Influence.

Effect vs. Impact

As a leader in those circles, you have the opportunity to positively or negatively influence the trajectory of those around you, whether family, friends, co-workers, or members of your community.

Since influence is power, we all have a great responsibility to utilize our influence for the best interest of those in our lives, so let’s start unpacking this responsibility by first understanding two key words:

Effect — to affect someone is to do something that changes the way they think, work, or live.
Impact — to impact someone is to mark them indelibly or otherwise alter their trajectory due to a deep, core-level influence.

Aim for Impact

Similarly, every one of us affects each other in our lives on a daily basis, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

But very few people truly make an impact on others.

People who merely affect us can be forgotten, as their influence is passing and impermanent. People who impact us, however, are memorable and significant to our personal growth.

Therefore, we can choose to:

• Positively affect those around us through random (and intentional) acts of kindness OR
• Negatively affect those around us through annoying behavior.

That means we can decide to…

• Positively impact others by going above and beyond what they expect OR
• Negatively impact others by domineering behavior.

As leaders, let’s choose to not only make a positive effect, but to raise the game and invest our efforts in making a lasting impact that ripples beyond the surface. Let’s be intentional about altering the trajectory of others in a positive way for their long term benefit.

To be memorable is to carve out the gift of a good legacy and it all starts with a choice… a conscious choice that each of us needs to make.

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