Imagine this scene!

You’re at a nice lunchtime party to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Everyone is full of good spirits and laughter until a friend’s negative mood takes over as her complaints dominate the conversation. The positive energy falls, the sparkle has gone and people start to find reasons to leave.

One person’s negative mood changed the atmosphere of the whole group, whether they were aware of it or not.

We all impact other people, whether we realise it or not.

Ever since you were born, you have influenced and impacted others by what you did or didn’t do and by the things you did or didn’t say. You impact others whether you know it or not, and whether you intend it or not.

Your impact can be good or bad, or just plain ugly!

We all have the power to impact our family, friends and community.

What is impact?

We describe impact as the ‘outcomes and consequences our actions and activities have upon others’. These can be positive or negative outcomes.

Positive impact is meaningful and has good outcomes. It’s when you use your skills, knowledge or time to benefit other people.

It may be something as simple as a smile, or even when you hold back from saying something nasty or you choose not to spread gossip about someone.

Negative impact brings unhelpful, negative outcomes. It’s when you aren’t helpful, or when you’re in a foul mood and you choose to complain miserably without thinking about the impact of your complaints.

Negative impact can happen ‘accidentally’ perhaps because you’re not paying attention to the choices you make.

Very negative (ugly) impact is the worst because there’s nothing accidental about the outcome. It’s when someone deliberately does something with the intention of creating a negative consequence.

Like when someone is aware of their power to impact a situation and they use that power for evil! They want to draw other people into their chaos, frustration and misery! It’s ugly, dirty and nasty – and it’s one of my pet hates.

Your impact matters

Your impact has a ripple effect, whether it’s good, bad or ugly. You impact someone with a cheerful smile and they often pass the smile on to others. The impact you have goes far beyond that one-to-one exchange.

Your impact is like a ripple that spreads across a pond. Once you set it off by throwing the stone into the pond, you don’t know how long or far the ripples will travel.

Your impact matters because it affects how people view you, which directly affects your ability to succeed in business and in life.

QUOTE: ’A life isn’t significant except for its impact on other lives’ – Jackie Robinson

What is your impact?

It is important to be self-aware and to understand the type of impact you have on others.

Here are a few tough questions for you to consider. They will help you to evaluate the type of impact you’re having on those around you.

• At home, do you grumble and complain about everything that other people do or are you grateful for people’s efforts even if its not perfect?
• In the office, do you disrupt the work-flow of others or do you help others with their work?
• In the classroom, do you help others to learn or do you make them feel stupid for asking a question?
• At a function, do you share joy and excitement or do you spread your misery instead?
• In business, do you cheat others out of their money and ignore their complaints or do you find ways to add value and keep customers happy?

Of course, we all have moments when we don’t respond as well as we would like. But if you have more negative moments than positive moments, you might need to think carefully about your choices and their consequences.

Remember, you can chose your actions and impact in every situation. You chose how you use your power – to bring positive impact, or negative.

Your choices matter because your impact matters.

Never underestimate your power to impact others.

Think about your opportunities to use your life or business to make a positive difference and help your people, clients and your community.

African proverb: ‘If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night in a room with a mosquito.’

As an impact entrepreneur, you can build positive values into your business with the intent to positively impact customers and local communities.

You may think you’re insignificant but you already impact every person you come in contact with, strangers as well as your friends, family and community.

Jackie Robinson and other sports heroes understand that we all have the power to impact other people. It’s a power you can use for good – or less than good.

Use your power to impact your world wisely!

We love to hear from you. When you look at yourself carefully, is your impact on others mainly positive or negative, and whatever your answer might be, do you think it really matters?