All kinds of things go viral on the internet. It might be recording of a little boy’s spontaneous motivational speech, a video of a cartoon pop tart cat flying through space or someone’s embarrassing photo. Someone thinks it’s cool and passes it on to a bunch of people. Some of those people think it’s cool and pass it on. And so it goes.
A lot of the things that go viral are neutral. Some are bad. Consider, for example, the damage real computer viruses do and emails that scam people out of their money.
Other things go viral and have a positive impact. That’s what we want at Simply Great Lives: people who influence other people who in turn, influence still more people.
How do you want to influence people?
Take a moment to think about how you’d like to influence people. Is it:
- Supporting people in their education?
- Increasing public awareness about child sex trafficking?
- Making a community safer?
- Fostering or adopting?
- Teaching people to be self-sufficient?
- Promoting peace among two fighting groups?
- Empowering people to manage their personal finances?
- Mentoring business owners?
- Helping farmers convert to sustainable agricultural practices?
- Facilitating reconciliation?
- Helping people grow in their relationship with God?
There are many, many ways we can make a significant difference in other people’s lives. John and I encourage people to identify where their passions, their strengths and what makes a significant difference overlap. We call that intersection a person’s “calling.” I especially like callings that are self-reproducing. That way, the people who were first influenced by someone go out and do the same for other people.
In the meantime…
It takes time and effort to find and live our calling. Most of us first need to get ourselves in a good position to benefit other people. Then we have to discern what impact we want to have. Finally, we can work toward living our calling and getting really good at it.
Wherever you may be in this process, you can have infectious influence starting right now. By asking questions and sharing what you’re doing, you can spark interest in other people. How great would it be if a bunch of family, friends, neighbors, and/or colleagues set out, just like you, to become people of influence?
We at Simply Great Lives provide our blog as a useful tool in encouraging people and helping them to find and live their calling. You can share our blog with other people to help them along in their own journey.. Let’s get our infectious influence going!
