How are you influencing the people around you?
Each of us influences the people around us. Likewise, each of the people around us influences us.
Understanding how we affect the people around us is vital to success and destiny living, just as it’s key to understand how the people you consistently associate with affect you.
I know this is considered a long post in the blogosphere, but I really wanted to give you a full picture of the 4 Modes of Influence I’ve observed that we each can embody. I’ve been a careful observer of people and what we do for decades now, and I have a thriving and growing coaching practice which allows me to really peer into the psyche of lots of folks. I also conduct workshops and retreats for my own growth (though it seems the attendees benefit too-go figure…) So I think these observations are accurate, though there is certainly more to add and/or consider.
The 4 Modes of Influence are:
1. Potentizers are people who seek to-and succeed at-supporting you in making your power more potent. They support your creative ideas and encourage you to examine them and even help you work through the kinks. They encourage you to go for it (even when you don’t feel like it) and they inspire you simply by their presence. They summon you to a higher standard of living by consistently demonstrating excellence and holding an expectation for you to do the same if you’re going to be around them.
You know when you are in the presence of a Potentizer. You feel it.
You don’t have to know all your Potentizers personally. Oprah is one of mine. When I look at what she’s done, and what she continues to do on a daily basis, I’m inspired to kick my game up to the next level, to make my power more potent and to be more of who I truly am.
Potentizers are catalysts and crystallizers. They catalyze and crystallize energy, which, when emanated, positively impacts others.
Potentizers can be highly successful, (however you define success) because successful people know what it takes to succeed and can tell you honestly what’s required; which could be totally opposite of what you imagine. Because their light shines so brightly, those around them (who are open, ready, willing and able to do so) feel inclined and emboldened to shine their light ever more brilliantly too.
Potentizers can be ministers, spiritual masters, inspirational teachers, authors you admire, powerfully encouraging friends, role models, mentors, coaches and more. Anyone can be a Potentizer for you in any given moment, including a two-year-old, a tree, a flower or anything that instantaneously causes you to live better and reach higher.
It’s important to note that Potentizers cannot do the work for you, nor can they make your power more potent. They support, inspire and encourage you to allow more of your light into the world, which always and only remains your choice. You are the only one who can activate more power in your life.
Questions to ponder:
¨ Who are your Potentizers?
¨ Who are you a Potentizer for?
¨ If you don’t have multiple Potentizers, why not?
¨ Have you considered hiring a coach and/or attracting a mentor?
¨ Have you considered starting (or joining) a Mastermind group?
2. Amplifiers are folks who help to amplify your power, or make it more widespread. They are the ones who spread the word about the good work you do. If you come anywhere near an Amplifier, you’ll discover, in the course of a very short conversation, the best restaurant in town and what to order, the best movies and the hottest and best sales at the mall.
Amplifiers spread good news and broadcast beneficial people, places and happenings. They also connect people who could benefit from association with each other…they’re great networkers. Everyone knows them.
We all need Amplifiers, especially when beginning a new endeavor. They help get the word out, and champion how good you are, even if they’ve never tried what you’re offering; they just naturally believe in you and want to see you succeed.
Amplifiers may or may not be successful themselves, which is okay. (Once again, I use the term ‘success’ and ‘successful’ with a degree of hesitancy because it has such a broad spectrum of meaning to each of us-use the words however you feel comfortable). After all, a cheerleader doesn’t have to know how to play football to really get the football team and the fans revved up, and to raise the energy of the place when the team is losing.
Though a coach may act as a Potentizer most times, he/she may also act as an Amplifier. A masterful coach is a great motivating force for good in an engaged client’s life by offering encouragement and celebrating client successes, which further locks in the client’s belief in personal success.
Think of the Amplifiers in your life as your personal cheerleading team. The rah-rah folks. You need a little rah-rah every so often (as long as you also have the steak behind the sizzle). However, be careful of falling into the trap of relying solely on rah-rah, which is empty fluff. Don’t let yourself get too pumped up and carried away with the cheerleaders. Get your hit of rah-rah, and then get out of there, back to the important work of building and living your dreams.
(Read more about this in the post I wrote on motivation for MVP Seminars…)
Amplifiers can become addictive-who doesn’t like hanging around people who are singing our praises?
Here’s the rub: be realistic. No one (and I mean no one, not me, not you, no one) is great all the time. We’re all people on a very human journey. We’re great sometimes, and at other times, we sink to depths we’d rather not even talk about.
The excitement caused by Amplifiers feels really good, yet it’s also really short-lived. Treat the Amplifiers in your life like sugar. Learn to drink your green tea every now and then without it. It’s better for you anyway. However, if you want a little taste of sweetness on the food, sprinkle on a little sugar. In moderation, it’s tasty. When you get tempted to hang onto a lot of lavish praise from other people, remember that no sane person would sit down to a meal that consists solely of a plate of sugar.
Questions to ponder:
¨ Who are my Amplifiers?
¨ Have I thanked them for their loyal and enthusiastic cheering and championing of me and my work?
¨ Who am I serving as an Amplifier for? Who can I champion today?
3. Neutralizers are those who try to add water to your ideas and endeavors, which could result in a dilution of your power.
You are always at choice as to whether you will allow the neutralizing energy to weaken you. It doesn’t have to. However, we are often weakened and diluted in the face of those who have it as their aim in life to maintain the status quo, for themselves and for everyone around them. It is a heavy energy and can be difficult to transcend.
These are the folks who never want anything to change, for the better or for worse. They are completely content with the way things are right now. They have no aspirations or ambitions of improvement, growth or transformation and they look at you sideways when you start talking about all your ‘big ideas’.
These are also the folks who laugh at new ideas. They don’t out rightly oppose you, they know you probably wouldn’t stand for that. Instead, they insidiously undermine what you’re seeking to do by comments, facial expressions and innuendos that show they question what you’re doing and wish you wouldn’t do it.
Why can’t you just be satisfied with how things are?
Why do you have to always find a way to make things better?
Can’t you just accept that this is the way the world is?
are some of the Nuetralizer’s favorite questions. They just don’t get it. They don’t get you and what you’re doing. And it’s okay. They don’t have to.
The blessing is: You can keep moving forward anyway.
It seems that a large majority of the population (maybe as high as 80%) serve mainly as Neutralizers. They don’t see any need for progress or change and thrive on staying the same. Some even reminisce on how things were ‘back in the day’. They can often be heard referring to the ‘good ole days’ or saying ‘those were the days’ in a wistful, wish-I-could-go-back-there kind of way.
There’s a faulty line of reasoning here. What is not being acknowledged is that Life continues to evolve in each nanosecond. There’s not a moment that passes that something new is not birthed. In each moment, Life is having a new expression of Itself. The yearning for the good old days keeps Neutralizers stuck in patterns of old behavior, which they then seek to project onto you and everyone else in their range. If they’re not moving, they don’t understand why you would want to be moving.
You might think the next thing I’m going to say is to run away from Neutralizers as fast as your legs (or wheelchair) can carry you.
Not so.
Just like Amplifiers, in measured doses, Neutralizers play an important role in your advancement toward all you desire.
Consider Neutralizers as your first test to see if you can truly create what you desire and maintain it. Can you-even in the face of those who don’t help you and are not the least bit concerned with seeing you become more greatly empowered-still continue to advance toward all you desire, unabated, unfazed and uninhibited?
Good question.
Some of us tend to get upset with the Neutralizers who are hanging around us. We all have them. Most of ours probably share the same last name. That’s the hardest part. The people closest to you will be in this category (and the next one we’ll discuss also) because it’s not in their best interests (from their current standpoint) for you to advance and become all of you who you were designed to be. After all, that would mean they would have to step up to the plate and be more of who they were created to be too. And, quite frankly, they’re just not ready for that. They’d rather sit around with other Neutralizers and reminisce about the ‘good ole days’.
Neutralizers don’t usually have ill intent. They have unconsciously made the decision to stay stuck, and will do so, unless they decide otherwise.
The world is awash with Neutralizers. Watch your step. Be ever mindful and vigilant.
Here are 4 warning signs that you are communicating with a Neutralizer:
1. They live in the past and make ‘yesterday’ kinds of comments, regardless of the inappropriateness of such comments in the right-now moment.
2. They are caught up in their old ‘stories’ and the things that ‘happened to them’ and continually mentally re-play them and will talk about them to anyone who’ll listen. (If you’re alert and fully present, you feel a weakening effect coming over your body as you listen to their stories of past/present/future gloom and doom.) Because of the stories they tell, some people have taken up the habit of running from Neutralizers.
3. Lack of optimism and imagination-in the paradigm of the Neutralizer, there’s no need to believe that the future will be any different from the past, so there’s not a lot of high hope or optimism concerning how good things could be. No creative imagination has been fueled for a better life or a better world.
4. Low energy/persistently tired. Because of the incessant thoughts of the past, and not being present in the current moment, Neutralizers seem to be low on energy. Vital Life Force Energy is activated within us when we are enthused about the prospect of creating something new or birthing and living our destiny. Such Vital Life Force Energy is untapped in Neutralizers. Since they are electing to neutralize their own power, they can have the same influence on those around them.
There are two vital steps to take with regard to Neutralizers:
Step 1: Associate minimally with them. They are best taken in small, measured doses.
Step 2: If you are in close relationship with or married to a Neutralizer, (which is very probable) don’t discuss your ‘big ideas’ with them until they are solidified and concretized. A Neutralizer can abort your creative genius if you allow. Just as an expectant mother avoids certain activities in the early weeks of pregnancy because of the fragility of the life growing within her, you are better off not to offer your precious and fragile new ideas of creative genius to a Neutralizer.
We love the Neutralizers in our life, and we also know how to proceed with them according to wisdom and discernment. Neither cast your pearls before swine.
Plus, getting upset with the Neutralizes for not supporting us is counterproductive. Taking full ownerships enables you to stop projecting on your mate when you think they are acting as a Neutralizer and diluting your power. They aren’t. Since your mate only knows how to be your holy mirror, they are simply reflecting back to you your own inner terror at making your dreams come true.
Thank them and keep it moving.
Questions to ponder:
¨ Who are the Neutralizers around me?
¨ Can I lessen how much time and energy I invest with them? If not, can how can I lessen their influence on me?
¨ Have I been sharing my best new ideas with them and getting angry with them when they don’t support me? If so, am I ready to stop doing that?
¨ With whom do I act as a Neutralizer? Am I ready to stop doing that?
4. Negators are those who haven’t created good lives for themselves thus far and don’t want to see anyone else succeed or do better either. They may be angry, disgusted, discontented and usually think things are bad and are always going to be that way.
Unlike Neutralizers, Negators may harbor ill intent, if nothing but a secret, yet sinister hope that you’ll fall flat on your face because they’ve hit the pavement so often.
After that last fall and the immense pain it caused, they never saw their way to get back up again. The Negator decided, in that critical moment after a painful fall, to take it up as a way of life to lie there, right in the middle of the road, and trip up anyone who comes near his/her body.
At the very least, they’ll have plenty to say about why ‘it’ll never work’ and why ‘bad things always happen to good people’.
Negators have been variously referred to as Naysayers, Doomsday Prophets and Joy Stealers. Ornery and hellion also come to mind.
You know these folks-they make their presence known. And, like all the others, they too are useful. My dad used to say, “everyone is useful, even the worst person can be used as a bad example.”
Some people are in our lives as God’s way of showing us what not to do.
Use the Negators in your world to strengthen you. Let the resistance build your spiritual muscle, without which you would quickly become weak and ineffective.
I know some people, and you probably do too, who succeeded because a Negator told them they’d never succeed. To these people, phrases like “You’ll never be able to do it” is sufficient fuel to keep them burning all the way to the finish line. They create success just to prove the Negator(s) wrong.
The presence of Negators in your world signals the presence of thoughts and feelings in your inner world that resist and deny the good that’s naturally yours by birthright.
If you have multiple Negators in your world, much inner work is necessary before you can successfully move forward in living your destiny.
Another gentle reminder: don’t get mad at the Negator; look within and see what inside you is attracting the Negators to your world in the first place. Those influences are acting as a beacon flashing a neon sign that says: “Calling all Negators!”
Start today.
You don’t have a moment to waste. Your destiny is awaiting your attention.
Go into prayer and meditation to discover underlying negative influences. You’ll have the opportunity to weed them out, consciously replacing them with positive thoughts and emotions.
When you do, you will surely attract something positive, new and different.
The Negators will naturally begin to fall away and disappear, or they’ll change. Either way, it’s okay with you. You’re not trying to control anyone else anyway.
You’re simply being the best you that you can be.
Questions to ponder:
¨ Who are the Negators in my world?
¨ How did I attract them? What negative influences are in my consciousness that I now choose to release?
¨ Who do I consistently negate?
So there you have it, the 4 Modes of Influence and how they manifest. Are you taking a closer look at your world now? Are you taking a closer look in the mirror too?
I hope so. I sure am!
Another note: you yourself have been all of these, and can be all of these in any given moment. You may be an empowering Potentizer to someone at work one minute, be an Amplifier to the teller at the bank by giving a kind word in the next moment, be a Neutralizer to your partner when you come home that night, and be a Negator to your teenage kid because they pissed you the hell off.
It’s all good. Don’t beat yourself up over it, it’s human. Just notice it, acknowledge it truthfully to the people around you and make a new choice to do better next time.
In closing, there are two things we must be ever mindful of:
1. The influence the people around us are having on us, while remembering that they wouldn’t have shown up in our world if we hadn’t attracted them,
and
2. The influence we have on those around us most of the time and how we can consistently become more empowering, encouraging, inspiring and uplifting to ourselves and everyone in our experience.
Until next time, know yourself as blessed!
Valerie Love
