Some Things about Influence vs. Impact
I once stumbled upon an incredibly profound, completely random fortune cookie buried in between my couch cushions a few years back…
It read: “You can influence people from a distance, but you can only impact people up close.”
Dang! That nugget of wisdom was hiding in my couch all that time, just waiting for me to discover it? Also, how in the heck did it get there? It’s such a mystery to me, especially since I don’t ever remember eating Chinese takeout on that couch. I was more of a Chipotle takeout kinda girl then … and now … and always.
Side note: it annoys me to no end when fortune cookies don’t actually provide fortunes, but rather quippy little phrases instead. A good fortune should read: “You are likely to meet someone special this week,” or “Your hairstyle will become the muse of the masses,” or something like that. They’re supposed to be fortunate predictions of good tidings to come, not witty statements meant to inspire you. Although I’m slightly annoyed that my little “couch cushion fortune” falls into the latter camp, I couldn’t agree with its wisdom more.
So that crumply little fortune actually got me thinking, What do I care about more: having influence or having impact?
My first thought was influence, of course—the more people you have influence over, the more good you can do or share. We probably all have friends who make a living from being influencers. They’re getting paid to share what they’re loving right now, or trying, or what products have made their lives better or easier.
Honestly, I say to those people, right on! I would love to get paid to tell everyone how much I love my “No-Poo” shampoo or my Japanese kitchen knife that chops pennies in half, or my hypoallergenic, electric dog blanket. (Disclaimer: I own none of those things—which is why I would make a terrible influencer, I suppose. Plus, who, other than four-year-old’s, ever has spare pennies on hand to chop up?)
The point is, our world so deeply values influence that it has come to monetize it in a way that’s never happened before.
I can’t tell you how many former Bachelor contestants are now trying to sell me sunglasses or wrinkle creams. Cool, cool, cool—all you guys are already like super-attractive, and there’s no way in heaven that a regular toothpaste made your teeth that white. And if one more celebrity tries to convince me to use their name to take 20 percent off my next HelloFresh order—well, actually I’m probably gonna do it, ’cause I freakin’ love that stuff. … Since we live in a world of professional influencers, there are many days when I either want to hop on that train or figure out a way to take better selfies so I can get paid to market myself (if you’re curious, I have yet to figure out the selfie bit yet).
But the more I think about influence versus impact, the more I wonder which one is really worth going after? Is it more valuable to have a widespread influence over hundreds or thousands of people, or a significant impact over just a few? And can both be achieved at once?
Honestly, at first thought, I have no idea which of the two is better. However, I know one thing to be true: I don’t have influence over thousands of people right now. I don’t even know that many people, and they don’t know me. When you consider the population of the planet, only a fraction of people actually do (mainly celebrities or musicians or politicians).
So I suppose that’s not even an option for me right now—not that it can’t be or won’t be someday. And not that it’s wrong to desire influence to do good and spread hope. But, for today, that’s not my reality. Perhaps it may not necessarily be yours either, at least for today (but word on the street is that you take killer selfies, so things are looking up for you, pal).
What’s true, however, is that I do have opportunities for impact, most of us already do:
We all get to see and serve and do life with people up close, as we should. To distance ourselves too far from community and people is dangerous.
Without time, without attention, without opportunities to extend love and forgiveness and patience and wisdom, we cannot achieve impact. It really does happen up close.
To love well the few girls in your small group, or to mentor a foster kid with no parents, or befriend that mom who lives next to you—that, to me, is deeply significant impact.
Influence doesn’t always require a relationship, but impact does. It’s personal and intentional. And worth pursuing and sacrificing our time for.
Impact takes more effort because it has the potential to change individuals significantly over time.
When I think about my story, about the people who have meant the most to me and my growth as a person, I can’t think of one celebrity or musician or politician who fits into that category. Those people have certainly inspired me and shown me new things about the world, or perhaps I admire them and even emulate them—but they haven’t shaped me specifically. I’m sure they have shaped many people; I’m just not one of them.
But my junior-high Sunday school teachers did help shape me, my coaches have, my sisters and mentors have, and those four or five friends whom I see regularly surely are impacting me now. I don’t want to look back on my life one day, thinking about the people I knew that I could have impacted up close, but failed to, because I was more disillusioned with the prospect of influencing people I didn’t know.
I don’t want to regret chasing influence while neglecting the potential impact I could have now. And we all have it now, to some degree.
I pray that as we are faithful with our impact, God brings about more of it in our lives—and more influence too. Because both can be used to help, if we’re intentional, or to harm, if we’re careless. But I also hope we don’t desire the glamour of being known by the masses while forgetting the individuals around us. That would certainly lead to regret. So I suppose my encouragement to mostly myself but hopefully to you too is this: don’t stop dreaming big dreams or suppressing desires to spread the most good or bring about change on a big scale. Influence is a gift meant to be stewarded and utilized well. But I don’t know if influence itself should be the goal.
Change should be the goal—to change something or someone for the better, which I have found to happen best through impact. This often means we need to be OK with our impact being most effective with a few people at a time, maybe even one person at a time.
I also pray that as we see people, we see them not as commodities, but as souls with stories and burdens and needs, holding the potential to change us as well.
And I pray our impact is for their good and reflects the goodness of God in our own lives.
Mostly what I want for myself, for us, is that we can learn to become less obsessed with ourselves and more concerned with the people around us and how God is at work in them.
That feels like an impossible task sometimes, with a world that tends to overcommunicate that self-importance is god. But it’s not. And I’m not. I’m not the most important thing that ever has happened or ever will happen, but I’m beyond grateful for the few people in my life who show me, through their impact, that I’m important to them. And I want to show a few people every day they’re important to me too.
So I’m still asking: influence versus impact?
Certainly not enemies of each other, but perhaps competitors in everyone’s heart for what matters more. No, I don’t have a firm grip on where the answer lies, but I know that we each get to choose for ourselves.
Here’s to asking, and here’s to choosing well.