Influencing People Through Our Careers By Boluwatife Adebayo

Influence is one of the major features of humans because everyone on earth is a product of one influence or the other. It might be subconscious or even conscious but we are all influenced by someone that has affected the way we live our lives. Some of us submit ourselves to mentors and the mentor gains a great influence in our lives.

Also, influence can be expressed in different manners and ways. Influence can be from the church, school, environment, experience etc. Anybody can influence us as far as we allow ourselves to be influenced and we like the results the person has.

This means trying to shape and direct our lives in the person’s path and applying the principle that got them where they are. Our desires or career choice can also be influenced.

Influence can come from the desire to pursue a career or a certain course. This means influencing other people’s decisions through your career. 

For example, I was greatly influenced by Gani Fawehinmi, a lawyer and human rights activist. Though I was very young at the time of his death, reading his story stirred something in me that planted the desire to study law.

Apart from my personal interests, reading his story served as a means for me to develop more interest and passion for law.

This is what we call influence. He was able to influence my decision through his career by demonstrating a great aura of leadership and excellence.

HOW CAN WE INFLUENCE OTHERS THROUGH OUR CAREERS OR PLATFORM?

This is a simple-complex question because influencing people through our careers comes with a lot of sacrifices and discipline.

As I’ve said earlier, we can influence other people’s decisions through our careers by demonstrating a great level of leadership. But being able to demonstrate (you can replace this with Demonstrating) this level of leadership skills doesn’t happen in a day. It comes with years of practice, commitment, dedication and consistency. This is the fundamental principle of influencing other people through our careers. Building a career is one of the most difficult things to do because it will bring you to the spotlight and any mistakes or flaws can bring you down.

For us to influence lives through our careers, we need to set a foundation of commitment, consistency, discipline, focus, dedication and excellence. Doing this will serve as the propelling force for us to demonstrate remarkable leadership skills that will stir up others passion.

But setting this foundation is one of the most difficult things to do because it doesn’t happen in the “twinkle of an eye”. It comes with being deliberate about the life we live.

Therefore MEN, do we want to influence people through our careers and platform??

Then let’s start to build a foundation of focus, dedication, discipline, commitment and consistency. Doing so will produce results that will affect other people’s decisions.