Episode 1194: What is Impacting the World?

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,194 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Kelli Calabrese: I'm Kelly Calabrese, and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to live a life of whole life.

[00:00:26] Wellness is key. And one way to be inspired is to do that by listening to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott

[00:00:37] Scott Maderer: Is the impact that you leave on the world. And my argument would be that it's always impacting the world, even if you're only interacting with one person because it ripples out from there. It has connections that go beyond that one person. That one person based on the impact you've had on them may turn around in impact two or three or a hundred or a [00:01:00] thousand other people.

[00:01:01] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:28] In today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why I ask guests about the question. What impact do you hope you've left in the world? I share how this often leads to a conversation about what that even means. And I also talk about what I see in people that actually make an impact and what I see that impact, meaning you've heard me talk about developing your talent and one of the best ways to do that is through books.

[00:01:56] But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the [00:02:00] time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via.

[00:02:23] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast impact. That's one of those questions that I ask all of my guests is this idea of what impact do you hope you've left behind in the world? There's different versions of this kind of question.

[00:02:46] If you've worked with a coach before you might have been asked to write your own obituary, write the eulogy for your funeral, write what you hope people will say about you. Whatever you've left [00:03:00] the world. I do my version where instead of thinking about death I try to do it a little. A little kinder in a way where if I invented this magic machine, it could transport you to the future 150 to 200 years.

[00:03:13] And you were able to look back on your whole life, what legacy or what impact you hope you've left in the world. And you know that question, I've been asking guests a version of that question. Pretty much the whole time I've been podcasting or at least a large number of the guests I've asked that it evolved over time, but that basic idea of what legacy do you hope you've left behind?

[00:03:36] What impact do you hope you've left on the world is I think it's one that shows up in a lot of different ways in our life. You probably thought before about what legacy you wanna leave or what impact you wanna have that you leave behind. But when I ask that question, a lot of times there's a pre-show or pre-discussion before the actual interview and [00:04:00] guests will sometimes ask me, or some of them ask me, even during the actual interview what do you mean by impact the world?

[00:04:07] What does it mean to leave an impact? It's a word that we use a lot. And when you think about it, Impact the quote, textbook definition. If you look it up in Webster's dictionary, there's two definitions. One is come to forcable contact with another object. The other is have a strong effect on someone or something.

[00:04:33] It's that second definition that we're usually meaning when we talk about impact. But I think sometimes we both sell impact too little and we think of impact too. All at the same time. What I mean by that is I think a lot of us think we don't really leave an impact on other people. I'm not a big famous person.

[00:04:57] I'm not a movie star or a tech [00:05:00] mogul. I don't have a million dollars. Maybe I'm not the owner of this massive corporation. I'm just little old me. So I don't really have that big of an impact. And yet the truth is you have an impact every time you have an Interac. With another person you always do.

[00:05:21] You influence other people with every contact, whether you held the door open for someone or not made an impact on that person, whether that person said thank you whenever you did or didn't has an impact on you. And sometimes the impacts are intentional and sometimes they're unintentional. Think about it.

[00:05:40] If we're driving to work in the morning. Sometimes the thing that causes us to get angry is the impact that others have on us that we don't even realize. They didn't even know that they did. We also have a choice in how we respond to that and how we let that impact affect us. And so do others. So [00:06:00] it's a complicated relationship.

[00:06:02] You impact way more than you think you. And that impact added up over time is the impact that you leave on the world. And my argument would be that it's always impacting the world, even if you're only interacting with one person because it ripples out from there. It has connections that go beyond that one person, because that one person based on the impact you had on them may turn around in impact two or three or a hundred or a thousand other people.

[00:06:33] It's a multiplication effect and those impacts add up, think about it. The negative impacts in the world add up and so do the positive ones. What happens begins to snowball that could be for the good, or that could be for the bad. It doesn't matter. It's still an impact. That conversation about what impact [00:07:00] means also leads to another question a lot of times, what is it that people that leave a positive impact have in common?

[00:07:10] What kinds of traits or characteristics do you need to exhibit? If you want to leave a positive impact on the world. And again, scale is not what matters here. So it isn't the trade is you manage to influence a thousand people or 10,000 people or two people. Instead it's about the character that we have.

[00:07:29] One characteristic is impactful. People that make an impact often dedicate themselves to what gives their life meaning to what they feel like they're called to do. That's why I talk so much about living out your calling. They also continue to grow themselves. They continue to learn, to develop and to come up with new things for themselves.

[00:07:53] New, I goals, new settings, new things that they want to do. They tend to [00:08:00] engage with other people in an open trustful and mutually beneficial ways. They aren't just out there trying to get their own. They're trying to help others win as well. And they won't take advantage of somebody, even if they could.

[00:08:16] they tend to invest their time and energy, not in what is, but in what could be. They tend to have a vision and that vision tends to be positive. They tend to look at what could happen, what could be true. They're somebody who takes feedback and critique well, and is open to getting feedback and critique.

[00:08:39] They're okay with someone saying, Hey, there might be a better way. , they tend to be somebody who focuses on spreading and teaching what they know. They share information freely. They look for opportunities to bring others up with them, not push others down so that they can stand [00:09:00] on them to get higher.

[00:09:02] They look at the journey, the learning the pathway. As the actual goal, not just the results at the end of that journey. And they tend to use their power and influence for good, not just for self aggrandizement, not just for making themselves look bigger. And if you think about it people that exhibit these traits that have had a positive impact on your life.

[00:09:31] And you can choose to exhibit these traits. And that means you'll start having a positive impact on the world. And that is the real meaning of impacting the world. Thanks for listening.

[00:09:46] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard [00:10:00] and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign.

[00:10:13] For our five week series on the stewardship of talent, or if you're in the us, you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4, 4, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.