Influence or Affluence?

Published by: Jeff Shinabarger
January 5, 2012

For the last two months, I have been living in Granada, Nicaragua. We took intentional time to live as a family and process many projects and people we have in our lives. We needed this time for spiritual renewal and to re-imagine how to live moving forward. I hope in a few blog posts to unpack a few things that I thought about on this journey.

I met many new people in this small city. It occurred to me that I had no gain in relationships while I was present, rather just the purity of getting to know a new person. It was the truth in what making a friend is all about – mutual respect and admiration. To love my new neighbors. On the flip side, I realized the dilemma and agenda I too often struggle with in gaining influence.

Which do you most aspire to: Influence or Affluence? Would you rather have the opportunity to wisely direct the lives of others or would you rather personally gain from the lives of others?

The difference between these two mindsets can direct so much of our approach in relationships. It’s not a conversation I hear often talked clearly about, but it is an under-current that drives decisions. If we are gaining influence with desire of affluence haunting our choices, we run the risk of taking advantage of the people who we have been given the opportunity to lead. I think too often people say they want influence, but truly want affluence.

This is not new in some ways, but in other ways it is very new. As popularity of leaders gain, their value for appearances have always had an increased dollar that is associated. This is the story of a world we call celebrity. But, now celebrity is moving down to a social level. As we can now track the number of followers everyone has on Twitter and Facebook for all to see, so now there are quantifiable ways to monetize our reach. This results in the creation of strategies to increase followership with the hopes of increasing financial gain. If the phrase “Time is Money” is understood, we may want to realize that “Friends are Money” is a more true statement. In the past, there was social criticism of this type of thing, but in todays economy we subtly accept it as reasonable or maybe even understandable.

Here is my hope for the future: As the social era continues through our generation, authentic influencers will have the greatest voice. Social response will limit affluent gain as strategy. As our “friends” increase, the people who influence our lives with decrease. There will be few people who make all the difference in the way we live.

We should strive to be an influencer.

Have you ever experienced this tension? Have you seen it in others? Do you fight it yourself? Here are a couple check-points to consider this question for your own life and hopefully keep your aspiration in check.

1) Access – As you gain in both of these spaces, both influence and affluence, there becomes a natural rise in access to more places. It’s the VIP treatment that many people begin to realize. You get invited to more events. You get to go into special rooms. You are given unique experiences. Gifts may even be sent specially your way. Are you using this unique access to further your own personal gain or do you freely give of that access to others who are not in the room? How you respond to access is a key indicator of your pursuit of influence or affluence.

2) Time – As our influence and affluence expand, the things we choose to do become more dependent on how both of those continue to increase. We begin to make choices based on financial gain and quantity of impact. If these are the only two categories that we contribute our energy that affluence is driving our decisions. Make sure you build in moments that increase the opportunities of others. Let others be heros and give your time, energy and skill to help them regardless of any personal gain.

3) Affirmation – We all receive instant feedback through the heart of instagram, a thumbs up on facebook, or maybe a retweet on twitter. These are kind gestures by followers, but are not indicators of influence. When you are influencing the life of another human you will know by the words they share with you through letters, phone calls and personal notes. When we are influencing other people, many people will go out of the way to communicate how they care for your guidance.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1286484165 Aaron Hathaway

From a Christian perspective, I think about influence and affluence very differently: none of me and all of Him, which is definitely a struggle. When we are influencing correctly, according to the Bible, our encouragement may come through the something opposite of what the world calls success – persecution.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you
belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do
not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is
why the world hates you. If they persecuted me, they will persecute
you.” John 15:18-20 NIV
http://twitter.com/DuncanMcFadzean Duncan McFadzean

This is very true and much on my mind. It’s easy to resent giving time to others to influence them when we get little in return. We talk of “collaboration” or “partnering” but we often don’t think of just giving to influence, for their benefit alone, i.e. a selfless influence. You said it well a few months ago – ask first “how can I help you” rather than “how can you help me”.

There’s a tension in this – we all have our passions and dreams of projects we want to see come to fruition, and using that social capital for that purpose can be beneficial – but that’s likely to be using our influence for good beyond ourselves, rather than affluence for self gratification.

I’ve come to conclude that we need affirmation, we need people who we connect to, and we need real relationships across diverse communities and geographies – these three things give us encouragement, refreshing, inspiration and help us shape and deliver our ideas.

But, on the other hand, seeing our relationships as all about us and our brand and our reputation, does totally miss the point. The ability to be a connector or an influencer is a gift and should be stewarded wisely.

Time and presence are, as you say, some of the best ways of demonstrating that. I was doing some filing last week and I came across a handwritten card from you from a couple of years back, a great example of what you say here – and something that was a great encouragement to me at the time and when I discovered it again. Thanks for that, and for this post.
http://twitter.com/shinabarger Jeff Shinabarger

Wow a comment from Aaron Hathaway? A blast from the past – I had no idea that you read our stuff…thanks man. Great thoughts…I never thought about what you wrote in preparing this post, so interesting to think through these ideas with the thought of persecution. Thanks for sharing…love that.
http://twitter.com/shinabarger Jeff Shinabarger

Wow a comment from Aaron Hathaway? A blast from the past – I had no idea that you read our stuff…thanks man. Great thoughts…I never thought about what you wrote in preparing this post, so interesting to think through these ideas with the thought of persecution. Thanks for sharing…love that.
http://twitter.com/shinabarger Jeff Shinabarger

Hey Duncan – I always love your comments. Its interesting that we have this recent term called Social Capital that has integrated into our language. Isn’t that the exact dilemma turning friendship into monetary value? It seems like a subtle term that embodies the tension of these two terms so perfectly…maybe this is not a good term at all because it doesn’t make us wrestle with the tension is seemingly puts the two together and doesn’t make us realize what we are focused on? Always great to hear from you on the other side of the pond!
http://twitter.com/DuncanMcFadzean Duncan McFadzean

It’s an interesting debate on social capital. I strongly dislike the idea of “monetising” my friends, which is good! The conversation we are having here in Edinburgh is around can you lower the income required you need to live from by bringing together social capital – I guess other phrases here would be non-cash economies, barter, sharing. But you’re right – it’s hard to enter into this phrase without it being seen as exploitative of relationships.