What Can You Do To Make The Most Impact in Other People’s Lives?
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
LOL! Nope! It is not a prideful question. It’s a question worth asking, especially if you know that you have SO MUCH experiences and wisdom learned through the school of hard knocks called LIFE, that you CAN share.
But do you share?
What do people these days share?
A joke. A funny picture, Horrible news. Horrible pictures. Sad news, sometimes sad pictures.
But what do those things mean? What do those things do to the hearer, or to the recipient?
Well, exactly what you yourself got from it.
So if you laughed at a joke or a funny picture, when you share it, it may make the other person laugh, too. The horrible or sad news or pictures, well, when you share it, you share the grief and the negativity that came with it, too.
Venting Mechanism or Confidante?
There is a clear distinction between being a “venting mechanism” for people, (those who call you or get in touch with you simply to share some sad, or problematic, or horrible news”) and those who call on you when they have a problem to “process” and they might need someone (and they call on you as a confidante) to bounce ideas off of with, and to brainstorm with. That’s different.
The first type of person doesn’t really need nor respect you, “you are just an audience” for their negativity, hoping to get some type of attention that they are going through something negative, and they want to have and put you in it, too. (That’s where the “Misery Loves Company” saying comes from. :-))
Because even if you make suggestions to those types of people, they will just say – “I already did that”, or “I already know that.” Anyway, there’s not really ANYTHING you can do for those types of people. (And those who do not add to your life will eventually subtract from it).
And before you know it, you would start to feel useless and worthless to that person. Actually just wasting your time. So why let them? Because even if you have actually helped that person, they will never admit to it.
The second type of person is one that have THOUGHT their problems through and have actually TRIED to fix it themselves, and they are just needing some type of validation because they respect your brain and your time. And they are needing a little bit of motivation or that extra push that they should go a certain route, because they respect that you have “been there, done that.”
When I learned that clear distinction, between those two types of people, I learned how to just avoid being in that situation. And of course I say my piece, after realizing that I have reached that “state of confusion”.
It’s no different than being exposed to “noise pollution” all the time. People whining about situations and when you give suggestions so they will no longer be in it, they still do nothing about it. Or people who curse too much and you hear it over and over again.
I have reached that point in my life when I feel so comfortable saying stuff like, “You do understand that what comes out of your mouth is an advertisement of what is in your heart, right?” (I didn’t say that, the Scripture said that: “From the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.“)
I used to ALSO curse a lot because I was surrounded by people who cursed too much while I was growing up. Until I started learning about “taming the tongue” from the book of James:
“1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life,and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water. 13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. ” – James 3:1-18
Taming the tongue is a “conscious decision”, an “act of the will”, that I had to be cognizant of once I started realizing the real essence of the above “scripture” – it made and makes sense to me so I experimented on myself.
I tried being conscious of it, and slowly I was and got better at avoiding cursing. There’s a whole lot of words in the language that we can use to express the same type of strong points that sometimes get “substituted with one or two curse words”.
So, the questions remains …
What Can You Do To Make The Most Impact in Other People’s Lives?
It depends on where your energy is coming from. It depends on what your emotion is.
I have taught this same principle to my son, about having negative thinking and positive thinking.
Negative thinking + Negative energy = negative outcomes, because of negative emotions
… emotions = Energy + Motion
In the same token…
Positive thinking + Positive energy = positive outcomes, because of positive emotions
… emotions = Energy + Motion
So instead of saying to yourself “I Can’t” ask yourself “How Can I?”
… because oftentimes it just takes for THAT simple switching of questioning that you can ask yourself that you can attract the right kind of solutions instead of focusing on a perceived limitation.
Because whether or not you think you can do something, or some task, you are right.
About 3 hours or so ago, I noticed that the blog posts that I have migrated to this personal self hosted blog of mine, the “AddInvestmentGroup” blog, the new blog entries FONT was in Times New Roman.
I have switched “Themes” and so I tweaked the main CSS file, and even created a customized CSS file for the font that I wanted. Then nothing (I almost broke my blog again! Hehehe….
… so I was on the “How can I change the font on my new blog posts into Verdana?
… I worked, clicked preview, tested, on and on and on..
… until finally I found a solution in a nice little plug-in.
That’s why now you can read this in Verdana.
The point is – I asked myself How Can I? And I got one wrong answer, trial and error, after another wrong answer, trial and error, until I figured it out and so it got fixed. It WAS supposed to be something so simple as fixing a line of code in the CSS file. However, there might have been a script code somewhere that is overriding the main CSS file.
I first installed a plug in that simply removes Google Fonts …
… that’s how I was able to customize the Fonts in my Front Page..
However, my blog posts, were still in “Times New Roman”, and the size was very small (imagine having to read it from a Mobile Phone)…
… so I installed a plug-in that gives me “Font Family” choices.
… many seemingly mundane tasks to others, but for me it is for a purpose.
It all contributes, in my opinion, to the foundation of this personal blog, again, so that I can share what I am learning as I go on along with this journey called life.
What Can You Do To Make The Most Impact in Other People’s Lives?
You can start sharing your stories and the lessons you have learned from these experiences.
Some may listen, some might not. But at least you have done your part. We are only responsible for the world that God has given us.
What is your world like?
It starts with your family.
Then it also expands into your work and your work place, the people you interact with there.
Then it also expand into your friends and your own sphere of influence outside your family.
Then it also expand into your community…. your city, your State or Province, your country, and the rest of the world.
And you can reach the latter by writing – either writing a book, or writing in a blog.
But we all have to start somewhere. Like what I am doing… I can help myself, I can help others who might find my blog posts and articles through a Google or a Bing Search. Blogging is therapeutic for me.
It’s cathartic for me.
What Can You Do To Make The Most Impact in Other People’s Lives?
I have started to change and improve, I believe it’s been made brutally apparent and crystal clear for me since I joined Empower Network, how much work still was needed to be done in me – by me.
It’s self improvement, if I am to be the change that I want to see in the world, I really needed to evolve into this best version of me that I can be so that whoever I meet or interact with, can see those positive changes in me, which hopefully would also motivate them to look into themselves, and assess and evaluate what part of their personalities do they have to work on, so that they, too, can transform into the better version of themselves, constantly improving, and advancing.
And why did I want to do this?
Because of the simple fact that in this world, it seems like we are all predisposed into being “people pleasers” all the time.
.. like we want to make our parents happy and proud of us, or love us…
.. like we want to have so many friends, both offline, and now online…
.. like we want our boss to notice us and our hard work and give us a raise or promote us…
.. like we want our spouse or significant other to be happy with us or stay loyal and faithful to us …
.. like we want out children to always respect us and follow our advise…
And we go through the motions of making other people happy and neglecting to ask ourselves – “Am I happy?”
Because is you are not happy with what you are doing, you have definitely have something unresolved inside of you, that you have NOT fixed YET. And it needs fixing FIRST.
Just like in order for me to start blogging again on my personal blog AddInvestmentGroup.com …
… I needed to fix the file structures first of all my media files that I have produced in my blog since I started at Empower Network in October 31, 2012. Done.
… Then another blog post on my tech progress, little milestones that is good for me to document, because I know there’s a lot of work to be done, and it won’t happen unless I apply action on it … Done.
… Then now, we have this blog post. … Done. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Cris