Chain of Influence

Do you see yourself as an Influencer?

Do you want to be someone who affects those around you in a positive way?

Ever thought that actually it can develop in a chain…your influence spreading far beyond just your person?

Recently I was uploading photos from my camera, I was smiling looking at the photos I had taken of my friends with their Andy’s Beat bands. It struck me again just how supportive everyone has been, and in such a proactive way! So thank you!

But it got my thinking about how far our influence as members of one society extends, something I’d never really considered before. I think most people probably hold the same mentality as me “who am I to make a change, who am I to influence people”. But your support has shown me just how far  influence can span.

It has been incredibly encouraging to see our message spread….before we’ve even really begun! So many of you have bought bands and then bands for friends and friends of those friends have bought them!

It reminded me of one of my favorite quotes….

“Sometimes I feel as if I am just a drop in the ocean….but then I realize what is the ocean if not a collection of drops”

But it got me thinking, really thinking about each of ourselves own Chain of Influence. Seeing how the message ad news of our charity has spread made me think how we each personally have a chain of influence, a domino effect if you will

My headmaster recently gave an assembly about how scientific study showed that it is possible to connect you to any other single person in the world within 6 steps, meaning there are 6 people, 6 links between you and any other individual on planet earth.

Wow.

I mean….does that not boggle anyone else’s minds? When you look at it that way your chain of influence has the ability to be huge, to impact so many more people than those in your immediate family or friendship group, or local community.

“The idea of ‘six degrees of separation’ — that any two people are on average separated by no more than six intermediate connections — was first proposed in 1929 in a short story by Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy, and made popular by the John Guare play and movie, Six Degrees of Separation. The idea was first put to the test by Stanley Milgram in the 1960’s. Milgram selected 296 volunteers and asked them to dispatch a message to a specific individual, a stockholder living in the Boston suburb of Sharon, Massachusetts. The volunteers were told that they couldn’t send the message directly to the target person (unless the sender knew them personally), but that they should route the message to a personal acquaintance that was more likely than the sender to know the target person. Milgram found that the average number of intermediate persons in these chains was 5.2 (representing about 6 hops). The experiment showed that not only are there few degrees of separation between any two people, but that individuals can successfully navigate these short paths, even though they have no way of seeing the entire network. “

Some evidential proof for anyone who may doubt this! (I have done my research!) To view more and also see the statistics for how many links you need when you use facebook click here to read more, it makes for an interesting read trust me! https://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-data-team/anatomy-of-facebook/10150388519243859

So according to this information it shouldn’t actually be surprising to us to learn how rapidly and far our message is beginning to spread. But more importantly it made me realize that the way we act is directly impacting those around us and they are impacting  their friends and so on and so on. The way we act is influential, the way we act whether we like it or not makes an impact and can cause a domino effect. I know before when someone’s said a particularly hurtful comment it’s put me in a bad mood, and then I’ve maybe been unnecessarily rude to a friend whose in turn maybe in a bad mood….and so the dominoes fall.

Let’s be in the world but not of the world…..make our influence something different to all the media portrays humanity to be. If we all become copycats then what influence…what difference can be made. If we for example played into the Media stereotype of teenagers this charity would certainly not exist….

Because in this day an age our image is the thing we translate, with Facebook, instagram and even snapchat our image is what we send to each other, our physical appearance is what we put out there. And sometimes I think personality comes second to us, we would rather improve our appearance than improve our character but our character is the only thing that is going to make that influence, so instead of fretting about getting highlights, going to the gym to slim down or bulk up, maybe we should focus on being more patient or more kind and thoughtful. We can perfect our appearance but not our personality and you’d be surprised the ripples a nasty comment can send, but still a kind one can make infinitely more.

This quote has always challenged me to look at myself from the perspective of if I had just met myself, what kind of impression do I make? Is it the one I want to be making? So just one question really…..what kind of Impact do you want to make? And is it different to the impact your making right now?