It’s between hard and impossible to know what effect, if any, all my writings have had on anything or anyone. I continue to write because I think I am not superfluous, and because even if I presently am, that need not always be the case. I can develop my ideas sufficiently that they go into a book which might have some influence.
What I never do is think about getting credit for any ideas I may propose. It delights me to think some of my best ideas may be taken wholesale–even verbatim–and used elsewhere. That is influence.
I think of Musashi and his dictum that the focus always be cutting. You focus on each stroke, and maximum effectiveness: here, in creating and conveying coherent, communicable, and useful ideas. We can safely assume that in none of his contests did Musashi think about his reputation. Nor was he focused on winning. Winning is an abstraction that takes you out of the moment.
No, he focused on his breath, his body, and how next to inflict a potent wound upon his opponent.
This mindset is useful everywhere. Virtually everything else is confusion.