About a year ago I remember walking around downtown Appleton waiting to meet up with a good friend to do a photo walk. I saw a few people skateboarding and as I approached even closer, I realized I knew one of them. It was a guy that I actually went to school with recently. His name was Evan. We had been out of contact for quite some time, but every time I see him it’s always cool to catch up.
He said something that really resonated with me and it has been happening ever since with other people as well. He said,
I love your work man. I don’t click “like” or comment, but it’s always nice to see.
Well now I know that he sees it, enjoys it and has some sort of impact on him. You can’t track that sort of thing, but there is something different about it.
The same kind of thing even happened to me this past monday when I met with a friend and even ran across a few other people with a similar response. They all really enjoy what I write, create and share, but the influence is never abled to be measured or tracked in a way that resonates with me when I look at my stats. It’s cool to see those numbers go up from time to time. It makes you feel proud of what you are doing.
It’s easy for me to get obsessed with my site traffic, retweets and interactions I have. I love having conversations with people, but sometimes I get too caught up in wanting to connect with others and forget to connect in the moments I am actually in. I forget to actually live life. That is where true influence lives. Within our own life and the lives of others. It’s not anywhere on the internet it’s in the real world. The real world is also where new ideas are conceived. When we can forget to look at your analytics, you really get a lot more work done.
Less obsessing, more progressing.
The reach that you have and how it influences others is not measurable through mathematics. Analytics cannot determine the impact you have through the things I write and create.
Influence is beyond mathematics.
Did you like this post? I talk more about types of influence in my new book, The Elements of Blogging.
Love the image in this post? I got it here for free.
