Your impact in other people’s life.

Usually, when one makes a living by providing intangible services or ideas and concepts like it happens in advertising, consulting, coaching, speaking or writing, you easily get used to sharing your thoughts with everyone. You dedicate yourself to talking and talking, sometimes even without stopping to listen, even though you know how important it is to do so to be able to achieve your ultimate goal which is connecting with people.

This is why a lot of us are frequently asking for feedback, be it through the comments box in our blog, via e-mail or in a phone call, also by way of a mention in another forum, a comment in the hall or in an event or even through a formal survey as well.

We are always looking, observing, learning the opinions of those around us, because we know that there is better way to help us get better at what we do, better at connecting with you.

In time you start getting feedback frequently and in many shapes and forms, some comments more personal than others, some flattering some not so much. But what always caughts my attention is that almost every comment you receive is about how, with a comment you shared, you somehow impacted the life of another human being. And believe me when I tell you that that is really food for the soul.

Now the funny thing though is that in most of the occasions, those people who let you know about how you impacted their life, are oblivious of the impact they are having on you! They ignore how you can go around and around a comment they left and with which you don’t entirely agree or how many times you read a positive comment they left for you and that always makes you smile.

They don’t know how proud we feel when, we get invited to deliver a new keynote as a result of the one we just gave, or how insecure we can get if after a presentation no one is asking questions or commenting on what we just discussed; or the great satisfaction we get when we are able to help or collaborate with someone else, be it a group, an entire organization or just one single person.

This is why, this week, I just wanted to share with you how gratefull I am for all your comments and the way you impact my life: the short and precise comment from Mr. White or from Jack, Franciscos e-mails, the comments from Tam in this blog, Ramiro’s opinion from Caracas or Gerardos messages too. The invitation from different universities to collaborate in their new conferences, the invites to connect in a social network and the mentions and links from other sites to The daily and the not so.

These are all what, in days like this, when I don’t have much to say, remind me of how important it is to keep sharing, because without a post like this every week, I would most likely not hear from you.

So here’s a quick recommendation: Never loose sight of the impact you can always have on the rest. It’s like Anita Roddick  (Founder of The Body Shop) used to say: “If you think you are too small to have an impact, try going to ven with a Mosquito.”

By the way! As promised, here are some of the pictures I took during the last 2 seminars at Google, the one at CIM and the presentation at Ogilvy…Were you in one of these? Check out the photos and see if you can find yourself!