This is a straight pickup from Seth Godin’s blog. Seth is a successful entrepreneur, marketer, and bestselling author. Not sure he’s religious, but he clearly knows the heart. You can read more about Seth here.

Here’s what he had to say about everyday opportunities to wield good influence:

Your worst moments are your best opportunity. That’s how we judge you and how we remember you. You are presumed to be showing us your real self when you are on deadline, have a headache, are facing a customer service meltdown, haven’t had a good night’s sleep, are facing an ethical dilemma, are momentarily in power, are caught doing something when you thought no one else was looking, are irritable, have the opportunity to extract revenge, are losing a competition, or are truly overwhelmed. What a great opportunity to tell the story you’d like us to hear about you.

How about it? Does anything describe “influence” better than that?