You don’t have to have a blogger, podcaster, YouTuber, or influencer. You can be an employee, run a company, be a stay at home parent, or a student.
You don’t have to have an online platform to matter in this world.
Why would a teacher feel pressure to be an online influencer? They’re LITERALLY influencing lives every day.
Why would a mom feel like she’s not doing enough so she starts a blog or starts posting to Instagram, hoping her follower count goes up?
You don’t have to have an online platform to matter in this world.
When did we decide that our off-line life wasn’t enough?
Who told you that your life, the one that doesn’t require a keyboard or a camera, wasn’t enough?
Platforms are a lot of things, but they’re not required.
What’s required of all of us
What’s required is for you to love well, yourself and those closest to you. You need to do your job with integrity. Serve your community. Care about people who need caring for.
The most influence I’ll ever have is on the four people who live in my home. My kids don’t care if I blog and if I stopped writing my life would still have a tremendous impact.
If you’re heading into a battlefield you want a leader who is strong and confident. If your team is taking the field you want a coach who is confident she has a winning game plan. There are some situations where a leader who shows weaknesses is a bad idea.
And then there are the other 98% of situations where admitting weaknesses is a good idea.
If someone can’t admit they have weaknesses they’re not worth listening to.
Pastors and politicians are the two groups I think of who fall in this trap the most.
Pastor and politicians fall into the trap of trying to appear perfect. It’s a trap for them and us and traps should always be avoided.
Politicians won’t show weaknesses because they want to be reelected. Pastors don’t want to show weakness because they feel a need to perpetuate the myth that pastors are super human or they’re prideful enough to believe that they are actually super human.
I can’t listen to people who won’t or can’t admit their weaknesses. I won’t work for someone who can’t admit to weaknesses. I won’t sit under the teaching of someone who can’t admit their weaknesses.
Why Follow The Weak?
We’re all weak, and we can learn from each other’s weaknesses. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are led by people who understand the struggle of alcoholism. They understand the struggle and they are more helpful and compassionate and effective because of it.
Following someone who readily admits weaknesses means they’re aware of them and are willing to disclose them publicly, which means they’re also inviting accountability.
This is someone I’ll listen to.
So, sorry if you’ve got all of your crap together and you’ve got nothing but smiles all the time. I’m not buying it.
Optimism? I’ve got plenty of it. Confidence? I’m not lacking. Joy? I’ve got enough for me and some left over to share.
But life is hard sometimes and I want to follow people who know and admit that reality for themselves.
The weight of perfection
Turns out being perfect is a lot of work because no one’s perfect so you have to lie about some parts of your life.
I don’t follow liars and neither should you. So let’s get real and follow people who are honest about the struggle.
We’re all more likely to overcome a struggle when we admit we’re in the middle of one.
