The Scope of Impact

The surprise impact that fills me with gratitude

The scope of impact is the experience of change over time that transcends thought to become the expression of our best selves.

Another way of describing what I see is …

My voice connects me to reality. It is the reality that is shared with others. When I speak (or write), I articulate who I am in the moment of expression. This is why our conversations with one another matter. When we speak together, our words resonate with reality over time.

For this reason, we must take care of our relationships. When we speak without malice or deceit, we deny the reality that makes peace possible between people. When we speak with respect, we affirm our shared humanity with one another. We do not have to be the same people. We only have to decide in our own hearts that we will treat one another like we wish to be treated.

My New Scope of Impact

As many of you know, I returned to my hometown last winter. I purchased a house downtown and began to renew my relationship with the town of my birth 53 years after leaving to venture into a life of discovery.

I have now joined the choir at my church. I have sung all my life, but never in a choir. I can carry a tune but cannot read music. All that is changing, and I am changing as well.

The scope of my impact is realized as I fill a need for more male tenors. The experience of singing is another way of giving voice to the experience of my life.

At rehearsal his week, we sang a song calling us to “come home.” The first time, I tried to follow the notes through the measures. The second time through, the words resonated deeply of the reality of my homecoming. It was an unexpected, moving moment.

Such is the embodied nature of the scope of impact we experience.

Early in the morning, I leave my home and drive to God’s Acre, the cemetery in Old Salem, an 18th-century Moravian settlement where some of my kin came 220 years ago. Some of my family are buried in the city cemetery adjacent to this graveyard. It is another mark that home is not a construct but a real place that embodies our memories and relationships through time.

I go there because the “ghosts sleep at dawn.” It is a quiet place to reflect and meditate. Soon after, I enter the coffee shop at the village square, and conversation takes hold of my day.

With conversation, questions are asked, stories are shared, insights are gained, and new friendships are formed. This is the scope of my life. If you and I have had a conversation at some point in our journeys, thank you for sharing the time with me.

The question that emerges from these conversations is …

What is the scope of impact of my life?

It is not an easy question to answer. Answer it, I must.

What Is Trust?

To many people, Trust is an abstraction. It is a word that does not live in their experience. It is reflected in their attitudes toward leaders and institutions.

My sense is that if people are truly being honest, they feel that most people are untrustworthy. They are not dependable. They may be honest, law-abiding individuals, but they cannot be Trusted to do the right thing in a moment of demand. The reason may be that selfishness and self-preservation are the core motivations encouraged by influencers.

I realize that I may be an example of Trust to people. I learned this from the comments of people who read my writings and watched my podcast. I, now, understand that Trust can be a measure of Impact. The change that makes a difference that matters to people is a range of feelings and thoughts that affirm their basic values. When they know someone whose character they see resembles these values, they look on them with approval. I am not trying to be an example. Whatever you think I am, I am just trying to be a guy who lives up to the principles that he was taught as a child.

The simple reason is that I believe that it is easier to live with Integrity than by lies. I sleep well while the ghosts roam the world at night, haunting the liars in the quiet of their beds.

I see Trust in two ways.

• It is a gift that we give to people who have made a difference that matters in our lives.

• It is also the currency of healthy relationships and social systems.

In creating the Circle of Impact, I saw that,

• Trust is the product of Respect.

• If Trust is a gift, then Respect is an agreement between us that allows us to form a relationship of Trust.

You can see by this simple comparison that if Respect and Trust are missing in a social environment, there will be problems.

The thought that I am “a person of Trust” came to me like the still, small voice that Elijah heard as “the sound of a roaring whisper.” The words were clear and unambiguous.

The more I thought about this, I realized that,

• Trust given is not the same as Trust shared.

• For Trust to be shared, it requires mutual accountability.

The Practice of Trust

I really don’t think a lot about Trust. Instead, I think about Integrity. Expressions of Trust are recognitions of the Integrity of the person. This is important to me because I dislike being uncertain about things I should be certain about. I am talking about the importance of personal character. I seek to be the same person with everyone I meet regardless of race, economic class, country of origin, or ideological persuasion.

There are young men in my neighborhood who represent an alienated generation. They are the products of a world where Trust is missing. They have no sense that their lives matter. They wander the street knocking on doors, seeking work. They are not skilled or disciplined enough to work a regular job. They are a lost generation who are easy targets for people who take advantage of them.

They remind me of the people the Apostle Paul wrote about in his letter to the Corinthian church. The body he is speaking of is the church. However, we can apply his perspective to any neighborhood, local business, family, or global institution. These are all places where human relationships function.

“On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.

But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”

Paul is saying that the church’s hierarchy of strength, honor, and respect has not produced Trust. The implication is that if they cannot trust one another, how can they trust God?

It may be that for hierarchies to survive, Respect, Trust, and Mutual Accountability have to be restricted. Isn’t that a horrifying thought? I really don’t know about this idea. But it would make for a very interesting project in organizational social dynamics.

The Integrity of Trust

Integrity requires Trust.

If there is no Trust, how can Integrity be achieved? Do we know what Integrity truly is?

The problem we face is that we see all these words as separate, relatively equal thoughts. The reality is that they are not separate but contingent. And this is the challenge for the modern mind. We are not used to seeing things as integral but as separate entities reduced to some essence.

The reality is that these virtuous concepts do not operate in a vacuum or as abstractions for discussion. Instead, they are the components of Integrity.

Trust is the ultimate measure of Integrity.

Trust is something given; Respect is something shared.

Integrity is the application of Respect and Trust to the circumstances of life.

I have not asked that Trust me. You express Trust towards me as a gift. When you are a person of Trust, then our relationship has the opportunity to make a difference that matters.

Respect, therefore, requires Dignity.

I learned of Dignity from my high school football coach, Baxter Holman, who was African-American. I grew up in the segregated South, went to all-White schools through high school, and never had a Black peer throughout my childhood. Coach Holman came to our school when I was a senior. We watched as he was subjected to racist denigration. Never once did he give up his Dignity. A coach under fire, not for his record, but for his race, is a context where Trust is at risk. As his players, we stood by him because we knew the man who was our coach. To uphold the team's Integrity, we recognized that we had to Trust one another. The Trust that was built a half-century ago between us young men remains true today because of the impact of our coach’s life of Dignity.

Conversation for Building Trust

The Eddy Network Podcast began as an extension of my writing on Substack. The steady growth of subscribers over the first year of publishing showed me that there was an opening for conversation about things that mattered to people. My podcast's purpose was to demonstrate how to develop a network of relationships through introductions.

My invitation to guests said,

My podcast is a networking demonstration project. I ask people I know to come on the show. I also ask people that I want to meet and get to know. I ask my guests, "Who do you know that you think I should know because they would be a good person to interview. Would you introduce us?"

I made it easy for people not to say no.

I'd like you to join me for a conversation. All I need is an hour. No prep. We talk about what we want to talk about when we begin recording.

Like a blind pig who finds a truffle in the forest, I discovered a way of conversation that broadly appealed to people. One of my guests, John Morley, commented that he liked the “unscripted” character of the conversation. He told me that this was unusual and greatly appreciated. I was surprised and pleased. In retrospect, I realized that how I had conducted myself over the course of my life and career had built a reputation of Trust where people knew they would be treated with Dignity and Respect.

I didn’t do this because I found it clever. I did it because I genuinely care about people and am curious about their lives. I made a comment to a guy sitting next to me in a bar watching a basketball game that everyone in the bar (as I waved my arm across the room) would be interesting people to have on the podcast.

Another guest, Eric Zabiegalski referred to the podcast as “an empty room” to which I added “that we fill with conversation.” Eric’s interaction with me, in effect, continuing our podcast conversation, has brought other guests and LinkedIn participants into a continuing conversation about a range of topics. I am certain that the post will spark some interesting responses. If you are on LinkedIn, join in the conversation.

With The Eddy Network, I determined that I was not going to do a traditional interview show. Instead, I wanted an open conversation that allowed the guest to speak openly about the things that matter to them.

The Impact is to be heard as our True Selves

I began above with this thought.

The scope of impact is the experience of change over time that transcends thought to become the expression of our best selves.

Another way of describing what I see is …

My voice connects me to reality. It is the reality that is shared with others. When I speak (or write), I articulate who I am in the moment of expression. This is why our conversations with one another matter. When we speak together, our words resonate with reality over time.

If this is true for me, it can be true for you.

When your voice connects to reality, it will return to you from some people as Respect and Trust. There will be people who reject what you have to say.

However, when we speak to one another in conversation, along with your expressions about life, then opportunities to build Respect, Dignity, Trust, and Integrity between us will grow.

I now realize that being this kind of person, who I have always sought to be, is where my Scope of Impact is found.

I am grateful for the gift of your Trust. And may we find ways to grow networks of Trust to be the people our world needs today.