"I" Is For Influence: Your Friends Influence You

JULY SPECIAL

"The first time you say something, it's heard. The second time, it's recognized, and the third time it's learned" - John C. Maxwell

Influence is the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself. Someone said once that, "your life will be a sum total of the books you read and the friends you keep."

In any relationship you experience either of the following:

(a) CORRUPTION: "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners, and  "...a companion of fools shall be destroyed."  Or,

(b)  PROMOTION: "He that walks with wise men shall be wise."

If you do not desire the influence someone will bring into your life, then do not make them your friend because, like it or not, FRIENDSHIP IS INFLUENCE. Have you noticed how an individual enters a new neighborhood and after sometime he begins to speak with their accent? That is called "Influence". As long as you fraternize with people, you must gradually begin to dress like them, talk like them, behave like them, and think like them.

As a young boy I grew up in a  poor neighborhood in Nsukka. Violence, crime and drugs were a very common sight. It was therefore only natural for people to very early in life find themselves lost in alcohol and smoking even when they know it was a very dangerous path to follow in life, but it was  reality. I particularly wondered then why people loved smoking even when they could still attest to the fact that that stuff was so bitter in the mouth. But because they needed to belong and all their friends smoked so who are they to change the rules? 

How would I flow with my guys if I didn't do what they did? It took a lot from me to resist it.

It was John C. Maxwell that said, "We choose what attitudes we have right now. And it's a continuing choice." It's a choice to influence or be influenced by other peoples attitudes. Every single character we display today are as a result of our interaction at different points in our lives with the so many people we have come across; our parents, siblings, friends, classmates, co-workers etc.

What kind of influence do you want to have on your friends, CORRUPTION or PROMOTION? Understand first that you can only give what you have. So, it behoves on us to consciously and deliberately decide to influence people positively... There are no accidental successes, decide TODAY!

Let someone be able to make references years after you've parted ways and testify how their lives improved after they met you.

Wisdom Nugget: "Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity."

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Tell us how how we have influenced your life in not less than 70 words and get your gift.

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