Becoming a Person of Influence

Recording. And we'll share it. Start it. Okay, so hopefully you guys all have access and can see the screen. I'll have the chat up in the corner. Like I said, when you guys are coming in, me and my team, which is the three of us, me, myself and I are going to do our best to stay up with the comments and things as we go through. I will be asking you to. To share as we go through and asking you some questions to engage. And then like I said, you guys will get the the replay of this as we go through. So I'll ask all of you to go ahead and mute your phones or mute the world. Can you guys still hear me? Give me a thumbs up. Okay, good. I wasn't muted on my computer so we're going to get a little feedback. So. So awesome. Well, guys, welcome to this lunch and learn this information session on becoming a person of influence. I'm excited to be sharing this with you guys. I'm excited to see some of your faces. For you guys that don't know me, I won't spend a lot of time on this but real briefly, my name is Rick Torson. I have been working in the leadership development training coaching world for probably 25 years. It has looked different through a lot of venues but the last three years really intentionally in building a business of adding value to people and taking the experiences that I have had and the training and really looking to invest that into other people. And we have been doing that in a lot of different ways. One of the ways is through these lunch and learns and masterminds that I have been trying to do every month. So thank you for being here. If this is your first time, awesome. What is most important to know about me is I love my family. I have been married for 30 years. I have two amazing kids, both in their 20s, trying to figure out life probably like the rest of us. But they are the joy of my life and so I am excited about them and I am passionate about serving and helping people just like some of you guys are on this call that I know. So thank you for being here. Let's take. Make sure I can move through my slides. Ok. So there you go. So a couple of takeaways today. It is really important because you guys are investing in your time and your time is one of the most valuable things that you can give me. I want to honor that. That's why it's important that we kind of are focused with what we're going to do and that you have some real value when we're done. So hopefully you will have some things that you can take away and apply. I don't want this to be an information session because the reality is none of us need more. So real quickly, here are some of the things that we are going to talk about. You are going to walk away hopefully encouraged. Not hopefully you will be encouraged. You will have a greater knowledge of the idea of influence, what that looks like and what that means and the impact that you have on the lives in the world around you. You are going to understand what influence is and how it impacts your future and everyone and everything that you are engaged in. The third thing that we're going to hit a little bit is we're going to look at one of the top five methods of influence and its impact on personal and professional relationships. And then last thing, we are going to share an opportunity to learn and grow as a person of influence with some other leaders as we kind of move forward. So that is what we are going to be talking about and doing. So let's jump in. I have introduced myself a little bit to you guys, but let me ask you a question as we get started. If you guys have been around me a lot, you know that I like to ask questions. And so here's the question. Do you recall, can you remember maybe your parents did this? When your parents would tell you stay away from that person. You don't need to be hanging out with so and so or you don't need to go to those certain places because you need to avoid the problems that are going to be in those places that you go. Kind of just I can see some of your hands, just show of hands. Does that sound familiar? Did you ever get that kind of don't hang out with them? What would be the finishing statement that they would say? Right, don't hang out with that person. They are a bad influence. Hopefully you weren't someone else's parents bad influence right where they were talking to their kids and I was probably one of those people where they said you are going to go hang out with Rick. You don't need to be hanging out with him. He is a bad influence. More than likely that was said about me at some point in my early life. I hope it is not said about me anymore. But the places we go, the things we do and the people in our lives influence who we are. They have a great impact on the life we live and the people we are today. Would you guys, would you guys agree with me with that? See now along with our actions and words influencing Us, each of us possesses the same power to influence other people, right? Just as people can influence us, we are influencing other people. Do you know the simplest and easiest way? There's someone wanting to get in there. There we go. The simplest and easiest way to influence people is. Do you know what it is? I'm doing it. Come on. I know you can't see me smiling, right? Everybody try this. Take a look at your screen. If you can see people on there, just smile and take a look, right? What does it cause you to do? When someone smiles at you, what do you do? You smile back. You're influencing someone with an attitude that you're sharing. When you frown at someone and you have negative face, it does the same thing. People kind of go, oh. And they take that negative energy. Here's another way to influence someone, right? It's by saying hello. If I say to you, hi, Kerry, what are you going to say? Hi, Rick, I'm influencing a conversation or a dialogue, right? We can also negatively impact people by the way we act, our facial expressions, that's all influence. And it's happening every day. Another example is when you're driving down the highway. Anybody drive down the highway and someone honks their horn at you, right? What do you typically do? Do you just ignore it and keep driving? Do you honk back? Do you wave at them with the, the, you know, single finger wave? Not trying to be rude, but, you know, they have their action just influenced you to react in a certain way. Influence is at the core and the heart of everything we do. No matter the situation or event, influence is in play at some point every day in our lives. How many of you would agree with that? You guys agree? So as we go today, I want to make a couple promises to you as we get started. The first I am going to do is I am going to give you something that you can apply right away in your life. Things you can do, real practical. I have the privilege of sharing with you one of the greatest skill sets that has impacted my life, and that is learning how to be a person of influence. And in this case, we'll talk about this. But positive influence. I want to be a positive influence. Influence is a neutral term. So when we walk out of this room today, you're going to have something that you can apply immediately. The second thing that I promise is that not only am I going to give you something you can use right away, but should you like what you hear? If this is something that you go, man, this is important, and I realize this and I need to be better at it. I am going to give you an opportunity to take a journey with me and a few other people to go deeper and in this idea of the power of influence. So at the end of our time, what I am going to do is I am going to ask you a couple simple questions, right? So I want you to be listening to those. They are easy questions. In fact, I will share the first one with you so you can be thinking about it. One of the questions I am going to ask you is, was this material that we talked about our conversation today beneficial to you? So I want you to be thinking about that. Is there things you are taking away? The other two questions I will share with you based on our answers to that first question. Right? So as we go through today, there is another thing you guys are probably going to say. I have heard this before because I am not going to be talking to you about any deep revelation. When we talk about influence and some of the things we will talk about, you say, well, I have heard this before. The most deadly words that we can share in our own personal growth in life are the words, I have heard that before. We typically say that because we are saying, well, what is the point? I have heard this a thousand times. My challenge to you is today. If you hear something you will have heard that before. Then my challenge would you to be, so how has that what you have heard before, how is that impacted or impacting your life? Is it impacting you? Has it changed you? Because just because we have heard it information doesn't mean our life has changed or anything is different in our life because of it. Here is the truth. None of us need more useless information that sounds good, that feels good, but doesn't help us grow or become better people. The biggest gap that we all face in our lives is between what we know, what we've heard before and what we do. So who do you influence? Ok, as you know, I like starting out with a question. Here's another one. Do you believe that you are a person of influence? Just go ahead and put in the chat if you believe you're a person of influence. Put your answer in the chat. Yes or no, right? Yes, I believe I'm a person. Or no, I really don't think I'm a person that has much influence. Now here's a bonus question. How many of you would define yourself as a leader? Put leader in the chat if you believe you're a leader. Okay, because we are going to. You can't do these without tying them Together. A few years ago, I decided to start a leadership and development training company. I talked to you about that a little bit. I wanted to grow in my learning and I wanted to keep learning and I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted to keep learning. So I thought the best way is I am going to start sharing what I am learning. But in that sharing and that training and development that I do, I get to be around some of you guys which are amazing leaders and I can, I can point out some of you that are in here, right. Who have impacted my life and I learn from even when I am sharing, teaching and training other people. Ok. So I just want you guys to know that I think someone jumped out. We need to let somebody else in as well. It is showing up on my screen. Thank you, Kendra. So every time I am training or coaching, I find myself learning and growing. Even while I have put this together, I have found myself learning and, and growing. Right. So I am an executive director with John Maxwell. I am a certified coach and trainer. I just got another certification with Success magazine to be a legacy coach with them, to be a Success coach. And I am excited about that because I am excited about learning. I am excited about using my life to be influenced positively in other people's lives. Ok, so how did you answer the question am I a leader? Question. Right. I think most of you a leader in training. Nick, Nick, knowing you and just the training world that I knew you used to be in, I don't know if you still are. You know, I know that what you mean by that, right. You are definitely a leader. Kim is a leader. Ken is a leader. Right. I'm glad that you see yourselves as leaders because a lot of times when I have this conversation, people define leadership by a position, a title, a corner office, a paycheck. And we think leadership is first about what we do. Leadership is not about what we do. It's about who we are and the influence and impact that we're having on a regular basis with the people and the world around us. So we are going to define leadership as influence. That's how John Maxwell talks about it right? In John Maxwell is who wrote the book Becoming a Person of Influence. It's the one I've kind of read several times and I'm learning from and one I'm going to take a deep dive with. There's about a dozen people that I'm going to be walking with and I'm going to invite you to be one of those people that we're going to take A deep dive. And look into this process of what it means to become a person of influence. If you don't know John Maxwell, I don't know how many of you have heard of John Maxwell and know who he is. I won't spend a lot of time. He's one of my mentors. I'm an executive director in the John Maxwell world. He has authored over 80 books, many of them on the bestseller list. In fact, he's one of only five authors worldwide to have five of his books go platinum. He is a guru when it comes to leadership and influence in communication. So let me ask you guys another question. I want you to think about a person who's had the greatest influence on your life. Can you get that person in your head? Can you? Who are they? And I want you to put their first name. You don't have to put their first name. Put the first name of a person that you can remember in your life who's had the greatest influence on you. They made the greatest impact on you. They've helped you go further and faster than you could have gone on your own. Say so put their first names in there. Now, when you think about this, here's what I want to ask you a couple questions with this. Remember, we're talking about someone who's influenced you. In other words, your life is different. They've caused change in your life, growth in your life. Now, I want you to think about that person, and I want to ask you a question. How many of you. And you can raise your hand and keep them up. How many of you is that person a mother or father or you may go, yeah, they are, too. How many of that was a teacher or a sister or a family member or someone that you personally know that you've interacted with on a regular basis throughout your life? Raise your hands. Okay, you can put your hands down as you think about that person. Did that person have some great title or position or corner office? Right. Or was that person. Was that relationship really about relationship? The influence that people have, and I want to talk about this a little bit, is this understanding that leadership is influence. And John Maxa would say nothing more, nothing less. We're going to add a little bit to that. So what I've learned as I've asked this question is that a lot of people see influence. See the people who influence their lives. They try to pick these people with names or titles or positions or followers. Oh, they're a big. But do they. They may have influence. They may have information, but do they really cause you to change your life. It's usually people that are close to you that you trust and we'll talk about that, that you believe in that. Then when they speak and engage you, you grow. So what I want to remove from our mind in this short period of time is that influence comes from a title. Most of you don't believe that already, but I want to make sure that I say that right. Let's look at it from another angle. I want to do the compass. So if you've got your notes, I want you to grab your notes and that there's a circle there. I want to talk about this influence compass, okay? And if you don't have your notes, just take a piece of paper and on the piece of paper draw a large circle in the middle of the paper and then label it like a compass. North, south, east and west. Remember, west is on the left and east is on the right. So you're going to make, you're going to make a compass. Okay? Now that you've got that big circle, what I want you to do is I want you to put a dot in the center of it. Just put a dot right in the center. This dot is what I'm going to call self leadership. That's you. That's the leadership of self. So you can put, you can label by it if you want. That dot is self leadership. This is where it all begins. All influence and leadership begins with self leadership and self influence. Here I'm going to say this a lot. You can't give away what you don't have. So everything starts with you. To be a person of positive influence, we've got to always work for first and hardest and longest on ourselves. Would you guys agree with that? You can't give people what you don't have. So you have got to work on developing and growing yourself. If you can't lead yourself, how can you expect to lead or influence anybody else? So it starts with self leadership. Next part of the compass. Now draw a line straight down to the south from the dot. So go to the dot and go to the south pole. That's what we call positional leadership or influence. We influence through a position or title. This is the lowest level of influence or leadership. Now you might ask, how can this be the lowest level of insurance leadership? Anyone want to guess at that? You want to. You can unmute yourself. Why would this positional leadership be the lowest level of influencer leadership? Anyone have a thought? Feel free to unmute yourself. I can't see everybody. So if you're talking and I can't hear you. You need to hit on mute. If not, I'm going to keep moving.

Is it because it's expected?

Okay, someone's raising their hand. Can you unmute yourself and speak?

I did. Can you hear me now?

I can hear you. Okay. I had my computer on mute, so. Sorry.

Is it because it's expected? If you have a job title of leadership, people expect that from you. Whereas if you don't have a job title and you lead in other ways, it's unexpected.

So that's. That's a great point. Let me. Let me say this. Because of time, I'm gonna kind of give you this. At this level, people follow you because they. It's. People follow because they have to.

Yeah.

Position. Positional leadership is because I have to follow because they're in a position over me. Just what you're saying, Kendra. Right. Not because they want to. Now, they may follow you also because they want to, but this lowest level is because people follow you.

It's.

It's the paycheck. Right. And so you take the paycheck away and let them clock out. Then the question is, what kind of influence do they have? Now, it may have been an 8 or a 9 because it was positional, but now that they're not in that position in your life, they've clocked out. There's the paycheck, isn't there? You might drop them down to a two. They really don't have influence in your life because at this level, when you only have paycheck to hang over their head, people follow you because they have to, not because they want to. So next part of the compass, now draw a line from east to west all the way across. This is what we call peer leadership or peer influence. It's a lot higher level of leadership because on this level, people follow you because they want to, not because they have to. There's a relationship. It takes a measure of positive influence to get them to follow you. And at this level, there has to be value that they've gained from you, but they're choosing to follow you at this peer level. But here's the thing. Most people don't look at peer influence, especially in the workplace, because we don't see. It's almost like we think it's. That we are lowering ourselves. If we want to let a peer influence us because we're at the same level, or we see them as competition and I need to get to the next level. So we may not view them as people of influence. But the challenge, I would say, to people is if you are at a peer level and you get promoted, but you haven't been a person of positive influence with others and you get promoted over them, what do you think their level of influence that they will allow you to have in your life? If you weren't a good influence at the peer level and you get promoted, it won't be very good. So it is critical we understand the importance of peer influence and how we treat people along the way. Okay, so next level. If you draw a line now from the dot straight to the north, okay, that's what we call leading up or the influence of influencers. Influencing the influencers. This is the highest level of leadership. Because someone at this level doesn't have any reason whatsoever to allow you to influence them. There is no position, there's no peer. There's. There's no reason why they would allow you to influence them. Right? But they choose to. For this type of leadership and influence, you have to have a track record of relationship, integrity, character. This type of influence is being built long before you ever hold that position. And this position of influence isn't one you strive for or you put yourself in. This is a position of influence that you are placed in by the people around you that give you access because you have shown and demonstrated a life of integrity that it's not about you. This is the level where everything changes. When we talk about influence, when you begin to influence influencers, you begin to see the ripple effect in the multiplication of your influence and impact. Okay, we good so far? So there's your compass. I want you to kind of understand that. So let's talk about this. Influence is not about a position. Here's what's important to understand about the compass. Every place you put yourself on that compass, you'll find yourself somewhere inside the compass influencing someone. You are living in an influence relationship. Everyone right now is living in a place of influence. If you can identify where you are, you can begin to identify. So on that compass, if you kind of identify where you are, you begin to identify the adjustments and the things you need to do to grow your influence to become that person of influence that's impacting in a positive way the people in the world around you. But it starts with you. You're at the center. You have to invest in yourself as a person, influence yourself to be an influencer of others. So what we've learned so far is influence is not about a position or a title. Right? You don't start having influence when you arrive at the top or you get a title or you have a corner office, you become a leader only after you have been, are given the title or have people following you. That's not becoming a leader, right? That's the position of leading. But influence is very different. When we get to the top and we get to that position, it's too late to learn how to be a positive influence. You don't learn it once you're there. You want to live it wherever you are in the process. It's not bad to hold a title in a position and a paycheck. That's important, right? That's all a part of it, but that's not the tip of the spear. So here is what I would say to you guys. You can begin today to make that investment yourself. You are doing it by being here to grow in your position of influence. There are great opportunities out there for people who are committed to personal growth. Understanding the power of positive influence on leadership and how to use it to achieve success and grow and grow your income, right? If we look at our jobs, we want to grow in our income. We want to grow in, in that process, right? To succeed and to move up the ladder because that then provides us opportunity to live into our vision and our passion and our dreams. So it is about the bottom line of a dollar, right? But how do we get there and how do we grow and invest in people along the way? To be successful, we need to lead and to lead, we need influence. Everybody, we're on the same page. We're okay there. I'm going to keep going, take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. A lot of information here. So leadership is about a posture and a people, not about a position. So let me just touch real briefly on this. The takeaway so far is we all have platforms of influence. We're influencing people every day. You have people that look to you in certain situations. They follow your leadership, right? They follow your voice, they follow your words. Here's the challenge and the real question that we have to be able to ask ourselves. What kind of influence are you having on the people in the world around you? When you look in the mirror and say, okay, if my life is influencing by how I live my life, how am I influencing people? Being a positive influence, you guys, takes intentionality. It takes practice. It is a skill. It doesn't just happen because we want it to. Being a positive influence isn't first about what's in it for me, but rather what's in it for Others. So if we're serious and we really want to do this right, we've got to begin to honestly examine our lives and ask ourselves some questions. I'm just going to share this real quickly. I won't get into it, but sociologists tell us that we, the average person, each of us here, will influence 10,000 others in an average lifetime. And this is accidentally. This is just living. They say that we'll influence on the average 10,000 other people. In other words, every one of us, whether you're shy or introverted or extroverted, you're always influencing other people. Whether you know it or not, you are influencing people. Right now with a few of you that I can see on the screen watching you and taking a look at you guys, you're influencing my engagement and my energy. Right. By being engaged and being involved. So it is important to understand and be willing to look at that. So I want to take a quick time out, ok. As we are about halfway through and I want to ask you guys a question. So here is the question. What is a takeaway that you have heard so far? What is something that stood out and you can unmute yourself real briefly. Just what is something you heard? You went, oh, that is good. I didn't think about it that way. I need to look at this a little bit more. Give me a quick takeaway. Since we are about halfway through. Don't be shy. Come on, Rick. I would say the amount of people.

That we influence without even knowing it.

Just living. Yeah, just being a normalization that we're living. That we're living. Influencing people all the time, good or bad. Someone puts smile, Alexis put takes skill, right? It's a skill set. Influencing is a skill set. Kim says leadership is influence, nothing more. You know, Kim, that's John Maxwell, man. That's it, right? It is. That is at the bottom line. But that influence can be positive or negative. Anybody else, what's the takeaway you've gotten? You can put in the chat or go ahead and open your mic. One more. Anybody?

We need to leave out, live out our influence at all levels, not just wait until you get to a certain level to really apply yourself. It's important from the, from the basic, from the bottom.

And if, if we had more time and if I was digging and in the mastermind that we're going to go through, we'll spend more time with this. But influence really is about character. If it's about all the time, if we're always in a position of grocery store, the gas station the checkout line, church. We're always influencing people because we're always being watched or observed. And so they're watching how we act, how we live, what we say. I am not saying we are going to be perfect or should be perfect, but there takes. That is why it is a skill, it is intentionality of our character because that is what is going to come out of us. Not just when things are good. We can all look good and be a good influence when life is positive. But for the last 18 months, when life has been really challenging, we are influencing people then too with how we go through the challenges. Ok, so let's talk about some methods of influence now. In the deep dive that we are going to go through, we're going to talk more about this. But there are methods and Maxwell talks about five different methods. Only one of them is really positive. The rest are ways we influence, but they're not a positive way to influence or platform that we influence. Okay, so so far we've been talking about what influence is and what it looks like. I want to spend a few minutes talking about some more practical things for you as we get. As we kind of move towards the second half. So what are some of the ways we influence people? Guys, put them in the chat. What are some of the ways that you influence. That we can influence people by what? Remember, we're always influencing, we're all influencing people who have influenced people. How are we influencing people? Right, we ask, by the way, we ask questions, Our attitude. Thank you. Yeah. Body language, how we talk to people, the way we talk to them, especially if they're peers or co workers or employees or bosses, you know, how we approach that. Those are all ways that we influence. So the question now is how are we using our influence to move people? Because that's what we do, our influence. We can use our influence to move people to get a response, to get them to do something. Think about if you're a parent. We use influence and we use probably the first four of these more than the fifth one. When you're trying to influence a child to clean their room, to pick up after themselves, to, you know, whatever it might be that we use different forms of influence to move people to an action, but there's only one that's positive. I'm going to briefly, let's briefly mention. So you've got force. There's no choice in the decision. How many of you know someone who's influenced that way? They influence by force. They don't give you a choice that this, it's it's this way. The second way is intimidation. Intimidation says it's my way or the highway. How many of you guys know someone or been around someone who leads that way? A third way of influencing is manipulation where there's a winner and a loser and we promote it that way. So we're manipulating. If you want to be a winner, here's what you got to do if you want to succeed. Here is how it looks. Here is what you are going to need, right? It is manipulation. Then there is positional. We follow because we have to. So we put ourselves that place and the last one is really a positive one. And it is exchange where we both win something. Where it is a win win. My influence is going to benefit me and it's going to benefit you. This webinar, this training, this little window that we are spending together is a win win for me. I get to see you, I get to hear from you, I get to learn from you. And I am also able to add value, hopefully back to you. So there is a give and take that we are both engaged in this. It is a little more giving in this environment, but in the mastermind, we will do it's a lot of giving. The mastermind idea is all of us learning from the wisdom of each other. We are smarter, stronger together than we are apart. And so that's where we really sharpen one another. Okay, so as we're looking at that, I want to look. Let me move on to the next one. I just want to talk about one of them. Right? Because we don't have the time to go into all of them. And I want to just mention this one intimidation because I think this is one that we, we would all say, and you would probably all say, I, this is not how I influence or lead. But we probably all know someone and been around people or been under people who lead that way. The method of influence is by intimidation. This is the my way or the highway. Intimidation is all about the need for what? Do you know what it is when someone is leading by intimidation? What are they after? What do they need? There it is. Power. Power, right. Control. You guys, the first two said it right. Power and control. That is exactly right. It is hard to imagine this taking place today with all the things that are happening in society and how people are looking at stuff. You would think that this is going to be the least acceptable or least prevalent that we see anymore. But I need to tell you that it's not true. It just looks different. There are two things I want you to understand about this my way or the highway philosophy. The one is direct, right? It's controlling. It's a type of influence that's obvious. To spot the fruit of this kind of influence always leads to isolation, resignations, broken relationship, failed objectives. It may get something done in the moment because of the paycheck or whatever, but it's not sustainable. And you see turnover, loss of relationship. You see a lot of people alone. At the end of the day, if they lead this way, that one's obvious to see. We can avoid it, we can try to get around it. There's another way. Intimidation happens and I think it's less obvious and I think more of us operate in it, but we don't realize it. This is much more subtle and dangerous. When we operate this way, it often looks like this, and I would call it passive aggressive behavior. It's still ultimately about power and control. It's when we use our position to impose our view or what we think on someone else that ultimately ends up shutting them down. We may not do it as directly as commandingly, but it looks like this. Let me give you an example that I experienced in a place that I was working when I was coaching a manager and their team. So someone comes in, they have an idea that's going to add value to the organization. They came to the leader and they said, hey, I've got this idea, I want to share this with you. And the response is, I appreciate that, but that's not how we do it here. We've always done it this way. That's their response. So what does that do? It shuts them down. It takes their creativity and their innovations, says, sorry, that's not how we do it here. So this person just. That was a one off. So this person went back and they told me they kind of went through it again. They came up with another idea, some ways to make changes in operations better through Covid, to really accelerate and do a better job in the company. And so they had some thoughts about how to help the team and stuff. And they came back to that same leader and they offered those changes. And the person responded again, no, that's not how we do things here. When our leader says that, it's not so much about the words that they say, but what happens to me if someone says that to you? What happens? What do you start doing when you start? And it's not. They weren't being ugly or mean. They were just in this place where it doesn't. That's not how we do it. That's not how I do it. What that does is it stifles in its creativity and innovation. It causes people to shut down, withdraw, and not feel like they have any value to offer to the team or the organization. What I noticed in this, this was a good manager. It was a good leader. They didn't understand that they were doing that. They were tired, they were frustrated. They thought they had done everything. So when someone brought it, they just shut it down. But they weren't trying to, or meaning to be rude or ugly or oppress someone, but that's what they did. By those actions, when we do this, we lose good people and we lose their creativity and innovation that is so desperately needed. You guys with me, thumbs up. We. Okay, let me know in the chat. I can see the chat better than I can see other stuff. Let me know if you're. If you're doing okay. All right, so here's the thing with. Say one more thing about this intimidation. And this is a post I saw on Facebook the other day. Someone posted on there said, you know, man, it's really hard to look busy on the job. And I thought, that's a. That's. That's kind of a weird post. And the thread was going crazy. People were posting in that comment after comment. And so I was wondering about that. So I went back to look, and what they were posting was they were telling this person how to. Not how to. How to look busy at their job without really doing anything. I mean, they had all these solutions about how to behave and how to act because they were disengaged. And what that told me was there's a lot of people on a lot of jobs that are disengaged that are going through the motions because they don't feel they have a voice or. Or a place that. Is that my way or the highway? Influence, it leads to people becoming disengaged. So I just want to say this to you as we are getting near the end, the method you use to influence people matters. It matters. The challenge is we need to be honest with ourselves and take a look and say, do we use some of these negative types of influence to get what we need? When I first went through this, I really had to check myself with my kids, and they are adult kids now. So it is more manipulation. It is me wanting certain things. And so the way I would act and the things I would say that I thought I was trying to be helpful, it was really selfish about me wanting a certain outcome from my adult children. And so I would use different tactics to get them to do what I ultimately wanted. I would use my influence as a parent, my authority as a parent to then push my agenda to, to get what I desired. It doesn't even matter if my desire was good and to their benefit. It's how I went about influencing them that matters. Ok, so let's just talk about a couple more things. You guys all still with me? Are we good? Any questions? Let me open it up real quickly as we kind of start to turn the corner. Any questions? Kerry? Right with you. Thank you Kim. We are good. Ok, so why do we want to influence people? Here is one of the things I will tell you. Won't spend a lot of time here but I need you guys. The why question is one of the most important questions in anything that we do to become people of positive influence and impact. We need to know why we want to influence people. Because our motivation will determine the type of influencer we become. If there is one question that is critical to answer, it is the why question. Why is this important? Why should I care how I influence other people? Answering this question is a huge part of how to positively influence others and sustain it when we don't feel like it. Ok so our why is contagious because it is our motivation, it is our emotion, it is what drives us, it is what sustains us. People see our why, they feel our why in our words and our actions in how we treat others and how we communicate. The method of influence we use is found in our why. Why you do something is extremely important. Why speaks to motives. Okay, so I want to look at some, some motives. I want to, I want to take a look at this because this is, this is really. We're going to get down to the, to the meat of this real quickly. Okay? How are we doing on time? Okay, so let me, I'm going to move through this pretty quick, right? Motives are crucial to people because leadership functions on the basis of trust. That quote without trust influences nothing more than coercion and manipulation. Every company I've ever worked with has the job, their priority of achieving exceeding their goals to get their bottom line to make money to be a profit. Right? That's, that's every organization, every company a for profit company. Their end goal is to generate revenue, right? Otherwise they're not going to be in business. So the question becomes how do you motivate and influence people to achieve that objective? You can drive them, you can boss them, but you're going to be dealing with turnover and all that stuff or you can influence them in a positive way. To catch the vision, to catch the emotion, to catch the end of the why. And when they get the why, your influence and the why speaks to them. They're now loyal. They're working for you. They're going to exceed expectations. So we've been talking a lot about companies, but I also want to share with you, you know, if you're a company of one, which I am. Right. So this isn't about just influencing within an organization. This is about I'm a company of one on the payroll. But I need Kendra to help me put out my book. I need, you know, Barbara to help me edit some things I'm doing or post. I need. There's people in relationships. I need vendors and salespeople and relationships. I need other people to help me. I cannot succeed on my own. This is limiting thinking. To think that I'm all by myself. I'm not. And so whether I'm a part of a team or organization or company or I'm just an individual, influence is critical to my success. How I influence people will determine the level of relationship I have. So remember, we will not achieve our goals in isolation. We need each other. Whether it's volunteers or vendors or clients, there's all about relationship. And the movement of people is all about influence. Remember, leadership is influence. It's about getting the results through other people. Kendra is there. You can't do your job without your scripture flips. It doesn't just you. You may have the vision, the idea, but you need a team of people, volunteers, friends, networks to get that done. We all have that need and that desire. Okay? So positive influence has a lot to do with the level of trust we have built with people. That's that quote right there. The other thing that we need to understand about influence is that it's a skill set. And I've said that I want you guys to hear this because I think it is really important. It is a skill. It is much more complicated than what we think because it is a skill. Just saying, okay, I am going to influence other people to get more out of them. And it just happens. It doesn't. We have to be intentional. Our nature as people is to be selfish. It is in our flesh. I am a believer. I believe I have the spirit of God that lives in me, that wants me to bless and serve others. But I still have flesh on these bones. I don't know what you believe or where you are at, but there is a selfish part of me that exists in there. No matter how much I don't want it to. And so I have to be intentional about understanding how I influence and engage and lead and interact with people because I am left on my own feelings and emotions. Oftentimes that leads to me wanting to do what I want for my benefit and my good and it ends up walking over other people. So it is not something you just decide and dictate. In the Mastermind coming up that we're going to talk about, I'm going to invite you to, we're going to talk about and break down influence into 10 core principles that when you apply and you understand in your life will cause you to become that person of positive influence and impact in the people and the world around you. So we're going to finish up. Let me share just this last couple things with you as we go through this, ok? And then we'll have a minute for questions and I'll share with you kind of where we're headed. So without trust, we talked about trust. Any attempts to influence people comes across as manipulation. We know and see enough leaders and you could all raise your hands right out there who are only in it for their own benefit. They use their influence to move people to what is best for them, not as not what is best for the people they're leading. Ultimately, people will more likely trust or follow and be loyal to leaders or people who can correctly demonstrate to them the answer to these three questions. So if you don't take anything else from anything I've said, I want you to grab these three questions and I want you to apply them to yourself. Right? Because there are millions. This is the million dollar question for us to be people if we want to be people of influence. Because this is what you're asking everyone who you allow to influence you. The only reason they get to influence you is because in your mind, whether you did these directly or not, these are the questions you are asking about that person. Do they care about me? I want to know do they care about me? Then I want to know can they help me? Do they bring something to the table? Are they able to help me? And then I want to know can I trust them? Do you get. Would you guys agree with. I'm going to run out of time so I don't want to open up, but I'd love to have a talk about this and we will talk about this in the Mastermind because this is critical. Now you look at that through the people that you want to trust that you're going to allow to influence you. But now Put yourself in the position of influence. The people out there, do you care about them and do they see it? Does your life reflect that you care about them? Do you offer value? Do you desire to help them? Does your life reflect the desire to care, to help them become better? And can they trust you? Have you lived a life of integrity? That says I can trust that person? Doesn't mean we're perfect because we mess up. It's how we mess up, how we go through messing up that people are looking at. Right? So I think those are critical questions. So there's a couple more as we finish up that I think it's important that you understand. The first one is how do you increase your influence? I'm going to give you two gold nuggets here as we go out the door. It's actually how we started, right? We know we all have influence. We've said that we know the types of influences we have will be positive or negative. We've said that. And our desire is to be positive influencers. We talked about the value of having influence, right? So the last couple questions, how do you grow in influence? That's the last question. I am going to share two thoughts with you about this, ok? Now that you know the value of having influence, which we have talked about, how do we go about increasing our influence? That is, I want to grow in influence, grow in my impact. I want to impact more people in my life, through my life. If it is just one, that is great. But I desire to impact as many as I can in a positive way. If we want to increase our influence with others, the key is that those people feel that we are adding value to them. That is the first thing. Influence comes when people feel like you are adding value to them. So what do I mean by adding value? That could be helping someone in a way with their goals and their dreams, lifting them up, helping them see themselves in a positive light. If we want to increase our influence with others, the first thing we need to do is to see others as valuable. We want to put a number 10 right on their forehead and then help them see that they are a 10 or whatever it is, right? We want to see them as a 10, as how they were created in their greatness, not in their frailties. None of you want people to see you in your brokenness or mistakes. You want people to see you for the good that is in you, the successes, not your failures. So we start by seeing them. And I love this quote. It says, no matter what our achievements might be, we think, well, of ourselves only in rare moments. That is so true. In one of the offerings that I do, we try to write 100 positive statements about ourselves. It drives people crazy. They can get 25 or 30 and then that's it. But if I ask them to give me 100 statements negative, I can't, I won't, I don't. They can give me 100 really easy. It's just something in us, right? So no matter what our achievements might be, we think well of ourselves only in rare moments. We need people, it says, to bear witness against our inner judge. Our inner judge is judging us all the time. We need others to bear witness against it. Who keeps book on our shortcomings and transgressions. That is our inner judge. We need people to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Some of you may not have that problem. I wish I didn't have that problem and I'm overcoming it. But it's still something I wrestle with. Negative self talk, limiting beliefs. And my greatest growth has become when I've allowed others to speak life over me, when I don't feel like I can speak life over myself. That little nudge from someone that I trust, who has influence, who says, rick, you've got this. You're more than you think you are. Look at all you have done. And they remind me of that. It is not pride and ego, but my inner thoughts say, no, I am not. I can't. I can't seem to get over the hump. We all need people in our lives to convince us that we are not as bad as we think we are. Eric Hoffer this is as true today as when he wrote it all those years ago. We live in an age that because of social media and poor parenting advice and practices, we have an entire generation that has grown up with lower self esteem than any other generation. Facebook and Instagram and social media sites show us what a great life everyone else is having. We believe that everyone else has got it all figured out except for us. And so we put on the false smiles and the kisses and all those things we do, trying to project an image when inside we're just dying. But we're trying to keep up with the image everyone else because we think everyone else's life must look perfect. Look at them and it's the mask that we all wear. Studies have shown that the more time a person spends on social media, the more likely they're going to be to be dissatisfied with their life and be depressed. But we can change that by Making real connections by listening and understanding and looking for the gold that lies in people by being and committing to be a person of positive influence. Are you guys with me? Does that make sense? That is the heart of influence. Influence is about helping to change a life and call out the destiny in the future and the hope in someone else. But sometimes, guys, we don't feel like it because no one is doing that for us. That is why I started this with. The greatest leadership investment you can make is yourself. To be intentional about how you change your limiting beliefs, your thoughts, your behaviors, the things that people don't see, we've got to be able to bring them out to the surface. So how do you do this? Here is where we are going to wrap up. How do you increase your influence when we added value? Here is the second thing I told you I was going to tell you too. When we start adding value to ourselves and we become more valuable than to others. Remember I said you can't give away what you don't have. Our desire, commitment, ability to add value to ourselves is the most important thing. So how are you doing that? Remember what I said at the beginning? You can't give away what you don't possess. If you truly don't believe you are a person of value and influence, then you will not be a person of value and influence. You will influence, but you won't influence in a positive way. This is demonstrated, we know this by the investments you make in yourself. If you can't add value to yourself and make that investment there, don't think you're going to make an investment and add value to others. If you can't convince others of your greatness, of their greatness. If you can't see the greatness in yourself. Let me say that again because I think it's really important. You can't convince others of their greatness if you don't see the greatness within you. So it comes down to this. You need to lead yourself better than others will follow. That's the challenge, the opportunity I want to give you. So I'm going to close with this and just hang with me for just a couple more minutes. We'll be done by one o'. Clock. Ok? And I thank you guys for staying with me and staying engaged. So this is the challenge. When you lead yourself better, others will follow. They'll see the investment you made in yourself and desire for that same investment in their own lives. So here's my questions. I said we close and I want you to put your answers in the Chat. This is really important. Here's the first question. Did you find this material that we talked about today to be a benefit to you? If you did, if there's something that was a benefit to you, put yes in the chat. Okay? Give you a second to do it. Everybody just do this. We're almost done. That's the first question. Second question. Do you desire to be a positive leader and influence in the people and the world around you? Is your desire to be a positive influence and have a positive impact in the people in the world around you? If so, put yes. So we have barely touched on what it looks like it means to be a person of influence and imagine going deeper with a group of people that desire to be a greater influence and impact in the people and world around them who are going through the same challenges, pressing into the same thoughts, wrestling with their same struggles. What would that look like in a group setting or an individual coaching session? What would happen to you if you and your organization, your team, the people you work with, took a deeper dive together into maximizing your impact and your influence? What would that do for your own personal growth? So what I would like to do for you as we close is for you to answer one last question. Do you believe going deeper and studying how to grow in your influence and impact with others who are hungry to grow as well would help you reach and become a stronger leader, accomplish your vision and the goals you have in your life? Do you believe that? If so, put yes. Do you believe going deeper and studying how to grow in your influence and impact with others who are hungry to grow as well would help you reach your vision, your passion, your goals as a leader in your life? Ok, so here is the simple deal. If yes, then I am inviting you and I am unashamedly asking you go on a journey with me. I won't take more than 12 to 15 people at max. I have already got half a dozen that are wanting to go through and it's going through. It's the power of a mastermind. The mastermind is not about a talking head. It is about a group of people going around an intentional, guided discussion around principles that are transformational into our lives. Not just to get the information, but to mastermind together how to live it out and have a group that will help us be accountable in that process. Ok, So I am inviting you to become a part of that. And if you are giving me just a minute, I want to share what that looks like for you. And I am going to put a link in the I'M going to escape, see if I can do this. Escape out of here. I want to give you a link so I'm coming back of how you can engage and get more information to be a part of this. So there's two links I'm going to put in. The first one is a link to a landing page. The second one is a direct link to register. Okay. So I'm. I'm going to share this with you in there so you've got it and go back to. The chat. And here in the chat there should be a couple links. The first one is a landing page. It'll talk more about the mastermind. The second one is a direct link. It's going to start August 2nd. It's going to run for five weeks. 90 minutes a week is all we'll do. You'll get the book Becoming a Person of Influence with the. There you go. And you will get a workbook as well and that, that'll be emailed to you, the book will be mailed to you. And then we're going to go through this. It's on Monday nights, it'll be in the evening, hopefully, if you've got kids, it's after you put your kids down. And we won't take a lot of people because we want to discuss and we're going to walk through it through August. We will record every session. So if you have to miss one or if you have to miss part of it, which I don't recommend, but if you have to, because life happens, you will get the recording. And we are going to engage together. We are going to talk about the principles of what it takes and what it looks like. Let me go back to stop sharing so I can see everybody here what it looks like to become people of positive influence and impact in the lives of the people in the world around us. That is really what we are going to spend time doing. It is a five week deal. It will increase your influence. It will help you learn how to get the most out of yourself and those around you. Right. Because of that influence, you are going to experience the power of a mastermind with a select group of people. And we are going to go through John Maxwell's book and I am excited about that because he is one of the great leaders that had been through life, 50 years of leadership and influence that he has unpacked for us. So we are going to go through that together because we went through this. If you're here and you signed up to be here, typically for a mastermind with Everything involved, our time, the resources. It's typically 249 is what I charge for that. But I'm taking $100 off of that. You just have to put influence in there. It is $149 to get the books, the material and the time together. And really what you're paying for the book isn't that expensive. I am not necessarily worth all that money. But together we are together. When we dig into these principles of truth and transformation and we hold each other accountable and we talk about it and we dive into it, it goes from information to revelation that leads to transformation, a changed life. It leads to actions and behaviors that actually are going to grow and impact whether it is your family. You need greater influence in workplace, peers, friends. It's the same principles that apply everywhere. So we are at our time. We've gone over just a minute. So I just want to say if you're interested, you can follow up, ask me questions. The links are there. Put influence and I'll put that in the chat here. So influence is the word, is the code to get $100 off. Type in influence when you register and it'll be $149. Includes the book and our time. It's five weeks, August 2, Monday night to the August 30. I know it's a hard time with school and stuff, but it is 7:30 in the evenings and if we decide we want to do it a different time together based now, we can do that together and come up with that. And then you will get an email with all the information, the downloads, there are a lot of other resources you will get along the way, different books and different things that we will offer to help us supplement the conversation and the journey. So I would love for you guys to be a part of that. If you know others that might want to be a part of it as well, or family members or co workers. If you want to do this in your business with your team, we can talk offline to do that as well. I do this with several companies and their leadership team in this area and we talk about what it means to become people of positive influence and impact. Any questions? Any questions? Open it up, unmute yourselves. Any thoughts and last takeaways? I don't see a lot of faces, but I hope you guys stayed with me. Was it helpful? Beneficial? Did you get something positive you can take even if you don't do the mastermind? Did you get something that you can take away and apply? Any feedback? I'd love to get some feedback. I Like the thumbs up. Javier, anything from you, Dan, Rebecca, I don't see your faces. Hoping you're there. Any. Any takeaways. Sorry, man. I was. I was eating. It's a luncheon. It was. Okay uppercase. I. I think it doesn't matter if it's all. I think it comes across all bold or all uppercase, but I don't think it matters. Just put the word influence in there and it should take it off. If not, just email me and message me and we'll take care of it. But guys, thank you. Ken, thank you for being a part of Alexis, if you got questions, hey, help me spread the word. You are going to see stuff. I would love to get, you know, dozen to 15 people because, you know, some make it and some don't. Let me know and let's get some people in this. We are going to start August 2nd, once a week, 90 minutes or less. And you will get all the materials and resources and we will go on a journey together. So, guys, God bless you. Thank you for being a part. Thank you for jumping in. Hopefully you got value today. I would also encourage you to join Created for More. If you are not part of that private Facebook community. A lot of this goes on there as well. And I'll post that and send that out there and let me know what else I can do for you. So that's. That's all I got. If there's nothing else, God bless you guys. Thank you. It's great to see your faces and I'm believing. Like I say, your best is yet to come. God bless you guys. Hey, quick question. Yeah, I'm here, Javier. Go ahead. And so I'd like to go to the program. I'm probably going to go ahead and register right now and then after I go through it at that point, we could talk about maybe setting something up for the staff. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I'd love to talk about some stuff and just kind of get an idea where your heart is and what you're working on and see, you know, what, how I can come alongside you. So let's say this. Send me a note. Just let's go get some coffee at some point. Let's just get to know each other. I'd love to just kind of hear your journey and hear about what you're doing. Okay, guys, anybody else? I'll stick around till everybody's gone in case anybody has any questions. Thanks again, Rick, Carrie, Appreciate you, my friends. Good to see your face. You look good, feeling good. Life is good. Awesome. Awesome. God Bless you, man. God bless you, brother. All right, anybody else? Thank you so much. Rick, Alexis, good to see everybody healthy. You doing okay? We're hanging in there. Thanks.