I want to open this one differently. Before we get into anything, I just want to say thank you. There are so many voices you could be listening to right now, and the fact that you’re here, hanging out with me while you’re folding laundry or driving carpool or nursing a baby on one hip, it means more to me than you probably know. This wouldn’t be a podcast without you, and God sees every bit of what you’re carrying right now. He’s with you in it.

Okay, now let’s talk about influence.

So many of us pray for it. More reach, more opportunities, a bigger platform for the message God’s put in our hearts. But we don’t always stop to think about what actually happens once He gives it to us.

Here’s the first thing I want to clear up. Influence is not the same thing as popularity. You can have a hundred people listening to you and have enormous impact. You can have ten thousand followers and barely move the needle. We confuse the two all the time, especially online, but they are not the same.

When God starts to actually open doors, what I felt wasn’t excitement first. It was weight. Influence requires responsibility. It requires integrity. And maybe the one nobody wants to hear, it requires consistency. You can’t show up for three weeks and disappear for three weeks and expect trust to build. I’m not about hustle culture, I really am not, but I am about stewarding well what God’s given you, whether that’s your time, your voice, or your family.

I think a lot of us want the influence before we’re willing to show up consistently when nobody’s watching. And honestly, I love how God works in that. He often takes us through a season where nobody’s clapping, nobody’s watching, and it’s just us and Him, building the muscle of actually following through on what we said we’d do. That’s not Him testing you to trip you up. It’s Him asking, can I trust you with this?

So here’s a question worth sitting with. Are you asking God for influence, but quietly resisting the responsibility that comes with it?

Because here’s what happens when people actually start watching. It gets personal. Maybe you used to share your thoughts with five people, and now five hundred are listening. Maybe your decisions used to only affect you, and now there are employees or clients or families depending on them. More visibility changes the weight you carry, and if that feels a little scary, that’s normal.

There’s also this temptation to shrink the moment you actually feel seen. I think people who aren’t doing this kind of work look at someone putting themselves out there and assume confidence, maybe even arrogance. But most of the time, that person has just pushed past a mountain of fear to hit publish. Fear of criticism. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of disappointing people. I’ve felt every single one of those, especially in the beginning.

One of my favorite verses is Proverbs 31:16. She considers a field, and buys it. Out of her earnings, she plants a vineyard. People see a field. God gives you a vision for a vineyard. And sometimes you just have to put your blinders up, knowing people might misunderstand you, might criticize you, might get the wrong idea, and go after what God actually put in your heart anyway.

I’ve worked with so many founders who have an incredible message but hesitate to become visible with it. They say things like, I don’t want to be salesy, or who am I to say this? I get it, I’ve said it too. But what if visibility was never about making yourself important? What if it’s really about making your message accessible to the person who actually needs it?

I want you to read Matthew 25, the parable of the talents, and just ask yourself honestly. What did God give you? And what are you doing with it? Are you stewarding what you’ve been entrusted with, or are you hiding it because you’re afraid?

If I’m honest with you, my own struggle was never really the fear of failing. It was the fear of being seen. And I think that’s more common than we admit. Sometimes expansion means becoming visible in ways you’ve never been visible before, and that can feel a whole lot like imposter syndrome. Which, if you know me, is exactly why I wrote my book, Expansion Syndrome. There’s real vulnerability in stewarding influence, and I don’t think we talk about that enough either.

I want to leave you with a story that has stayed with me. I know a woman who lost both of her children. I can’t even imagine that kind of grief. She felt like she had nothing left. But she looked around and realized she still had her home. So she asked God, what do you want me to do with this? And He simply said, invite women in. So she did. Little coffee mornings at first. Praying with women, sharing her story, talking about hope. And it grew, and grew, and grew. She never set out to build influence. She just gave God what she had and asked Him to use it.

That’s really what this is about. Whatever you have in your hand right now, however small it feels, offer it to Him and ask what He wants to do with it. Stay consistent. Steward it well. And watch what He does with it.

So let me ask you what I asked at the start. What has God already put in your hand? And what are you doing with it?

Listen to the full episode 185 here

One more thing. If you’re a founder who’s ready for real support growing your business well, we have a couple spots open for our Expansion offer at Rise this month, built for exactly this season of stewarding more. And keep an eye out for Expansion Syndrome, my book releasing this November.