How Leaders Can Take Their Influence to the Next Level

Everybody has influence.

Everybody. That means you.

You may not realize it yet.

Or maybe you just don’t know how far your reach actually extends.

The idea that there’s only certain people with influence — Instagram influencers, or celebrity influencers — is incorrect.

We all are influencers.

So, how can you take your influence to the next level?

How can you really use it to grow and develop others?

That’s something Julia Deaver is all about.

The latest guest on the Lead to Grow podcast, Julia came on the show to talk about how you can take your influence to the next level.

These are her top five strategies for influencing by design and leading to grow.

Strive to Be a Better Person…Every Day

Every morning when you wake up, ask yourself how you can be a better person.

One key component of this is, what are you doing to be healthy?

And we’re not just talking about your physical health. What are you doing to stay healthy emotionally, mentally, in every area of your life?

There’s other aspects of becoming a better person, too.

Like, what are you going to do today to be more honest? More trustworthy?

There’s a lot of people out there that are just not trustworthy, not honest. They will put you in a business situation where they will compromise on what they’ve said.

Don’t be that person.

Be honest and be trustworthy.

And here’s another — be bold.

Be willing to take the jump into the deep end.

It’s easy to, well, do things the easy way.

But in business, the greatest influencers who make the greatest impact are the people who jump right into the deep end.

Sometimes we resist jumping in because we’re afraid we might fail.

But here’s the thing — you can fail at anything.

You can even fail at mediocrity. So, why not fail at trying to be exceptional instead?

Take the plunge.

Give yourself time every morning to think about how you’re going to be a better person.

Write in your journal, meditate — whatever you need to do to really hone in on how to be better today.

Define Your Core Values

Your core values explain why you’re doing what you’re doing.

No matter what your business area is, why do you do what you do?

You should be able to define your core values in three words. Or three sentences.

Julia’s core values are to empower, inspire, and connect.

Everything she does fits with those three values.

Anything that doesn’t fit with those values needs to go.

The fastest way for you to know when a business opportunity is or isn’t right is to know your core values.

So, why do you do what you do?

Detox Off Social Media

You’re probably thinking this a crazy idea.

After all, social media is probably essential to your business.

But here’s the problem with social media — there’s a lot of noise and a lot of trash in it right now.

And until you’ve taken time — 3 to 10 days is ideal — where you really detox and you stay away from it, you lose selectivity in what you choose to view and value.

When you go back into social media after a total detox, you become so much more aware and so much more selective of what you view.

Social media is basically training you for your day. You’re allowing it to influence you, one way or another.

So, you’ve got to be able to decide that social media is only going to influence you for good.

Find Your Deep Purpose

Spend time really digging into what your purpose is.

And decide that your purpose is not going to be just to chase money.

Or fame. Or a title.

The people that are chasing money, fame, or titles are never satisfied. And they’re the most unhappy.

The people who really do not chase money, fame, or titles have different goals. Their goals are usually to creating an impact that changes people’s lives.

And when you choose to make an impact, money usually follows.

Let the money, fame, and titles be the result — not the goal.

Choose the Full-Service Model

When you love others more than you love yourself, miracles will happen, the business will boom, and people will want to be around you.

So, become dedicated to serving others… to putting others before yourself.

That’s what Julia calls the full-service model.

There’s a way every single day to serve someone else. Whether that’s in your office, at the grocery store, or in a third world country.

No matter how you do it, put others first.

If Someone Had Lunch With You, What’s the Key Thing You’d Want Them to Walk Away With?

“That I’m extremely passionate about what I do. That there’s an energy about me that I hope that when people leave my presence, they take a part of that energy and they allow it to grow within themselves. That it sparks the conversation in their minds of ‘how can I do more, what can I be doing, how can I be influenced by these things?’.

I would hope that every person that I interact with leaves feeling like they’re a better person because they interacted with me.”

This blog post is from a podcast interview with Julia Deaver of Impact Summit.

Click here to hear this full episode. If you don’t use iTunes, you can also find the full list of episodes by clicking this link.