Becoming a Person of Influence - Book Notes

Since January, I have been reading a variety of non-fiction books. One of the more recent ones I finished was Becoming a Person of Influence by John Maxwell and Jim Dornan. 

This is an excellent book that I found well worth my time to read. Some things that I found particularly interesting or inspiring were: 

- Influence doesn't come to us instantaneously. It grows by stages.

- If your life in any way connects with other people, you are an influencer.

- If your desire is to be successful or to make a positive impact on your world, you need to become a person of influence.

- If you want to raise a strong, healthy family, you have to be able to influence your children positively. 

- Leadership is at its lowest level when it is based on position only. It grows and goes to a higher level as you develop relationships with others. 

- When people feel good about you and themselves during the times they're with you, then your level of influence increases significantly.

- Mentoring is pouring your life into other people and helping them reach their potential.

- As you give of yourself, helping them overcome obstacles in their lives and showing them how to grow personally and professionally, you help them achieve a whole new level of living.

- As a multiplying influencer, you help people you're influencing to become positive influencers in the lives of others and pass on not only what they have received from you, but also what they have learned and gleaned on their own.

- "A life isn't significant except for its impact on other lives." (Jackie Robinson)

- "My life shall touch a dozen lives before this day is done, Leave countless marks for good or ill ere sets the evening sun, This is the wish I always wish, the prayer I always pray; Lord, may my life help other lives it touches by the way." (Anonymous)

- You can make a child's problems the center of everything you do, or you can use them as a launching pad for a whole new way of looking at life.

- "The only inheritance that a man will leave that has eternal value is his influence." (Larry Dobbs)

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE HAS INTEGRITY WITH PEOPLE

- The need for integrity today is perhaps as great as it has ever been. And it is absolutely essential for anyone who desires to become a person of influence.

- Don't do what you wouldn't feel comfortable reading about in the newspapers the next day.

- You are responsible for your choices.

- William Hersey Davis had a poem about the difference between character and its shadow, reputation. This is the second part of the poem:

Reputation is what you have when you come to a new community;

character is what you have when you go away.

Your reputation is made in a moment;

your character is built in a lifetime.

Your reputation is learned in an hour;

your character does not come to light for a year.

Reputation grows like a mushroom,

character lasts like eternity.

Reputation makes you rich or makes you poor;

character makes you happy or makes you miserable.

Reputation is what men saw about you on your tombstone,

character is what the angels say about you before the throne of God.

- Worry less about what others think, and give your attention to your inner character.

- "No man can for any considerable time wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which is the true one." (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

- Integrity is your best friend. It will never betray you or put you in a compromising position. It keeps your priorities right. When you're tempted to take shortcuts, it helps you stay the right course.

- Trust is the single most important factor in personal and professional relationships.

- Trust comes from others only when you exemplify solid character. 

- Do the following:

- Model consistency of character.

- Employ honest communication.

- Value transparency.

- Exemplify humility.

- Demonstrate your support of others.

-Fulfill your promises.

- Embrace an attitude of service.

- Encourage two-way participation with the people you influence. 

- Character is made in the small moments of our lives. (Philipps Brooks)

- A big part of integrity is following through consistently on your responsibilities. 

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE NURTURES OTHER PEOPLE

- Your goal is others' growth and independence. 

- Codependent people never become positive influencers in the lives of others.

- Take time to express your love and appreciation for the people close to you. Tell them how much they mean to you. Write them notes telling how much you care. Don't ever assume that people know how you feel about them. Tell them. 

- When people are made to feel secure and important and appreciated, it will no longer be necessary for them to whittle down others in order to seem bigger in comparison.

- Not until people can completely trust you will you be able to positively influence them and have an impact on their lives.

- Lack of encouragement can hinder a person from living a healthy, productive life. But when a person feels encouraged, she can face the impossible and overcome incredible adversity.

- Self-confidence is the first great requisite to great undertakings. (Samuel Johnson)

- People with high self-esteem get better-paying jobs and are more successful in their careers than people with low self-esteem.

- If you want to help people improve their quality of life, become more productive at work, and develop more positive relationships, then build their self-worth. Make them feel good about themselves. 

- "Treat a man as he appears to be and you make him worse. But treat a man as if he already were what he potentially could be, and you make him what he should be." (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

- Walt Disney said there are three kinds of people in the world:

- Well-Poisoners - discourage others, stomp on their creativity, and tell them what they can't do.

- Lawn-Mowers - people who have good intentions but are self-absorbed, who mow their own lawns but never help others.

- Life-Enhancers - people who reach out to enrich the lives of others, who life them up and inspire them. 

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE HAS FAITH IN PEOPLE

- Your goal is not to get people to think more highly of you. It's to get them to think more highly of themselves.

- Always give credit to a man who's fencing in (putting fencing up around his property) because that means he believes in himself. 

- The best way to show people you faith in them and motivate them is to focus your attention on their strengths. 

- Praise them for what they do well, both privately and publicly. Tell them how much you appreciate their positive qualities and their skills.

- Putting your faith in others involves taking a chance. But the rewards outweigh the risks.

- "To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life." (Robert Louis Stevenson

- When you put your faith in others, you help them reach their potential. And you become an important influencer in their lives. 

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE LISTENS TO PEOPLE

- Whenever you don't pay attention to what others have to say, you send them the message that you don't value them. But when you listen to others, you communicate that you respect them. Even more, you show them that you care.

- Anytime employees, spouses, colleagues, children, or friends no longer believe they are being listened to, they seek out people who will give them what they want. Sometimes the consequences can be disastrous: the end of a friendship, lack of authority at work, lissened parental influence, or the breakdown of a marriage. 

- If you consistently listen to others, valuing them and what they have to offer, they are likely to develop a strong loyalty to you, even when your authority with them is unofficial or informal.

- "Let others confide in you. It may not help you, but it surely will help them." (Roger G. Imoff)

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE UNDERSTANDS PEOPLE

- Quote called "A Short Course in Human Relations"

The least important word: I.

The most important word: We.

The two most important words: THank you.

The three most important words: All is forgiven.

The four most important words: What is your opinion?

The five most important words: You did a good job.

The six most important words: I want to understand you better.

- Everybody wants to be regarded and valued by others. 

- "A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror." (Ken Keyes, Jr.)

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE ENLARGES PEOPLE

- Leaders are pioneers. They are people who venture into unexplored territory. They guide us to new and often unfamiliar destinations. The unique reason for having leaders...is to move us forward. Leaders get us going someplace.

- Mentors impact eternity because there is no telling where their influence will stop.

- "The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them; a man may live long yet live very little." (Michel Eyquem de Montaigne) 

- When you enlarge others, you help them make the most of the time they have and raise their quality of life. 

- If you want to do more for others, you have to become more yourself. You can teach what you know, but you can reproduce only what you are.

- To determine if you are still growing, ask yourself what you're still looking forward to. If you can't think of anything or you're looking back instead of ahead, your growth may be at a standstill.

- "One life; a little gleam of time between two eternities; no second chance for us forever more." (Thomas Carlyle)

- Work first with the most promising people around you, the ones most likely to be receptive to growth.

- Select people whose philosophy of life is similar to yours. 

- Choose people with potential you genuinely believe in.

- Select people whose lives you can positively impact.

- "Hell begins on the day when God grands us a clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the gifts we wasted, of all that we might have done that we did not do." (Gian Carlo Menotti, composer)

- Help people have great thoughts about themselves, and they will begin tolive like the people they can become.

- "Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problem as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will at least be a little bit different for our having passed through it." (Harold Kushner)

- "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE NAVIGATES FOR OTHER PEOPLE

- "A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do." (Leroy Eims)

- To know where people truly want to go, you need to know what touches their hearts. Passion and compassion are compelling motivators. 

- "Happiness, wealth, and success are by-products of goal-setting; they cannot be the goal themselves." (John Condry)

- "Your best friend is he who brings out the best that is within you." (Henry Ford)

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE CONNECTS WITH PEOPLE

- When you navigate for others, you come alongside them and travel their road for a while, helping them handle some of the obstacles and difficulties i ntheir lives. But when you connect with them, you are asking them to come alongside you and travel your road for your and their mutual benefit.

- Every person on this earth has the potential to make a difference. But you can do it only if you believe in yourself and willing to give yourself away to others. 

- "Life is an exciting business and most exciting when lived for others." (Helen Keller)

- To understand a person's mind, examine what he has already achieved. To understand his heart, look at what he aspires to do. 

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE EMPOWERS PEOPLE

- When you become an empowerer, you work with and through people, but you do much more. You enable others to reach the highest levels in their personal and professional development.

- Relationships cause people to want to be with you, but respect causes them to want to be empowered by you. Mutual respect is essential to the empowerment process. If you wish others to respect you, you must show respect for them. Everyone wants to feel that he counts for something and is important to someone. Invariably, people will give their love, respect, and attention to the person who fills that need. Consideration for others generally reflects faith in self and faith in others. 

A PERSON OF INFLUENCE REPRODCUES OTHER INFLUENCERS

- Being an influencer means:

- modeling integrity with everyone you come into contact with

- nurturing the people in yuour life to make them feel valued

- showing faith in others so that they believe in themselves

- listening to them so that you can build your relationship with them

- understanding them so that you can help them achieve their dreams

- enlarging them in order to increase their potential

- navigating them through life's difficulties until they can do it themselves

- connecting with them so that you can move them to a higher level

- empowering them to become the person they were created to be

- reproducing other leaders so that your influence contines to grow through others

INFLUENCE CHECKLIST

- Commit yourself to developing strong character.

- Do the little things. Note each time you neglect to fulfill a commitment, leave an assignment uncompleted, don't tell the whole truth.

- Do what you should do before you do what want to do. 

- Develop a nurturing environment in your home, place of business, or church.

- Give special encouragement (e.g., send 2-3 people a short handwritten note each week, give of your time without expecting anything in return.).

- Rebuild bridges. Apologize to a person for your past actions or remakrs. Then find the quality you most admire about the person and tell him or her about it. Look for ways to build and strengthen the relationship.

- Find a strength. Point this out to someone you'd like to encourage.

- Build on past successes. Review a person's past successes before giving them a difficult assingment.

- Start off right. When new people start working for you, make it a point to repeatedly express your faith in them and their abilities before they give you results. They will aim to live up to your positive expectations. 

- Measure your listening skills and then commit yourself to making improvements in listening to others. 

- Pick three people to enlarge. Look at their potential, passion, character issues, greatest strength, next step in development, resource of current need, and next enlarging experience.

- For the three people you are wokring with, identify what they are passionate about and what they dream about. List any difficulties they are likely to face in the near future, and how you can help them navigate through these potential problems. What can you do and when should you help them?

- Connect at a deeper level with others. Schedule time to do a getaway weekend, go to a seminar or conference, or other experience that can be shared.