Getting Quiet Changed My Definition of Influence

What I learned by letting in fewer voices, finding my people, and aligning my work with service.

Portland Harbor - 2/15/2023

Working with my coach, she asked me a simple question: who has influenced me?

At first, I expressed disdain at the word; which being who she is, caught the look.

So we talked about it … and she expanded my perception of the word itself.

To influence means to flow into. That felt very different from the version of influence I usually react to online.

It felt quieter, more relational, more subtle.

At first, I thought about online influencers, people I followed, people I bought courses, ideas, and frameworks from, and I could feel myself react to the term. I have learned that part of that reaction came from recognizing how often, when I was not clear, I looked outside myself for someone to hand me a framework for how to work, live, or move forward.

So it brought up the usual images: big, bold, loud, highly visible, always projecting something outward.

But as I sat with the question longer, I realized the real influencers in my life have been nothing like that.

They have been quiet, subtle, and steady. They have influenced me less through performance and more through presence. Less by telling me who to be, and more by helping me come into deeper alignment with myself, my own gifts, and what I am here to bring to the world.

Influence is quieter than I thought

That realization also helped me make sense of this past year.

Over the last year, my world got quieter.

I let in fewer outside voices suggesting how to work, how to think, how to start my day, how to organize my desk, my files, my business, my life. I stopped reaching so quickly for someone else’s system, someone else’s language, someone else’s answer.

And as that noise dropped, my mind got quieter too.

I could hear guidance more clearly. I began to trust my own intuition because I was anchored. I could notice what actually gave me energy, what created friction, what felt performative, and what felt true. I became less interested in borrowing a way of being and more interested in paying attention to my own life.

That quiet has led me to interesting rooms - people I can learn from but not assume their way of being is better than my way of being (and then hurt myself with myself when their way doesn’t work for me)

In 12-step rooms we call it “being a worker among workers”

Quiet creates clarity

In that quiet, I learned a few important things.

I need to find my own way of doing things. I need to define what is working for me now, not in theory, but in this actual season of life, and assess it honestly each week. And I need to keep asking a simple question: am I doing the things I say are important? Am I keeping the promises I make to myself? Am I being a helpful cheerleader to my own internal voice?

What has come from that is real.

I trust myself more. I invest more in what actually nurtures me. I feel less pulled by other people’s systems and more anchored in my own life.

Sometimes the clearest way forward is not to add another system or voice, but to get quiet enough to notice what is already true for you.

The work became clearer too

That shift has shaped my work, too.

With Journey, the mission has always been to make recovery more visible. What we have found is that quiet conversations in communities about the free resources available are often what amplify that hope most.

With PracticalTech, I want to help the people “who help the people” better use technology in ways that actually support their work. Not more noise, not more complexity, but tools and systems that create clarity, capacity, and real usefulness.

What influence means to me now

So when I think now about influence, I think about discernment. Less about what voices I let in, and more about protecting my own energy. More about getting in rooms with people who value that kind of quiet and support one another in aligning daily actions with what matters most to them individually—and in some almost magical way, that creates energy that supports all of us.

What I am learning is that when I get quiet, find my people, and stay aligned, I am much better able to leverage my own skills and expertise in support of my primary aim: to be of service. The people who have shaped me most are the ones who helped me get quieter, clearer, and more honest about what I am here to do.

They are the ones I can feel in my heart and anchor to in the quiet of the morning.

Grateful for this bonus life.