this always happen to me?” “I am too old for another change.” “I am not sure I can handle this.”

Many of us have had the thrill of watching a baby walk for the first time. It is a time of massive change for the child from crawling to now walking. There is excitement, cheering from a crowd of onlookers, and that sparkle of accomplishment in the eyes of a child when they stumble through those first few small steps. Very little fear, there is mostly wonder and excitement of the new-found mobility.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, an important area for our effort needs to be in how we deal with that seemingly overwhelming task we now face. When fear and self-doubt creep in, what do we do?

It would not be a gross overstatement to say there is never an immediate removal of self-doubt or worry from any difficult situation. However, it has been proven that starting small habits, baby steps if you will, are more powerful than any fear we have in dealing with change. Moving consistently, in some small way, toward our desired direction is an incredibly powerful tool to overcome.

Here are a few thoughts on baby steps that can move us in an effective direction:

1. If we have a struggling personal conflict that is building a wall between us and another person, start with a smile (or at least remove the frown) every day, little by little, and then bring forth the courage to break the silence.

2. If we are afraid of a career change to finally do something we are passionate about, start with quietly building a small plan, take baby steps to implement the plan, every day, little by little to build confidence that your dream can come true.

3. If we are afraid to take a stand on an important issue and speak up, start with writing a small “note to self,” and then speak up to someone you trust, little by little to then speak each and every time the opportunity arises.

Our baby steps are powerful enough to overcome any fear.

As we choose to take some baby steps in the right direction, we will build and strengthen our character and our Character Creates Opportunity to overcome our doubts and fears in order to reach our full potential.

There is no doubt we are living in a time of increasing complexity and intensity. Whether it is tension on trade wars, struggles in our communities, or businesses trying to navigate global competitors that seem to pop-up overnight, life seems to be getting more challenging.

With the growing complexity of challenges around us we tend to become overwhelmed and sometimes paralyzed with the sense that the challenges are insurmountable. Many times, we look to leaders in politics, education, business, and religion to support our ability to effectively deal with the challenges we face.

There are the great examples we read about like Gandhi leading change in India without ever holding public office. Churchill galvanizing the British people during time of war. Ronald Reagan as the catalyst for driving change to end the cold war. On the business front, we read about Jeff Bezos of Amazon changing the world of commerce and Elon Musk spearheading great technical advances with Tesla’s electric cars and space exploration with the company Space X.

However, the most important actions of people becoming a catalyst for change are those we don’t read about in the headlines. They are the actions of individuals in the home. The individual behaviors of parents, grandparents, and children within the home have always been the greatest catalyst for maintaining positive change over time. These are the behaviors that can scale and impact generations.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, it is important for us to maintain the perspective that we can start where we are today, with those closest to us, to effectively deal with the uncertainty we see around us. Driving major change around the world and around our community is about individuals being the catalyst and those individuals are first and foremost impacted by behaviors in the home. Behaviors that scale begin in the home.

We all have our roles to play. Some of us are playing direct, major roles right now in dealing with the complexities we see all around us. However, for the vast majority of us, our best effort to impact these larger complexities can be brought down to clear and simple steps we can start with those closest to us in our homes.

For all of us, it does not matter what kind of home we came from or what condition our family is in today. We cannot rewrite the past. What matters most is what we do going forward to model behaviors to scale for a brighter tomorrow. We will always remain a son or daughter, a brother or sister, a parent or grandparent, a spouse or ex-spouse.

Here are a few thoughts on building behaviors that scale with those closest to us that can eventually expand to impact the world around us:

1. Intent. The risks are too great if we just “wing it.” We need to be intentional about modeling effective behaviors like compassion, understanding and commitment.

2. Time. We need take advantage of those moments between commitments of work, school, and community to create a meaningful connection. In this day of personal electronics, we need to be careful that we all don’t allow our “chill time” with headphones on to overtake some time to connect.

3. Conversation. Just talking beyond one syllable grunts is a great start for many of us. Taking it to the next level would be to have a conversation that starts with us just listening to a voice that needs to be heard without judgment or pontificating about the need to change.

4. Hope. We will always have challenges. The behaviors in the home should be the source of encouragement and hope for a better tomorrow.

As we guide our behaviors in the home by principles, like understanding, patience, and commitment, we will build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity for us to create a positive impact in the home and scale those behaviors throughout our world.

What do we achieve when we “have to” do something?

When we “have to” do something, we come to realize that we have the capacity to do more than we ever imagined.

In today’s world, we very rarely hear the phrases “I have to” or “I must do” something. We pride ourselves on self-expression and keeping our options open to avoid feeling boxed-in by obligations and commitments.

Many times, our self-expression manifests itself in phrases like, “I just felt like doing something different” or “I just felt like it was time for a change” or “I am just not happy anymore.” These choices often come about when the going gets tough and the outcome we desired is not so certain.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, we need to be careful that our desire for self-expression and keeping our options open does not side-step commitments and responsibilities to enable a quick exit when times get tough.

When we come to that point in life when we “have to do” something, we soon realize we have virtually unlimited potential. A common expression shared after a significant accomplishment is, “I had to do it…I had no other option, but to continue.”

Ask any young parent, “How do you stay up night after night with a young baby with colic or just a troubled sleep pattern and still manage to function and be productive throughout the day?”  Most often you will hear, “It is just what I have to do.  There is no other option.”

Ask any immigrant family, who came to this country and overcame tremendous language and cultural barriers to survive and provide, “How did you do it?”  Most often they will respond with comments like, “We had to make it work.  Returning to our homeland was not an option.”

A detailed review of the great breakthroughs in scientific discoveries would reveal a sense of “I have to” find answers to these great questions.

Marie Curie became the first and only woman to win the Nobel Prize twice and her work to isolate uranium opened the door to so many discoveries in the field of medicine.  She spent most of her life in financial hardship, endured the tragic death of her husband early in their marriage, and conducted most of her greatest research in a leaky, rusted out shed.  Friends and associates would recall her passion to find the answers to some of science’s most complex questions.  With frostbitten toes and working in that shed on an empty stomach, she saw her work as having no other option, but finding the answers.

When we have no other option and we “have to” do something, we are often amazed at what we can accomplish. It is important to routinely look in the mirror and see if there are areas in our lives where we have conveniently created options to avoid the commitment of saying, “I have to”?

• Is there a troubled relationship with a family member that could be repaired with a “have to” commitment?
• Is there a son or daughter who would benefit from seeing a parent with a “have to” attitude around the important things in life?

When we find purpose in doing what we “have to” do, we build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity for us to reach our full potential and be a positive impact on those around us.

In today’s fast pace world, we seem to give great credit to those who can deliver quick powerful points of view on major issues at the dinner table, the workplace, and in the community. We are continuously fed well-articulated sound bites on complex issues via news-feeds and social media posts that continue to send us signals that we all need to prioritize stating our point of view at the expense of any other form of communication.

With the current bombardment of noise and volume, we are at serious risk of losing the most important first step in building and maintaining healthy relationships, the ability to be an active listener to those we care about most.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, being disciplined and consistent with our effort to focus on listening will remain an important first step as we look to be our best for those we care about most at home, work, and in our community.

Even without our sound-bite focused and loud world, we all seem to either be wired to or have been conditioned to share our point of view and experience, not necessarily to win an argument or debate, but also to potentially help someone’s personal growth and development. However, the reality is that without taking the important first step of listening to the other person, our effectiveness in sharing our experience and point of view will be severely limited.

Instead of prioritizing our “brilliant” responses or sharing our “one-of-a-kind” experiences, we should work hard to let listening to the other person be the full focus of our efforts. Placing a priority on active listening as an important first step will be the gateway to healthy relationships with those we care about most.

Here are a few encouraging reminders to focus our energy on the important first step of listening:

1. Listening is a simple and powerful way to demonstrate to someone that they matter and meets the basic universal need of all of us to be understood and accepted for who we are today.
2. Listening comes before influence. Until those closest to us know that we care enough about them by our willingness to listen, they will rarely “hear” what we have to say. If we want to have influence, listening is an important first step.
3. Listening first helps others feel safe to talk, helps validate their emotions, creates the gateway for a true conversation to begin, and for at least a moment, ends the “costume party” we all typically live in.
4. Listening opens our hearts and minds to understand what lies beneath someone’s behavior. We only see the world as we are, not as it really is. Listening creates insight into the real world of others and helps to stifle quick judgments by the voices inside our head.

Being an active listener takes a great deal of effort as we have a strong tendency to want to respond and talk about our own point of view. As we focus on listening as an important first step, we will build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive, enduring impact on those we care about most.

In a world that continues to increase in complexity and change, a perpetual challenge we all face is how to remain relevant or at least not be a hindrance to growth in our close relationships, workplace, and community.

History would teach us that some of the traditional currencies like money and skills don’t last forever. In a world where financial markets can see money change hands between winners and losers quickly, job skills become outdated at an alarming rate, and even the next big idea gets old faster than ever, what is the currency that endures and creates incredible value over time?

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, being intentional on building wealth with a currency that endures over time is a most effective choice for us to have a lasting positive impact on those around us.

The global, universally accepted currency that lasts throughout financial market swings, technology revolutions, and political strife is the currency generated from a willingness to help those in need, providing comfort to the brokenhearted, seeing the best in others, and maintaining a positive, hopeful mindset even when others see doom and gloom.

When we build wealth based on the currency of character, we will see results that have been proven over time to last. Wealth built on the currency of character has no limits and is available to all people, regardless of gender, race, nationality, or upbringing.

Here are a few of the outcomes that endure with wealth built on the currency of character:

• We build strong relationships that have a better chance of lasting the inevitable painful events that we will experience, and life is measured by the relationships we build.
• We are viewed as open and welcoming to others because we meet a very basic need of all of us, to know that we matter.
• We create a ripple effect of good will that sets an example for others to follow in our home, place of work, and community.
• We dramatically improve our ability to build the traditional currencies of money, skills, and ideas that can make a measurable impact in this world.

As we focus on building wealth based on the currency of helping others, teamwork, compassion and understanding, we will build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity to have a positive, enduring impact on those we care about most…and they deserve it.

Chances are good that during this time of year, you or someone close to you is stepping into a new school year and the challenges of making another transition. Transitions are tough.

There is a great deal written and discussed about the opportunities for personal growth that come when we walk through a major transition in life. What is often left without comment is the opportunity for those who are alongside someone going through a transition to connect deeper and in a more meaningful way.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, being intentional with support for those who are experiencing change will open a door to a healthier and more resilient relationship with those we care about most.

Transitions are a regular part of life…there is no avoiding change in our lives and those around us. These experiences bring about a wide spectrum of emotions from excitement to worry, hope to fear, and energized to exhausted.

Here are three specific steps we can take to effectively support those going through a transition that can strengthen our relationship and prevent the stress of transition from creating a fracture in relationships we care most about:

1. Listen: Listening is a simple and powerful way to demonstrate to someone that they matter. Listening does not require an advanced degree or special training. All it takes is a simple decision to be silent and give someone our attention. Being a good listener will encourage others to share more of their lives with us.  We typically keep hidden our painful experiences. Being a good listener can help build a trusting, non-judgmental, and shame-free atmosphere, which can help open a door to sharing some of the pain experienced during a transition.
2. Presence: Our presence is often more powerful than our words in comforting someone going through a transition. Academic research and our practical experience would remind us that just being there is a source of comfort. Not spouting some philosophical wisdom or relating our own experience, but just our presence can aid the afflicted more than our “brilliant” speech. For those of us who often feel anxious about what to say or what to do, it is important to be reminded that there is greater value and impact in just being present when aiding and comforting those closest to us.
3. Touch: We are all well aware of the physical bonding that happens between a loving parent and a young child. There is a strong body of evidence to suggest that loving, physical contact at any stage of life is critical to our physical, mental, and emotional health. During times of transition, the opportunity to touch with a hug or a pat of the back can be our primary means of communicating compassion.

As we become intentional on being more effective in supporting others going through a major transition, we will build and strengthen our character, and Character Creates Opportunity to improve the health of our relationships and encourage those we care about most.

If you are old enough to read this blog, you have seen your fair share of times when the clouds roll in:

• When the struggle in a close relationship seemed to reach a point of despair
• When the strain of financial pressures in the home seemed overwhelming
• When our emotional or physical health seemed to be at a breaking point
• When our professional journey seemed unsatisfying after so many years

Just like in a bad storm, when the clouds roll in on our personal situation, the light of day is dimmed, and we struggle to find a clear path through the storm and become unsure if or how we are going to make it through.

As we continue on our journey to build and strengthen our character, being most effective in handling our thoughts, decisions, and actions during times when the clouds roll in will be an important life skill to help us reach our full potential.

It should be no surprise that we all still can get caught off guard and sometimes shocked when the clouds roll in. The main reasons are two-fold; First, we tend to not proactively address an issue, or we dismiss it when it seems small and just routine.  We typically only get serious when we hit the wall at a breaking point. Secondly, we have all been somewhat trained as young kids on the fairy tales of happily ever after and as adults with TV shows or movies where the problem gets solved and peace is brought back into the world.  However, we all know that the reality we experience when the clouds roll in can stick around for a while and maybe does not ever get fully resolved.

Regardless of our present life situation, we can confidently state that we will continue to experience times when the clouds roll in.  Here are few thoughts to help us be most effective in handling these difficult moments:

1. We are not alone in experiencing some cloudy and dark situations. Despite the exterior of those around us, everyone has some dark moments. Take comfort in the fact that we are not an outlier with this present challenge.
2. We have been here before and, in many cases, effectively handled the last time the clouds rolled in. Open the door to hope based on our past strength to overcome.
3. Take one day at a time. There are no quick fixes to the major challenges in life.  Taking very, very small steps in an effective direction is within our control.
4. Reach out for a connection to someone. Perhaps a friend or family member or a professional trained to help. We run into greater trouble when we stay alone and isolated. Talking face to face and a comforting touch on the shoulder or the holding of someone’s hand can have dramatic effects on our mindset.

Once last thing, it is always best to try and address an issue sooner rather than later. Avoiding a seemingly small issue now may manifest itself in bigger and uglier ways in the future.  In a genuine and caring manner, try and start the conversation today with those you care about most.

When the clouds roll in, if we can anchor our small day to day actions based on principles like courage and commitment, we will build and strengthen our character and Character Creates Opportunity for us to be most effective in addressing the situation and keep us on the pathway to reach our full potential.