Today’s networking tip will focus on helping you achieve the third – perhaps the greatest of them all – personal influence to help you do more good in the world!

What is personal influence? It is defined online as the “power of individuals to sway or control the purchasing decisions of others.” Opinion leader is listed as a synonym – an  individual whose ideas and behavior serve as a model to others.

I like to think of personal influence as the ability to enroll people into an important cause that you believe in that results in a large, positive impact on the world. Personal influence is like a muscle that you can build and exercise through your personal and professional networks of people to get grand things done – bigger than you could do by yourself acting solo. The reward is powerful and extends way beyond yourself.

Personal influence can only happen when you have strong relationships in place, ones that are based upon integrity, trust, mutual respect and likability. Authority and control (i.e., you’re the boss) is not enough to create positive personal influence.

Here’s an example of personal influence in action.

Meet Eva Hausman, a retired school teacher who is spends her retirement advocating for social change on a global scale. I met Eva one year ago at a YWCA Stand Against Racism workshop that we were both facilitating.

Once you meet Eva I’m sure you will agree with me that she is someone to follow. Her natural leadership, passion, vision, caring spirit, knowledge and chutzpah are not only admirable, they are contagious.

Her results are equally impressive. Here’s a quick flyover of how Eva Hausman was able to create tremendous amount of personal influence and to activate it in order to generate amazing good for others. A key part of her success strategy was to enroll and leverage her network of motivated people.

Two years ago, Eva read the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, written by New York Times writer Nicholas Krisof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn. She was so moved by the book, she set out to raise money for the Fistula Foundation. By leveraging her network of friends, Eva raised more than $9,000! That’s enough money to restore the health and dignity of 20 women who suffer the physical, emotional and social traumas from untreated fistulas in developing countries.

Eva boldly wrote to Nicholas Kristof to tell her of her efforts that how he had motivated her to action. Nicholas wrote about Eva and her results in his Mother’s Day column in the New York Times on May 8, 2010 entitled “Celebrate: Save a Mother.”

Eva and Nicholas have been in contact since then. (Eva – great networking connection – bravo~!) This year, Eva has dialed up her personal influence to levels that even surprise her.

This past year Eva, her two grown daughters and three other women started the Mothers’ Day Movement (notice where the apostrophe is located – possessive plural position, not just your mother, but all mothers). Eva and her small team sought to help us to rethink what Mother’s Day means and to put to better use the $14 billion spent on that holiday in the US (on flowers, cards, jewelry and meals for Mom). Part of this money could be used to help the millions of women and children who are suffering globally.

Once again, Nicholas Kristof mentioned Eva and The Mothers’ Day Movement in his New York Times column on May 5, 2011 “Beyond Flowers for Mom.”

Nicholas wrote, “In a column a year ago, I suggested that we move the apostrophe so as to celebrate not so much Mother’s Day — honoring a single mother — but Mothers’ Day, to help save mothers’ lives around the world as well. Eva Hausman, a retired social studies teacher in Connecticut, and five other women took up that challenge. They started a Mothers’ Day campaign, which has its own Web site at www.MothersDayMovement.org. They hope that Americans will consecrate the mother in their lives not only with presents but also by helping impoverished women and girls through a particular charity (this year it’s one that works in a Kenyan slum). They’ve found matching funds from a foundation to do that. To me, that’s a perfect way to honor a mom.” – Nicholas Kristof, May 5, 2011 NYTimes column