The Law of Buy-in: People buy into the leader, then the vision. The leader finds the dream and then the people. The people find the leader and then the dream. People don’t at first follow worthy causes. They follow worthy leaders who promote causes they can believe in. Every message that people receive in filtered through the messenger who delivers it. People want to go along with people they get along with. As a leader, your success is measured by your ability to actually take the people where they need to go. But you can do that only if the people first buy into you.
It makes no difference what the objective, what the cause, when you have a charismatic person with a mission, inevitably that person will have followers. This principle hold true for democratic societies and suicide bombers alike. If I had any advice, it would simply be that always follow your instincts and not your emotions, attempt to be a better person tomorrow than you were today, and the view is so much better in life when you take the high roads instead of the low.