How Influence Changes Everything

There are certain tasks that require the use of influence and not power. Geeks have trouble with influencing people to complete things because they do not fully understand what influence is. They mainly think that influence and power are both trying to get people to do things. Power is used to force people do things because they have to. Influence is affecting how the person feels, thinks, and believes about something. There are many great examples from movies, books, and TV shows of how people are influenced.

One great example is from the movie series Star Wars. In the epic Star Wars trilogy, you can find how one character uses influence to change a person’s mind about something they are doing, while another character uses their power to control what people do. Both try to have someone complete something, but they use different ways to accomplish the end result. Usually, depending on what you use, power or influence, the result is something completely different in each situation.

In the first film, A New Hope Luke Skywalker encounters an old man named Ben, who saved Luke. Ben new Luke’s father and tells him a little about him, but does not tell about the whole truth of his father from fear Luke would not want to become a Jedi. Luke from hearing about Jedi’s from Ben and everything that happened to him in that day decided he wanted to be trained by Ben to become a Jedi. Ben during the proses of wanting Luke to become a Jedi never once tried to force him into it. He used some influential power by talking about Luke father, how his father was a Jedi, and showing him the weapon Jedi’s use. These things and many more are what caused Luke to be emotionally influenced by Ben to become a Jedi and follow in his father’s footsteps. At least the footsteps that ben told him about and not the full truth.

The three prequel movies we find Anakin who at a young age in the first prequel is brought in because of the potential seen by a Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn. Anakin with emotional excitement to leave his terrible home planet and not only train to become a Jedi, but get to see a beautiful woman Padme. At the young age of nine, Anakin got influence by many emotional feelings and what you thought about Jedi’s. However, he later became overcome by power lust because of the fear of losing someone he loved. Anakin turned to the dark side because of what it promised him to be able to do, save someone’s life. It is through the seeking of this power that led Anakin wanting to control people’s lives and have no one stand in his way. It is through Anakin’s lust for power that blinded him from seeing the truth and what really caused Padme to not follow him. Anakin, in the movie Return of the Jedi, now known as Darth Vader is drawn to change his ways because of his son Luke who influences Anakin by love to come back to the light-side.

We can see from these two examples that influence can have the ability to change the way people act and seek to accomplish something. Power is sometimes effective, but if you want something to get done effectively and well, influencing someone is the way to go. When we change the way people feel, think, and believe about something it completely changes the way we people act towards you and the task. In order to influence others, you have to show them you care about them.