Influence

Sitting on my bed I’m thinking back over this week. It’s been a busy and eventful week with a lot of things to think about. One subject though, seems to have come up over and over.

Influence.

Have you ever thought about what influence you have on other people?

We influence people all the time. We think about it some of the time when we try and be good role models, or people with good character, etc. Some of the time though we forget what influence we do have on people, and sometimes its much greater than we think.

This was brought home to me very clearly when I was at boys group and a guy called Tam came in and told me he had got my message.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

Tam is a teacher at a local school, a maths teacher. Now most people who know me, know about my further maths classes. Our year is still very much remembered by the maths department.

<>At this school we have been running a course called "Fame Academy" where we have been coaching some bands to play and perform better together. One particular band had a lot of problems with the idea of moving, so we spent some time getting them to dance and to lose their fear of looking silly in front of other people.

This is a hilarious session... in which Roger and I basically dance like idiots to prove that it is possible to move, and enjoy it, in that in front of people. This class took a lot of hard work to get moving, and at the end a couple of the girls as they were leaving said they were going back to Mr McNut's class. I replied with a throwaway remark.

"To lose the fear, you just have to do all this stuff in front of people - like, when you're in your class with Mr McNut you should stand on the table, and do a dance. Ff you get in trouble just tell the teacher that I told you to do it... Mr McNut will find it funny... I hope"

So these girls go back to class, and one of them says to Mr McNut. "Sir, I have a message from Jeff, can I give it to you?" He said yes, and up she gets on the table and does a crazy dance and sits down.

<>Tam is Mr McNut.
I never expected her to actually do it!
Crazy huh. I think I may need to be careful about what I influence other people to do.

Influence is powerful. We influence people every day, and most of the time we don't realise it. We don't realise the power of some of our small statements or actions, yet they affect over people greatly.

< style="font-family: arial;">When I think about it. I'm glad Tam saw the funny side!!!