00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 629 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Jeff Brown from the read to lead podcast, challenging you to reach true success in business and in life through consistent and intentional reading. One way to be inspired to success is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader Is when you are influencing others. That's when you're being a good leader,
00:00:35 that's when you're really helping others to succeed. But that's always harder. Manipulation seems like the quick, easy path to a win, but in the long run influence is the way to go 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,
00:01:03 your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world. In today's episode about developing your influence through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about how I define influence and manipulation, why I'm for influence even when I fail at it and why this definition helps you recognize when you're actually serving others.
00:01:44 You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the 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.
00:02:10 And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. 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 influence is one of those words that can mean different things to different people. And you know, I talk a lot about influencing people about influencing others. And I've been asked to talk about what I mean by that.
00:02:46 And I'll, I'll be clear. I think there's a difference between influence and manipulation. Those two terms are often used interchangeably, but at least to me, they mean very different, very different things. So let's kind of define our terms. Influence to me is when you act to help someone else do something that is in their best interest and manipulation is whenever you cause someone to do something because it's in your best interest.
00:03:26 So let's think about a sale situation for a moment. Can you think of a situation where you were working with a salesman and they manipulated you into making a decision about a purchase where later you found out that they sold you a product that was something that made them a very high commission, but when you do more investigation and you learn more about it, you discover that the product was not really the best product for you,
00:03:55 that it wasn't something that served your needs as good as other products perhaps might have done in that case, that salesman was manipulating you into making a decision, but I've also had situations where I'm working with the salesman and they influence me into making a decision. They provide me the information, they provide full transparency about any conflicts that they have about how they get paid and perhaps what their commission would be from this.
00:04:27 They talk about why at the end of the day, there's the pros and cons and they help lead me through a purchasing decision to actually make a decision about a purchase that is best for me, it feels very different. Honestly, when you're working with a salesman who goes through an influence process, it's kind of a pleasant experience, but when you have an a manipulative salesman,
00:04:57 this is the old stereotype of the quote used car salesman. Who's just pulling the wool over your eyes and convincing you to do something because they just want to make a quick buck. You know, the truth is part of this though, is it's easy to mistake, influence and manipulation. It's easy if you're working with someone else, it's hard sometimes to remember what is it,
00:05:24 that's in their best interest. And the real reason, the only way to figure that out is to actually talk to the person, to get to know the person, to ask questions, to develop a relationship because otherwise it's all too easy to kind of take this paternalistic role where I know what's best for you. Almost patting someone on the head and saying,
00:05:46 just do what I tell you, because it's best for you. And that's not the kind of influence that I'm talking about. You know, I aim for the kind of influence. I reach out to someone else and I learn what's important to them. I learned their values. I learned their priorities. I learn what they really want out of the world.
00:06:08 And then I help hold them accountable to that and drive them forward, push them, sometimes, ask them questions, challenge their thinking and help them achieve more than they would be able to do on their own. That's the influence that I aim to have to me. That's really the true definition of leadership. That's the true definition of communication, but it takes a lot of time.
00:06:35 It takes a lot of effort. It's not something that I succeed at every day, and it's not something that I think anyone can succeed at every single time. It's just about doing the best you can to really understand what's important to others. And then to work hard, to help them get it. It's it's about being a servant first. This is why we talk about servant leadership.
00:07:03 It's what allows us to recognize that we're really serving others. And what's funny is out of that. You often get what you really need and want even more than when you try to manipulate people. When you manipulate people. It's often about a quick buck. It's often about making a short term win, but over the longterm, it doesn't build a team.
00:07:30 It doesn't build relationships. It doesn't build communication. It doesn't build trust. So one of them influences a slow, steady process. Manipulation is quick and about just the quick win. So you can recognize that you're influencing instead of manipulating, when you're spending the time to really find out what's important to the other person, when you're working hard to understand what their priorities and their goals are,
00:08:02 that is when you are influencing others. That's when you're being a good leader, that's when you're really helping others to succeed. But that's always harder. Manipulation seems like the quick, easy path to a win, but in the long run influence is the way to go. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener,
00:08:35 we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard 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 up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent. Or if you're in the U S you can text four,
00:09:03 four, two, two, two talent tips, that's talent tips to four four, two, two, two, and get those tips until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world.