Understanding Influence: From External Stimuli to Internal Drive

New Episode Alert! Join Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, as we delve into how external influences can ignite your internal drive. Don't let influence lead you astray; harness it to propel your business forward. #Influence #Entrepreneurship 

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to the Water Trough where we can't make you drink, but we will make you think. My name is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor, and I'm really excited you chose to join me here as we discuss topics that are important for small business folks just like you. If you're looking for ideas, inspiration, and possibility, you've come to the right place. Join us as we take steps to help you create the healthy business that you've all. Always wanted.

Ed Drozda: 0:43

Welcome to the water Trough, this is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor. Influence and inspiration. Two concepts that we encounter all the time. Taking each one of them separately, influence, and this of course is my definition, influence is the effect that external factors have upon us. External factors such as people, things, material that we've read, and so on and so forth. To say it another way, influence is a stimulus that gives rise to action, or at least potential action. Influence informs us of things that we are not aware or perhaps strengthens our belief or expectation for things that we already know. And in so doing, it stimulates us, it prompts us to take some form of action. Inspiration on the other hand, is internal. Inspiration is our own desire to do something. We are motivated to do something because we have an idea. We are motivated to do something because we are curious to find out what will happen. We are eager to do something because we are looking for something new, something exciting. Influence can certainly lead to inspiration. Those external factors can motivate me to take action, inspire me to go out and run a marathon, something I'd never done before, or to create a new podcast. I could be inspired by someone who had done the same and say, gee, that really was a moving topic. I would like to do the same thing that they're doing. So influence and inspiration sort of go hand in hand. It's fair to say if I'm influenced by something, I'm aware of, if not prompted to do something more than to be aware. We can look at this from another angle as well. We can look at it in terms of motivation. Motivation comes in two principle forms, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is that which is the result of external factors and intrinsic motivation is that which comes from within us. So influence could be equated with extrinsic motivation and inspiration can be related to intrinsic motivation. We know intrinsic motivation is more powerful, sustainable, and on balance, the more important of these two forms of motivation. That is because it depends upon our own ambition, our own desire to achieve these things. Intrinsic motivation results from within. So what does this tell us about inspiration and influence? Well, if we can agree that intrinsic motivation is more important, more powerful, then we might be inclined to look at influence as being potentially nefarious; something that could lead us to do things that maybe we're not quite so comfortable doing. Let's face it, we've all been influenced by one thing or another. In our current world, influence from external factors is constantly in our face. Some of it is extremely powerful, and oftentimes it leads us down paths we most certainly would not have gone down without it. So influence is, in my opinion, a slippery slope. It's one of those things that can be for the better, but it can also be used to create things, to give rise to things that are good for the influencer, but not so good for the influencee. Thankfully we have checks and balances. Despite the influence that we take in, we do have the opportunity and the choice to elect to follow it, to modify it, or to ignore it completely, because influence by itself has to lead to action in order to be effective. I can have heard something and acknowledged it, but if I choose not to speak about it, if I choose not to share it, if I choose not to act upon it in any shape or form, then that influence for all intent and purpose not only has no value, but it has no function. At least with me and the people around me. That's a good thing. Influence leads to action, but I promote the idea that action does not occur unless I am inspired by that influence. That influence has to inspire me to take action. Once I've made the choice, the decision, that the influence has inspired me, that is when the inspiration itself kicks in and leads to the possibility that action will result. If it seems like I'm giving influence a bad rap, I would like to take a moment here to let you know that that's not really my intention. Influence is important. Influence is necessary in order to get people thinking. Influence is necessary in order to introduce new ideas. Influence is profoundly important in all facets of life because without influence, we'd be left to create things with only those things that we have in hand. But influence has to be managed appropriately. That's where the influence, inspiration, action interface comes into play. Influence is something that we take in, again, much like extrinsic motivation, things from the outside, things that might sound really interesting, things that might sound totally unacceptable to us, but whatever they might seem like, these are things coming in from external places. It is our ability to process that information, to take that influence and make the decision whether it is appropriate for us or not. When we are dealing with something that we consider to be appropriate, even if it might not be appropriate to others, we are led to a place of inspiration. And in this place, this is where we craft our own interpretation. We craft our own mechanism. We draw upon our own tools to be able to implement or to act upon this influence. This interface is critical. It's this interface that allows us to make the decision about what we should and what we should not go forward with. That is the crux behind the influence inspiration relationship. The ability to discern that which is appropriate for us or for those around us, and then whether or not it is sufficient to motivate us to take action, to inspire us to take action. As with many things here at The Water Trough, the things we're talking about here go on all the time. You probably don't think about them. They're going on behind the scenes, but I think it's important sometimes to open up the conversation to look at how things come to be. I think that glimpse of what's going on inside of us is really critical in helping us to understand and to formulate better plans of action in the way that we conduct our business, our lives, and so on and so forth. I hope that there were bits of information that despite their relative simplicity, it's not rocket science, despite their relative simplicity inspired you to think a little deeper. And if per chance I did influence you in any way, shape, or form, I wanna remind you once again, first review, analyze that influence and establish if it's the appropriate thing for you. This is Ed Drozda, The Small Business Doctor and here at The Water Trough, as always I want to wish you a healthy business.