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Did you know what you wanted to do with your life when you graduated high school? I thought I did. I got myself accepted to the University of Tennessee Dental school at age 19 and took off to Memphis. After only two weeks I was completely miserable and able to add “dental school dropout” to my resume. All this came to mind when I was interviewing this month’s “Strong Woman on a Journey.”

I can’t remember the first time I met April Parnell, and I was surprised at how little of her story I even knew. At OUTsideIN, I let folks tell me what they want me to know about their lives. What I did know about April’s life was that her mom and our employee, Lisa Salazar, was very proud of her. I wanted to know why.

INFLUENCE. I spend a lot of time thinking about it. Do you? One reason is because of all the talk we hear about Instagram “Influencers.” They’re on my radar because I believe they could be so very helpful in helping get the word out about our little social enterprise, OUTsideIN.  

And yet, it seems to me that there is something innately wrong about using the word influence in the context of something so impersonal as Instagram. Allow me to share two stories of real influence that I recently experienced.