The Foundations of Your Power
When I first went to college (one of seven unfinished attempts), I had a really bad epiphany. I realized that I could roam off to the library and study what I want to study instead of attend classes. No one cared. (Well, my parents cared, but they didn’t know). I could do whatever.the.hell.I.wanted. And, of course, that was stupid. But it was one of several tastes of my own personal power. My first was in fifth grade, but that’s another tale. Let’s talk about YOU and your personal power.
What Do I Mean by Personal Power
In this case, let’s say influence, an ability to drive attention, the sense that people give a rat’s ass what you say. Let’s call that power. Because I don’t think money immediately equals power, but boy does it influence people. I don’t think violence equals power, but it sure can mess with power. In this case, let’s just think from the perspective of people who come here to this conversation. Let’s say that power equals your ability to be heard, considered, and occasionally heeded in your world. Let’s say this also equals your ability to BE HELPFUL to others, either by what you do directly, or by how you can muster people to help when something comes up. Okay? Fair?
First, the Spider-Man Clause
If you’re thinking that getting more personal power is a great thing, or that power=success, it does not. And if you’re thinking that power is what will make the difference, we have to think about Spider Man, as written by Stan Lee. “With great power comes great responsibility.” What does that mean? It means that you don’t SEEK power just for that end. You seek to be more useful, more effective, more helpful, and that effort (and your building efforts) gets you to the power. Make sense?
It Starts With You
The single most important thing I learned about myself was that I’m responsible. I’m not always at fault. I’m not always the solution. But everything I can influence in life has to have an inbox and an outbox attached to ME. That’s the first step of being independent. Then, if you’re a Covey freak, you know that what comes next is learning to be interdependent.
Learn that everything you CAN influence starts and ends with you. You can model great behavior and people will be motivated. You can do your part to make a project successful, and that might influence others. But it’s all you. You’re the focus of your efforts.
The best thing to learn on this front: fix every broken thing in your life by using YOU as the hinge. If you’re poor, it’s your responsibility. How can YOU turn that around. If you’re unhealthy, how can you cope differently?
Start Small and Build
Everything I’ve done well in life came from taking pride in smaller victories first. I started by testing things. When I first ever got healthy with my eating and fitness, I started by the smallest steps: no blatant junk food. Then I moved it up a notch: no white grains or sugars. And over time, I felt like a total pro. I’ve since slipped back several notches, but I don’t mind. I know I’m going to tackle that when I’m ready. I’m taking small steps to fix it again.
Find small ways to tackle things that are on your mind. You want a new job and feel stuck? Read great books. You want to ask out that girl you see every day on the bus? Practice talking to strangers who AREN’T that girl, and see if you can build your confidence a little. Never count a victory as too small. They always help, and they always build your arsenal.
Five Quick Tips
- Don’t let people’s view of you from your past influence what you CAN do.
- Write out some REALLY great things about yourself on a 3×5 card. Refer to it often.
- Find people who love you, tell them you’re on a path to grow yourself. Ask them for support.
- Though it’s about you, start thinking about who you can help more.
- Learn to accept yourself at the point where you are NOW. This helps everything else go easier.
Put In the Work
If anyone EVER tells you that there are really simple, quick ways to build yourself into something you are currently not, they are manipulating you. EVERYTHING takes time. Everything is a lot of work. Put in the work. But, and this gets crazy…
Learn Not to Work for Work’s Sake
Another thing I’ve learned about power: if we model from older generations, and if we look around us at the jobs that have been around for a while, we’re destined to repeat what’s come before us. Some of this, a great deal of it, comes from focusing on doing the WRONG work. Busy work. KILL (and I mean this with evil vicious craziness in my eyes) all “busy work” from your life. Kill it like bad movies. And use that extra time on putting in all the work it’s going to take you to grow your own personal life.
Find a Personal Advisory Board
I’ve used this strategy a few times in life. I’m kind of doing it now, but not as formally as the last time. Basically, I emailed a bunch of friends (but friends with lots of skills and talents I don’t have), and I asked them to be my personal advisory board. This meant, to me, that I could ask these people about things I planned to do, and seek their advice. I could tell them where I was with my progress and see what they thought.
Don’t lean on these people, but find a few people you can use as a sounding board. Oh, that reminds me.
Learn “I Intend to…”
As you start to learn how to build personal power at work (if this post is well-received, I’ll go deep into talking about how to use some of this with your daily work life), learn how to switch from asking permission to saying, “I intend to do this. Do you see any obvious reasons why I shouldn’t?”
Just pause on that a moment. Do you see it? What a HUGE difference on asking someone else either what you should do, or seeking permission. It IMMEDIATELY shifts some power onto your plate.
And as you’re learning that one, use your advisory board as a way to practice. “I intend to sign up for a 5K race, even though I’m a bit on the fatter side right now.” And then see what they say back. This is a great way to practice your personal power.
Words and External Forces Matter
When I was in high school (and deep into my mid-30s), my music of choice was really hard rock and heavy metal. I added rap in there somewhere, too. I loved it. It really got my adrenalin moving. It felt like when I channeled lots of that music, I had the aggression tuned way up, and I could fire this at various targets.
It turns out that this also influenced my moods. Now, I’m not shifting this into one of those “your kids shouldn’t listen to rap and metal” posts. I grew up with Tipper Gore as an evil force in my life. And I still like some really hard music. But what I learned was that a steady diet of such music really negatively impacted my energy and my mood.
The same is true with which words we use. I work really hard on not using the following words:
- hate
- fault
- stupid
- jealous
- disappointed
- expected
- problem
- fat
- lazy
- bored
There are probably more words, but these just raced out of my head as things I actively monitor AGAINST saying. Why? Because we are far more wired to fulfill our words than we think. It’s that whole “Don’t think of a white rhinoceros.” We HAVE to think of one. We’re wired to do it. Same thing. Try to turn all your “don’t” and “not” phrasings in life around to be the positives. Turn “I’m too lazy” into “I want to be more energetic.” See? See the difference.
Helping Others Helps You
One secret to building personal power is this: the more you are helpful (and SEEN as helpful - we’ll talk about this in another post), the more people will come to call on you for help, will see your value, and will think of you as someone they want to interact with regularly. Being helpful, finding a way to pitch in, is a great way to build your own power, and share at the same time with people who could benefit from your help.
Beware Time Sinks and Say NO Often
Here’s some kryptonite for you, Superman. If you say yes to everything, you won’t have the time and bandwidth to be ready for bigger things. Don’t say no ALL the time, but learn to say no much more often than you’re doing now. Think about your day. Think about all the things you say yes to, often without even thinking much about it. Watch the next show that slips onto the TV? Want to surf a few more hours? Are you IM-ing just to do it? How many projects are you volunteering your time for, and how many can you honestly sustain?
Learn to say no. Learn to find things that drain your time. And cut them. This blog eats up too much of your day? Kill it. Truly. Learn to say no to the things that eat into your life, and you’ll have more time for you, thus more time to be helpful and build power.
Your Needs
Where are you with this? How do you feel about your own power right now? Do you feel that you’re where you want to be? And what didn’t I cover that you can add to the conversation? OR, what do you want me to talk about next with regards to this stuff? The floor is yours.
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Comments
Great idea to categorize power as “the ability to ___.” Power is not money, resources, influence, etc. Power is the ability to see an action through, with all the bells and whistles that come attendant.
Something tells me there are big missiles taking aim from Camp Brogan, and they’re likely to plow into the heart of a mountain that needs to be moved in the near future. Enjoy the process.
Chris - this is really great stuff. Practical and to the point. I love the point about saying that if someone tells you how to take a shortcut they are manipulating you.
Personal growth takes time, persistence, and help. But that help starts with you as a person. Nobody can do it for you.
Well, should anyone ever give a rat’s ass about what I think… ;)
To me POWER is:
“The resourcefulness of knowing how to use your own energy to stimulate others to be energized in creating your power.”
…this is “quickie” outline on how I might consider doing things if I wanted power.
Be a visionary with purpose. Excite people. Listen to people. Include their visions with your own. Enthusiastically collaberate to move forward. Be disciplined. Recruit. Reach out. Excel by being benevolent. Cultivate ideas that may be critical to achieving success. Be malignant. Lead them with the intention that everyone shares the success.
…and you gotta work it everyday.
Well, should anyone ever give a rat’s ass about what I think… ;)
To me POWER is:
“The resourcefulness of knowing how to use your own energy to stimulate others to be energized in creating your power.”
…this is “quickie” outline on how I might consider doing things if I wanted power.
Be a visionary with purpose. Excite people. Listen to people. Include their visions with your own. Enthusiastically collaberate to move forward. Be disciplined. Recruit. Reach out. Excel by being benevolent. Cultivate ideas that may be critical to achieving success. Be malignant. Lead them with the intention that everyone shares the success.
…and you gotta work it everyday.
Chris - thanks. I lost my job a week ago and have spent a good deal of time doing some soul searching about who I am and what I want to do next. This is a great road map to follow.
The personal advisory board is wonderful and I think have unintentionally pursuing one, but without focus. Adding a bit of direction will make it all the more valuable.
Chris:
Were you just at my desk? Were you in my brain and soul? As I twittered, yesterday afternoon I stepped away from the computer and wrote a “life plan.” Glad to say, new goals ahead.
But, just moments before reading this blog, I promise to all the gods that I titled my blog “Epiphany.” And it included the point of your blog above.
I’ve been so inspired lately by so many different individual sources that I needed to pause, focus and set a plan.
I appreciate the list of words, another rule that I try to apply to myself, my relationship and children is let’s always remember to ‘edify one another.’
Good job, and as always I’m grateful for your time.
Chris,
The unbelievable power of being able to say “No” is simply amazing. I noticed about 8 months ago I was over committed to work projects, personal projects and charity projects.
So I decided I would pull back to truly focus on what is important. I backed out of my charity projects completely for I have been doing them for the past 10 years and needing a break. Then I reassessed my work and personal projects and commitments to find I was spending so much time trying without accomplishing much.
Now, I have a much smaller list of “To Do’s” but I am accomplishing so much more than before. It is hard, especially those close friends who know you haven’t been one to say “No” but my life has improved so much from this simple principle.
Great post, as always.
Wow, the more I read, the more I wanted to say… but people don’t visit the grasshopper factory to listen to me ;)
Instead I’ll try to boil my thoughts down to these 2 points of validation and agreement:
1. I’ve been trying to live my life by very similar guidelines for awhile now. And in the end it’s you practicing what you’re ‘preaching’ above that will keep me coming back again and again.
2. I was influenced a LONG time ago by Earl Nightingale’s ‘Strangest Secret’ recording, which echo’s much of what you’ve written. Here’s the way I look at it…
Your post talks about personal power, which I believe is just one facet of being successful. And in the end, influence, power and money do not make you successful, but success will invariably provide all three (in one form or another).
Therefore you shouldn’t be seeking influence, power and money, you should only seek to do what you already do (or the things you WANT to be doing) more successfully; everything else will fall into place.
And if you want to know how to do what you already do more successfully, go back and re-read the article above (I would recommend several times!)
Michael Valiant
I love how you put it simply that in our lives, everything is our responsibility in what we do and how we do it. From our work ethic to just being down on ourselves (with the whole, “I’m too lazy”
continued!
The one thing I feel different is the helping others is a touchy subject to some people. Some people simply do not want to be helped, they want to find out the answer the hard and long way. Which isn’t the easiest of best way. I had someone ask me if I’ve ever learned something of great value on my own, and I told them that I didn’t. I always asked someone who knew about it for advice after I did something. I didn’t just talk about it, I did it and sought help before, while and after doing it. I’ve learned a great deal this way, most times people are too self-driven to realize that helping others will be most rewarding to themselves. Again, this could just be the atomsphere I feel at my school.
Darn, I need a blog to write this stuff down. Finals this week, back to work.
Great post!
-Phil
What I have learned about “power” in the past year can be summed up as:
“It all starts at home”- click those ruby slippers together and realize you have in inside you- you just have to find it and make good choices as to where to unleash it.
You need to show up. This means engaging, taking risks, letting go of fear of failure, and just put your all into everything. When you hold back, it shows; when you’re passionate, it shows as well.
While we all have to learn to say No more and make sure we have energy and time reserves (the run over in the “my cup runneth over” parable) you also need to learn when to say yes and recognize opportunity when it crosses your path.
Like may be like a box of chocolates with many varieties and many unpredictable flavors, but in the end, it’s still sweet, it’s an adventure, and you learn from the taste of each one about what you like and don’t like. (I guess it’s being sleep deprived that I am now channeling Forrest Gump.)
Thank you for some great insight (per usual!). I’m learning these things from watching how adept you are on Twitter. People helping people is an awesomely powerful thing.
I’ve found that in addition to knowing when to say no is important, knowing when to say ‘how can I help you’ is important too.
Keep it coming - it’s all excellent!
Excellent post, Chris!
I have trouble saying no, but I’ve learned that I don’t always say “yes” because I want to be helpful, but because it makes me feel indispensable. When I realize it’s often more about my own ego than genuinely being of service, and that makes saying “no” a lot easier.
All the best to you hon!
This…
“Don’t let people’s view of you from your past influence what you CAN do.”
…is huge for me.
It’s was tough admitting because of personal pride but it was a much bigger factor than I even realized.
Great post.
-Jon
Thanks everyone for your comments. I’m thinking I want to talk more about it, and I realize that this post was kind of dense. I hope to find a way to chunk this stuff up in subsequent installments, but I realize that when I start talking about this, I seem to just go and go and go.
I’ve learned that money doesn’t give ME power. I know that physical power is just good for a sense of personal accomplishment. The most lasting power to me is in motivating others to carry on work when I’m not around. Working in teams my entire life, as I have, I’ve come to believe that empowering teams to accomplish great things is the way I can move the ball forward.
What a great post, Chris! I’ve found that perhaps saying “no” isn’t always the best policy, but “not saying yes” as often, works better for me.
I especially appreciate the reminder about how important are the words that we say to ourselves. Your list contains some unexpected words that I have been pondering lately (with a view toward eliminating or changing the way I use them), most especially disappointed and expected.
And, I’m trying to work the words beauty and beautiful into my conversations (especially the ones inside my head) more often.
ps - I can point you to some, er, “uplifting” metal, if’n you’re interested.
You’re probably not doing yourself any favors with that System of a Down stuff even without taking the lyrics into account.
-Jon
I love this post. I too am a big believer in cutting out negative words from you daily routine. It also helps me tremendously to just sit still and think about absolutely nothing for five or ten minutes each day. For some reason, this allows me to direct my focus and raise my spirits. I am always expecting positive things to happen in my life and I think that expectation is important. As always, thanks for inspiring us, Chris.
Chris,
Great post really triggered some reflections.
I specially will take you up on the “intend” to part as well as the saying No to slightly more things.
Keep up the good work.
Hi Chris
Great post - I like what you say here especially the bit about switching from asking permission to “I intend to…”. Simple but hugely effective.
Thanks
Bridget
This post is exactly what I needed to read today. Motivational to say the least! I’m looking forward to additional discussions on the topic!
This article is so TAO. I love it! Thanks for writing this. Here are two tools that support building your personal power that I use.
Lululemon Manifesto
http://www.lululemon.com/culture/manifesto/text
Goal setting (.pdf)
http://www.lululemon.com/culture/goalsetting
Chris, I can’t believe this post hadn’t been submitted to StumbleUpon yet! you’ve condensed all sorts of great messages I’ve heard, from Covey to Tony Robbins to Napoleon Hill and Tom Peters, along with your own personal journey, into one really great message and inspiring story. Thank you so much for this, I’m so glad I came across this old gem.
I wish I had something of more substance to add to the discussion here, but all I can say is that I really value this. I read it from start to finish word for word, because I’m currently going through a very similar life transformation trying to cultivate my own influence/responsibility and the value I can provide to those around me. Cheers!
Chris,
Powerful stuff. I always wonder where you get your focus and inspiration from. You’ve got a lot in this post for a person to think on… hmm, guess I’ll do that while I read some more tonight.
Thanks,
Rick