Episode 232: Episode 250!!! Realizing the Unknown Impact One Has on Others
Welcome to another edition of Around with Randall, your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community. And here is your host, the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.
As with any edition of around with Randall, I'm always thankful and appreciative that you would take a few minutes of your day to join me. But today, even more so today in recording this particular podcast, this marks the 250th podcast that I have done, the 232 that are regular episodes, plus the 18 special, ones that we do about the great philanthropists bringing us to a total of 250.
And in doing so, along with something I'll talk about here in a second, I wanted to talk today about unrealized influence that we don't always see or know, and tie it together with maybe a moment of gratitude and appreciation for number 250 today. I have and posted this in a blog that you can read more in detail around a friend that, about six months ago, maybe a little longer now, I found out was ill, through my mother.
And I was frustrated because it's someone that I grew up with as a little kid into adolescence, into adulthood. Someone that I have always considered him in particular. But his family as well. Someone that I greatly appreciate and respect and admire. And just think of him as an incredibly dear member, not just as a friend, but as almost a part of the family.
He was sick and so sick that his phone was, give it. He gave his phone to his wife so he could, function just as he needed to in the process of not being healthy. And I was frustrated because I couldn't do much to help him. And so I started every day with a message to him, actually, for the first probably five and a half months to his wife because he didn't have his phone and just would say a message for Jim, and it was a sentence or two.
And after about six months, I got a phone call from him saying how much he enjoyed the daily messages, looked at them as a tether to a friendship, to people caring, and I never had an update during that period. Not from his wife, nor and not that she showed up. She was dealing something that was more important and not from him.
But what I realized in that, and it wasn't that long ago. And then a little bit about today's podcast is, is that we tend not to understand the influence that we have on others, and most of the time that is unseen. And yes, we will get a little bit of theoretical and yes, we will get a little bit of the tactical today.
But all of this is to say is, is that this underestimated influence has when we talk about the philosophy, logical meaning, it helps people or hurts them depending on the positive or negative nature of the influence. It's actually happening. The Journal of Personal and and Social Psychology had an article that says that we underestimate the influence of others by 50%.
Harvard Business Review says that 81% of professionals say small gestures, comments, encouragement, a pat on the back. The small things play an incredibly large, significant impact on how they view themselves, as well as how they view others might think of them. So in my example, and this isn't a matter of glorification for Randall, how far from it? I was sending a message every day, and what I found was, is I got great joy out of it.
It caused me to be present in the moment every day of thinking about him, when I couldn't talk to him when I. And it wasn't appropriate that I what he needed to worry about him. I wanted him to worry about him. But what I began to figure out after our conversation was that I got great joy out of being something that helped him in an incredibly meaningless way from my perspective, but was meaningful to him.
And in our workplaces, it's the same thing. That's what the Harvard Business Review Journal was in a 2021 article, is that 81% of professionals said it's the small things that affect us. Another way of looking at it is the largest effect I want to have. I hope that I am having is on my children. That's my legacy, at least the first of it, and I think anybody with kids would understand that.
But we do that intentionally. It's these unintended things that are happening that really may have even more effect on people that were around, and we don't know it. So how does this relate to celebrating 250 episodes of A round with Randall? I've said many times on this podcast that I really don't want to know how many people are listening.
I don't want it to affect what I do. I want this to be a 20 minute classroom of a subject that we talk about, and I can give you hopefully, good tactical answers to solve that particular subject's problems or challenges. But I did ask my dear friend Brandon, who kind of manages the technical side of getting these podcasts and blogs up, and I'll throw in the blogs as well, because there's now 500 plus of those since I started a little under five years ago, that it's probably.
And now I have a little more understanding, more in terms of people listening and utilizing this for whatever is appropriate. Than I realized my goal professionally, well before I knew that much about philanthropy, or that I would be a consultant or, you know, chief development officer. Most of my practice, most of my career as a practitioner. And then in consulting, my one goal when I started law school was, is that I wanted to have a positive effect on one person who wasn't in my family.
That was it. One person.
If I could truly make one person's life one little bit better, I would view my professional life as success. I'm not going to judge whether or not I've done that, but what I will say is, is that if people are listening to this and have chosen to come back over and over, then maybe I'm hitting on something that is helpful.
This podcast, in 28 days. And all of them is what I'm referring to. When you look at YouTube, you can watch any of the 250. So let's take the viewing of the visual was viewed almost 1800 times in 28 days. And when I was told that I almost passed out. That there are people listening from all over Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States that.
When we talk about the audio, you can for those, depending on how you watch YouTube, you can download it on your iPhone that it's downloaded. In addition to being watched as much as 175 times per month of any of the episodes. So some people are maybe listening to episode seven versus number 250. We've covered subjects around major gifts and donor life cycles and strategies.
We've covered board engagements, plan giving. We've talked about annual mid-level giving. We've done prediction shows. We've talked about AI and the innovations in philanthropy. In that process, I've shared stories of family and friends, of personal experiences, of professional ones. I've showed examples of where clients and others that I am working with or have knowledge of have done good and challenging things, and what can be done as a part of this process.
All this is to say is, is that I'm really kind of stunned at the possibilities of what this podcast and the blogs have become.
I say on the website, and I say in life that I believe gratitude is a critical component of life and thus shifting as we look at it, influence. I'm grateful for anyone you listening or watching this, or any other of the podcasts or the blogs that think I have something to offer you. In every job that I've ever left, the last thing I tell the team, either verbally and I think once in writing, because I'd left is this.
And I say to you, anybody listening now, by the way, say to my clients when we're done. I want to apologize for anything that I've ever done that has created a sense of failure in the way you look at me and what I've offered and what I am and what I'm trying to do. That my only role, my only hope, was service as a leader to make other people's worlds their existence professionally and, where appropriate, supporting me in personal, in their personal life.
Better. And if I let anyone down or I failed them in any way, I apologize. I view that as my way of saying service is important.
How does this all affect you? Well, in the ways in which you work, for the people you work with, the people that you work for, the people that work for you. You have more of an influence on them than you might realize. And while I celebrate 250 podcast, more than 500 blogs coming up on five years of doing this in my own world in the way that I want to do it, I want you to understand the responsibility that comes that I am ever more present and knowledgeable of, of influence that you don't even realize.
It pertains to how you treat others with respect, with dignity, your willingness to listen, and most importantly, to empathize.
How you do the little things, whether it's a pat on the back, a personal thank you note, a note of encouragement, a birthday card, how you help someone who's struggling with their professional success in terms of as a leader, possibly mentoring them. And that's more formalized, but helping them find their place in the professional world. And then if we shift our attention to outside of our organizations, think about the relationships that we are trying to engender with our donors that influence that we may or may not realize we have on them.
We talk a lot about in this podcast, particularly when we think about stewardship, cultivation, solicitation, the relationship building process, the negative impacts that we have and how to fix them to maximize philanthropy opportunity. But the same is true of the positive ways when we treat our donors not as ATMs, but as people who we enjoy being around, because that should be the essence of who we are as nonprofit practitioners and professionals, that those are leadership moments, and we shift our conversation to what the donor and prospect wants and needs.
Their passion, their connection. We become of service to them, influence most of the time unseen if done well and not even realized. All of these broader implications of influence, relationships, trust, thinking of others, and realizing that our actions when nobody's watching or when we think no one's watching or is not that important, actually somebody is watching, and they're probably more important than we realize.
The center for Creative Leadership did a study in 2022 and found that 92% of leaders said they're informal mentorships, those informal relationships were key in the development of their career. Gallup said that employees are three times more engaged when they feel seen and encouraged. And by the way, that isn't only leaders looking or or enacting leadership down i.e. not down per se, but into the team.
But teammate, teammate. And frankly, we've talked about in the episode Managing Up how you manage up when people are struggling.
I want to say what this all means to me. Number one, the podcast is not going to change. I am humbled when people reach out, said, we'd love to have someone that they represent or themselves be a guest on the podcast. And I say, you obviously haven't listened. It's not meant to be about me, but I have a philosophy.
This is a classroom. I'm hopefully teaching something that's worthwhile. So the first thing is looking forward as to what this all means is the podcast is not changing 20 minutes or so a week. One subject, take it apart, give you practical solutions. Number two is I will be more mindful of a continuation of showing up with awesome authenticity and care that what I do and say is with you in mind, whoever you are.
And that I will keep in mind and even elevate the thought process that the verbiage and the lessons and the classroom and the whatever you want to call this really might be shaping an organization more so than I realized, shaping individuals in our careers more than I realized. And use that as motivation to be more diligent and more dialed in to providing as many solutions as I possibly can.
I said it, I said about a couple of minutes in that I believe gratitude is good for one's heart and one's soul, and one's life. That never was more important to me when dad passed away a little under right at two years ago, because I had a choice, I could be angry and upset that dad died, or I could be grateful for the fact that he was my dad.
I chose gratitude because it allowed me to view my relationship with him and the things that I am in a more positive way. And in many ways, while not a death, I feel the very much the same gratitude for anyone who spent one second listening to all of this drivel, and that if it's been helpful, I'm grateful to have been of service to you.
I did not realize the impact, and like my friend, I need to be more mindful about how appreciative I should be that someone might have an interest in what I say. And I will promise we will continue to do this each week with the mindset of helping others, because I'm appreciative. I will keep pushing to give great content, great direction, great insights if I have them.
That makes your world a better place. The blogs you can read 90 seconds per week and help philanthropy, but most importantly, in a moment of really kind of astounding recognition of, how many people actually are paying attention, I can't get my kids to pay this much attention, which is kind of scary in of itself. I'm reminded at the very end of what I usually say at the end of each podcast, we'll conclude here.
Some people make things happen. Some people watch things happen. Then there are those who wondered what happened. I tend to find myself in this podcast wondering what happened, at least in terms of connection, but promising that I will continue to try to be. And I want you to be, because what you're doing is important. You are serving and affecting people you don't even know.
By being someone who's making things happen. And my hope is, is that you will continue to do that, realize how important it is, and find that nexus to make what you do and the nonprofit you represent more viable, more engaging with your community will turn the page and go for the next 250, starting next time, right back here on the next edition of Around With Ramble and with gratitude, I say make it a great day.