The truth about influence

I was getting ready to run out the door with my family, for church, and myself being the last, usual step, I glanced at the mirror for a moment. I looked and thought I “needed” something. I opened the drawer to pull out a headband that I bought a few years back. It’s a really cute one. To look at in the drawer, at least. The minute it goes on my head, though, I usually hate it. I mean, I like headbands, AND, I don’t even like to use the word “hate”. But it fits.

Again, as I put it on this morning, I can confirm. I hate everything about it. How it looks on me, and everything else it represents. It stands up too tall, the pearl beads are too pronounced around my face, my ears seem to stick out. I dislike how I look, it doesn’t see, right. I think of how I see “everyone” wearing it on Instagram, and maybe a few people in real life. (Insert eye roll.) Some people look great in it, but I don’t. And I dislike thinking about this.

I take it off. ”You don’t like it, mommy?” my daughter asks?

“No, I just don’t like it on me.”

Remember, I don’t dislike it. It looks great in my drawer! Why else have I kept it this long, even though I don’t wear it. The thing is, it’s just not for me.

Sometimes it takes figuring out who you’re not for a little while before figuring out who you really are.

And truthfully, all I can think of when I see it, is how influenced I was. How influenced we all were who bought it. Who buy anything, really. I mean, I’m not upset or anything. We all have to find things, buy things, learn and grow. I’m not bothered by the person who influenced me to buy it, I was a willing participant. But still. The whole thing bothers me sometimes.

“Too many people wear it,” I say.

“Oh, I get it. You don’t want to follow, you want to be a leader,” my daughter says, nodding, not unwisely.

“Well, that’s kinda true. But it’s not even really that this time. True, I don’t want to just follow anyone else. I do want to be a leader But more importantly, I just want to be my best, and I don’t care if anyone follows or not.”

Life really is just the blind leading the blind sometimes. It’s kind of embarrassing when you really think about it. How the whole thing works. Everything is so fickle, feedback based, and changing.

People give and feedback- in life, on ”platforms” or in positions. It comes in the form of sales, followers, likes, questions, comments, rejections, and affections alike. We tailor and change our content and “dressings” according to what feels good, and often, to fit what people want. What people say or seem to say, whatever our metrics are that we’re busy measuring. There are collaborations and responsibilities and partnerships, in business and life, and with all of it, benchmarks to hit, repeat, hit, repeat.

I know, it’s life, it’s business, its savvy. But for many, it’s very personal. For some it is their person. It becomes their person, their livelihood. A brand, identity, or purpose even.

But, that way of living, alone, and building a business or life, no less, is less than ideal. Not just sales or metrics, but the meaning behind them. Why?

Because it is shifting sand.

Without the right things, some constants, influencing you, how can you be of true influence? Sure you can influence. But will it ever be enough or mean enough even to you personally, if all thats guiding you is how much people like you or don’t like you, accept or reject you based on whatever it is you are saying, selling, or sharing?

Is feedback ever enough, in life or pursuit?

Never. No human feedback is ever enough. Because no person alone can see what is printed upon your heart, and what influence you were meant to have, what difference you were truly meant to make. It’s written in invisible, heavenly ink. It’s not defined by human standards or man-made measuring sticks.

It’s above and beyond all of that.
How do you, how could you, define whether something is a true success or not, if you can’t see it- what’s written on the heart, by an invisible hand, for an eternal purpose?

Speaking of that headband. I saw it again a few days later. While musing in my heart about these things, and how we cant measure according to what we see on the outside, but instead by following a heart informed by Love, I saw someone else wearing it. I like her even more than the person who ”sold” it to me. Her content and values match up with mine more, and I feel more affinity. Her platform has grown lately , her books have been recently published and that smiling face of hers fit the headband much better than mine. But it wasn’t the headband that bothered, or stood out to me. It was something else. It wasn’t how beautiful or funny she is, or her adorable family in pictures, or her recent family vacation to the beach. I didn’t want to click on links or buy anything or try anything.

It was the published author bit. Not because its a competition, not at all. Not that kind of influence, but because the spark in me doesn’t long for validation, but longs to come out. But because she’s doing something that I am very influenced to do, too, already. Something written on my heart in invisible ink since before I was born. Something I’m working on and dreaming of and hoping for, in big ways and small.

That’s influence of the best kind. One that is not defined or created by another person, but taps into your own greatest worth, and what you sense is already there, and just needs to come out. What mirrors back to you what is already written on your heart and says to your truest you, ”come out!” Not, “become like me.” But, “Be who you were always meant to be!”

Beyond looks, likes, and headbands

It’s not an idea or an influence, a practice even, that make something good or bad, it’s whats behind it. What’s pushing the decision, the response, and what’s influencing you. What is the influence? Then, what kind of fruit does it produce? Not only in the world around you, but in you?

Some things take years to build, while others happen in an instant. It’s not the pace or speed of the process or its completion that define success. You can spend years working, years building without anything to show for it. You can spend a lieftime building what looks quite fruitless from the outside. It’s whether or not it fits the plans. That were drawn for you, already. That men can’t imagine, so how could they define?

If what you are doing is influenced by God, and what He has spoken, or written to your heart, then there is no fruitless. There is only gold.

There’s a measuring that happens only by His hands. Of invisible things, weighty things. Not everything that is important can be measured by man, and not all that seems fruitless really is.

There are seeds that are plant that reap a harvest you will never see. There are people that have wide influence and there are some that go very deep. Gardens of eternal difference, that appear to be not to big. There are certain seeds that will fall into a quiet spot, but become an eternal disruptor. Some of the most important fields are not the ones that look the most expansive or impressive, but they are important because they go the deepest. They change the furthest because they touch the heart. Influence comes in all shapes and immeasurable sizes.

So that headband, I shoved it back in my drawer. Though I think about throwing it away, I just also might keep it To remember, to not only not be overly influenced by others, or even seek to be to an influence, really. But to be genuinely showing up and shining myself, from the inside out. Sharing with the world who I am, and giving almost always, last thought to how I look and first thought to how I’m really showing up.

Listening to the heart, to Love, learning to love , reading the invisible ink. Not seeking to be led by anything else but a most loving God. Not seeking to see if anyone should even follow, but only following for myself the leading of God. Not caring about the size of things, the shape of things, or human measurements, but letting Love go deep, yet and, deeper still.

Thankful that God doesn’t care whether I wear the headband or not, who loves me just the same regardless. Who allows me the space to be expressive and delights in seeing me delighted. Whose Love is not defined by perceived beauty, likes or followers. Whose definition of success is not defined by what I can even see, but who sees the harvest, and fruit a heart. Whose Love is displayed perfectly in Christ, who freed me to be perfectly me- influenced by Love and expressing that into the world, whatever that looks like.

That is the influence I want in my life. He knows where we’re going, where He’s leading us, best. Be influenced , to be perfectly you.,.🙌🏻