Are you inspiring or are you just being nice?
Merriam-Webster relates inspiration to something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create; a force or an influence that inspires someone. Although Merriam-Webster shows us inspiration in the perception of a thing, it is much more important that it is translated to you as a person.
We all meet people and interact with them on a daily basis. We come into contact with all sorts of folks, but what perceptions do they leave with once they are done with us? Do they leave elated as though they are currently living in the eureka euphoria due to the change and positivity they have experienced, or do they leave totally downcast because all they have encountered from you has torn them apart, shredding them into greater pieces?
The consciousness that our actions and activities ought to be one of positive ripple effects on others ought to ring a bell in our minds on a daily basis if we truly want to inspire others.
Invisible inspiration
As we interact daily with others through face-to-face meetings, but also through the posts and stories that we share on various social sites, these activities could easily turn into invisible inspiration for others. People that we don’t know could be inspired by our actions or by our words. Short posts on LinkedIn could easily be a spark that will ignite something positive in their life, push them in the right direction, or help them to step out of their comfort zone.
We all have lots of people that inspire us, and they don’t know about it. One person who became my invisible inspiration is Michaela Alexis. I connected with her on LinkedIn some time ago to follow her posts and articles, but the main reason was that I like people who are real, share their stories and don’t care about haters. She is also not afraid to publicly admit when she fails in something. For example, she auditioned for TEDx and epically failed (her own words), she shared the video from that audition with everybody. She got stage fright and failed. As a speaker, I know how hard it is sometimes to speak and share the story on a podium with so many eyes staring at you.
That’s why I admire people like her that are willing to share their failures with others publicly and show us, that we can survive almost anything and learn from it and thatfailure is not the end of the world. We celebrate our success because it has cost us so many failures, so many disappointments, but we know that the hardest thing is to rise up again and fight. To try a new way that will work.
And it is very rare to see people like Michaela sharing their failure stories, especially when we are living in era when admitting your failure is sometimes consider as some sign of weakness. People are afraid to share any of their “how I fail stories”. And as you know, we all have tons of these stories, our small and big everyday failures. That’s why she became my invisible inspiration.
‘’Pursue something so important that even if you fail, the world is better off with you having tried.’’ – Tim O’Reilly
Inspire others
Many things we do, especially publicly, inspire others even if we don’t see it or we don’t know these people. Things we do become an invisible inspiration for somebody else. And most people will never reach you and reveal to you that you inspire them, but as Warren Buffett said: “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” We need to ensure we carry out our activities on a daily basis with this in mind. Every man on earth was not created to live a life of solitude, but our actions and all that we do are supposed to affect (positively), the lives of others in and around our circle.
Sometimes our circle could be small – as Jim Rohn said that we have an average of five people we spend most of our time with. Taking heed to what he says, what good will this do others if we are nothing but a negative influence upon them. However, thanks to the internet and social sites our network is much wider and the number of people we could reach and inspire with our thoughts, post to and stories growing every year.
The majority of folks always find themselves in the valley of various crucial decisions in their lives. Many times, they find themselves in a fix and seem incapacitated. This causes their search for answers from various quarters and they are willing to do almost anything to get those answers to the questions they have raging in their minds.
Many folks just want someone to tell them how amazing they are and how much they believe in them. They need someone to encourage them, speak nice words to them, tell them they can get done what they have deemed impossible or what someone else has made them downcast about.
You could be that external force to them by speaking the right words to them, inspiring them to be all they can be and propelling them to reach for the stars.
Even if you do not realize that sometimes the smaller things you share as posts could have a big impact on others. The people that you have never met in real life and your words could be that inspiration that they are looking for.
We all need an inspiration in our lives, but we all are also an inspiration for others.
Last Updated on January 15, 2024