{"id":910,"date":"2006-05-25T22:22:46","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T22:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/book_excerpt_ii_1\/"},"modified":"2006-05-25T22:22:46","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T22:22:46","slug":"book_excerpt_ii_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/book_excerpt_ii_1\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Excerpt III"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 11pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\"><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\"><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\"><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">THE BEST INFLUENCE WE CAN LIVE<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\"><em style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal\"><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span style=\"mso-tab-count: 1\">&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; <\/span><\/span><\/em><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\">The world changes when influence is used to grow people.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>People begin to be inspired and energetic.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>They use the conditions and environments to reconnect themselves, in addition to the outside world.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>This is a type of reconnection that opens up possibilities\u2014possibilities around something greater than any one individual.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Self-serving people need not apply.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\"><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">It\u2019s a powerful reality when you experience a leader who desires to use their influence to help others.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>The best organizations apply this; they don\u2019t look at influence as an accidental encounter.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>This type of entity realizes that accidents happen ten percent of the time; the other ninety percent is about choices.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Best-in-class organizations are on purpose about it.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>They formalize it by programs, behaviors and execution.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sadly, low performing organizations sit idly by wondering \u201cwhat\u2019s all the fuss about?\u201d<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\"><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">We can\u2019t wait for corporations, churches or associations to make this a reality.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Seize the opportunity and apply this to your personal life.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>A key advisor once told me how she had to take ownership of her influence.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sheila was always confident, but her career wasn\u2019t stimulating and most of her superiors didn\u2019t seem interested in her aspirations.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>This led to a variety of dead-end streets.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>She would master a certain discipline then quickly become bored.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Managers would ask her to be involved in projects that quickly became uninspiring.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sheila realized that it was time to take her rightful place at the table of influence.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>After years of letting others control the impact of her influence, she knew that her life was ebbing away.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>She came to a crossroads (as we all do), and chose to follow a path of authentic influence.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sheila was comfortable with the fear, the doubt and the uncertainty that comes with this type of move.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\"><span style=\"FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%; FONT-FAMILY: Century\"><span face=\"Times New Roman\">There is always a price for these types of decisions.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>She knew it wasn\u2019t\u2019 going to be easy, but she understood that many times it\u2019s about an act of our will.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sheila has never looked back.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>I had the privilege of watching her grow over many years.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Not often do you get to see this type of transformation, it was a blessing indeed.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Sheila went on to succeed in many different arenas (education, business and non-profits) that our culture recognizes as great. But if you were to ask her today about the choice to embrace her unique influence, she would say it was all about the \u201cchoice.\u201d<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span>Without a doubt, Sheila is truly remarkable.<span style=\"mso-spacerun: yes\">&nbsp; <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt\">\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\">\n<p><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 200%\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE BEST INFLUENCE WE CAN LIVE &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; The world changes when influence is used to grow people.&nbsp; People begin to be inspired and energetic.&nbsp; They use the conditions and environments to reconnect themselves, in addition to the outside world.&nbsp; This is a type of reconnection that opens up possibilities\u2014possibilities around&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}