Many of us rarely consider the energy, behaviors, and attitudes we send out into the world. If we’re not social influencers, celebrities, or leaders, how much are others affected by what we do, anyway? Science has answered that question for us, and the results have been replicated time and time again: what we do, no matter who we are, powerfully influences others. Conversely, what others do, even casual acquaintances, powerfully influences us.
The behaviors of close friends are the most influential, but studies have found that even a friend of a friend can affect your behaviors and attitudes. This effect continues to ripple to the third degree—that’s a friend of a friend of a friend. If your friend has a friend who has a friend who has a positive attitude, you are more likely to have a positive attitude yourself. If a friend of a friend of a friend has a drinking problem, you are more likely to have a drinking problem. This ripple effect has proven statistically significant to the third degree for an array of behaviors, from smoking to healthy eating to positive attitudes.
As entrepreneurs and small business owners, we are uniquely positioned to be more intentional in the curating of our relationships and therefore the influences around us. While traditional employees are forced to work with whom they’ve been assigned, entrepreneurs have more freedom to choose who they will hire, who they will work alongside, and with whom they will socialize.
Since every behavior around me is magnified, I choose to surround myself with people I admire. The connections I make in groups like The Women in Entrepreneurship inspire me to work harder, live with integrity, and work with respect toward others. I choose to treat my contractors with the understanding that their friends and even the friends of those friends will feel the effects of my leadership. I realize that any bad day or frustration or negative behavior I choose can ripple through the connections around me, which encourages me to turn those attitudes around. I choose to send resilience, positivity, and gratefulness into the world.
No matter how many connections you have on LinkedIn or how many followers on Instagram, this holds true: you have an impact on the world around you, an impact that ripples much farther than many might expect. What attitudes do choose to send out through that channel? And what kind of people around you feed you in return?
References:
- VanderWeele, Tyler J. (2011). “Sensitivity Analysis for Contagion Effects in Social Networks”. Sociological Methods & Research. 40 (2): 240–255.
- Christakis, NA; Fowler, JH (2013). “Social Contagion Theory: Examining Dynamic Social Networks and Human Behavior”. Statistics in Medicine. 32 (4): 556–577.
