Lasting and Ethical Influence or Loving and Eternal?

After publishing Influenced from Above: Where Faith and Influence Meet, I had a eureka moment.

If you’ve followed Influence PEOPLE for any length of time, you know PEOPLE is an acronym: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical.

One day it hit me that PEOPLE could also mean: Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Loving and Eternal.

I don’t see Loving and Eternal as replacing Lasting and Ethical. I see it as going deeper. But that raises an important question: What does it mean to love?

We often hear things like:

• “Love is love.” That doesn’t tell us much. It’s like saying, “A car is a car.”
• “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Whoever wrote that was never in a loving relationship! There’s no one I love more than my wife, and I say, “I’m sorry,” a lot.
• “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” I love what I do with Influence PEOPLE, but trust me, some parts still feel like work!

Fortunately, the Bible gives us something much more substantial.

What Does Love Look Like?

If you’ve attended more than a few weddings, you’ve probably heard 1 Corinthians 13, often referred to as “the love chapter.”

The Apostle Paul tells us love is patient and kind. It rejoices in truth. It bears, believes, hopes, and endures.

He also tells us what love is not. Love doesn’t envy or boast. It isn’t arrogant, rude, irritable, or resentful. It doesn’t insist on its own way or rejoice in wrongdoing.

And most importantly, love never ends.

It’s easy to read that passage as a checklist: Be more patient. Don’t get irritated. Be kind. Stop insisting on your own way. But trying to do those things is about as successful as New Year’s Resolutions.

I think God is after something much deeper. He wants to transform us into people who increasingly becomepatient, kind, truthful, hopeful, and selfless. Rather than constantly managing our exterior (our behavior, reputation, or “brand”), He wants to change us from the inside out.

Christians call that process sanctification. Over time, through the work of the Holy Spirit, we become more like Jesus, and that changes how we influence people.

Love Has a Cost

There’s something else we shouldn’t overlook. Loving people doesn’t guarantee everything will turn out the way we want. The prophets often suffered for speaking truth. Jesus loved perfectly, yet He was rejected, betrayed, and crucified.

That matters because we can easily judge our influence by the response we get; Did they agree with me? Did they change? Did I get the sale? Did they say yes? Did they like my post?

Those may be outcomes we’d like, but they aren’t necessarily measures of loving influence. Sometimes loving someone means telling them a truth they don’t want to hear. Sometimes it means putting their interests ahead of our own. Sometimes it means accepting a “no” when we desperately wanted a “yes.” In other words, love can cost us something.

Lasting and Ethical, or Loving and Eternal?

For years I’ve taught people to look for Powerful Everyday Opportunities to Persuade that are Lasting and Ethical. I still believe deeply in that standard. But Loving and Eternal challenges me differently.

Ethics can tempt us to focus on the line: What am I allowed to do? How far can I go? Am I technically doing anything wrong?

Love asks a different question: What is best for this person? That changes influence.

When the other person becomes more important than getting our way, manipulation loses its appeal. When truth matters more than winning, deception is off the table. When we genuinely want what is good for someone, ethical behavior becomes less about following rules and more about who we’re becoming.

And perhaps that’s where Eternal comes in. Most of our opportunities to influence seem ordinary; a conversation with a coworker, an interaction with a customer, advice to a friend, a moment with a spouse, child, or grandchild.

But we rarely know how far the influence of those moments will travel.

Lasting and Ethical asks, “How can I influence people the right way?”

Loving and Eternal asks, “Who am I becoming as I influence them and what might God do with that influence long after this moment is over?”

I’ve spent decades studying, practicing, and teaching influence, and I’m increasingly convinced that’s the more important question.

What do you think? Does Loving and Eternal change how you think about influence compared with Lasting and Ethical?

Edited with ChatGPT

Brian Ahearn

Brian Ahearn is the Chief Influence Officer at Influence PEOPLE and a faculty member at the Cialdini Institute. An author, TEDx presenter, international speaker, coach, and consultant, Brian helps clients apply influence in everyday situations to boost results.

As one of only a dozen Cialdini Method Certified Trainers in the world, Brian was personally trained and endorsed by Robert Cialdini, Ph.D., the most cited living social psychologist on the science of ethical influence.

Brian’s first book, Influence PEOPLE, was named one of the 100 Best Influence Books of All Time by Book Authority. Persuasive Selling and Influenced from Above were Amazon new release bestsellers. His LinkedIn courseson persuasive selling and coaching have been viewed by over 850,000 people around the world and his TEDx Talk on pre-suasion has more than a million views!