10 TIPS FOR MAXIMIZING
YOUR INFLUENCE

Go into your school’s alumni database and email a successful person in your field. Maybe they’ll give you an interview.

Create a LinkedIn page for yourself. Spend the night scrolling through your feed and wondering how everyone around you became so much more successful than you are.

Take cold showers. It’s better for you. Science says so.

Never criticize someone you’re trying to influence. Dale Carnegie says so. 

If you follow these rules, you’ll become influential. In matters of faith, it’s best to use that influence for Jesus. Create cool graphics, ask deep questions, exude all the charisma your 5’8½” frame can muster. As if by fate, your influence will grow. Suddenly, you’re not so-and-so, leader of a Bible study. You’re so-and-so, leader of a well-attended Bible study. 

Pay attention to social cues. To win others over, it’s always good to have a handle on how the people around you are feeling. If you ever find yourself in the backseat of a pickup truck hurtling down country roads while the driver is drawn to tears explaining how a sunset helped him overcome his depression, be sure to wonder whether or not he is oversharing. Once you decide that yes, he is oversharing, be sure to feel guilty for not paying attention to what he was saying in the first place. This will prompt you to ask a really insightful follow-up question. Asking good questions is crucial to maximizing your influence.

A glitch in the system, your Bible study co-leader sends you an email in handsome Georgia font informing you that she doesn’t want to co-lead with you anymore. Suddenly, your well-attended Bible study is a sparsely-attended Bible study. Everything is crumbling down. You feel small. 

Think about the lifeguard who sat with you at the diving board for hours in the sweltering heat while you couldn’t figure out how to dive. Each time you approached the diving board, you would tuck your head and jump with the intention of diving but something in your brain would make you pull up at the last second. You don’t so much remember how it felt when you finally landed a dive, but what has always stuck with you was the lifeguard who watched you fail countless times and still had the patience to smile and tell you it was okay each time you bobbed to the surface in failure.

When you’re young and trying to grow your influence, make sure to find an older, wiser mentor. I was 18 years old when I found my mentor, and he’s become the biggest influence in my life. I was sitting beside a lake, feeling glum about my formerly-well-attended Bible study when my mentor approached me. As he got closer, he towered over me, and for the first time I felt distinctly created, as if my mentor was asking where were you when I laid the foundations of the Earth? When he finally did speak, his voice came from nowhere, and I heard a single word: enough. Enough. I’ve spent the time since that day trying to unravel what he meant.

Sometimes the most influential thing to do is to not use your influence at all. In the moments before Jesus was put to death, soldiers spat on him, clubbed him, and twisted thorns into his skull. Meanwhile, he maintained their beating hearts, filled their lungs with air, and allowed the vocal cords they mocked him with to vibrate and create sound. Jesus knew his fate, but he chose to sideline his own influence. “Abba! Father! All things are possible for You; remove this cup from Me; yet not what I will, but what You will.” Those words leap off the rustling pages of your Bible. They careen around your room, knocking over all those books you bought but never got around to reading. You scramble out of your chair and begin chasing the words around, trying desperately to strap them back down to the page where they belong. After you’ve grown tired and given up, the letters begin rearranging themselves in a cloud above your head. They leave a simple message that follows behind you as you leave your house and walk to campus. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.