How do you feel about your life? Are you on an escalator, doing things you don't want to do? Do you feel that you could only become more powerful at the cost of being ethical?
Power is a wierd thing, and it has absorbed me for several years. On one hand, it is essential to our existence, and to living. Without power, the ability to convert energy into momentum, we have no existence whatsoever. Yet many people I meet don't desire power. Isn't that strange?
Perhaps not. After all, we often associate power with corruption and misuse. Consequently, we view power as undesirable, even if it is important. Not an easy conflict to deal with. Indeed, it has been one of my significant challenges in life, and it's why I penned my book on power. I titled it 'Stand up and live' because to me power and living go together.
In my book, I describe nine steps to ethical power through a storyline. Since publication, I've realised that there are four core principles that sit beneath the steps. Working on the four principles should make a huge difference to your own power, in addition to helping you to become more ethical in deploying it - a real win win. Outlined below are the four principles. The closer you do these, the more ethically powerful you will feel.
Feelings
The significance of being in touch with our own feelings is often talked about in a self help context. There are many significant benefits from getting in touch with how we feel in the moment. One of the most significant benefits is to keep us in touch with our own state of power. Put simply, the better we feel about a specific situation or aspect of our life, the more powerful we are likely to be in it. Having a say in what goes on in our own life leads us to feel better, and people who are empowered don't use this to make themselves feel miserable! All of this means our feelings are an accurate barometer to our state of power.
Direction
Get clarity on your direction in life, and do whatever it takes to become clear. If power is the conversion of our personal energy into momentum, then where is the momentum going? As the saying goes, if you don't know where you're going, you will probably end up somewhere different. There will be no shortage of people telling you where you ought to go if you are not clear yourself! So get clear where you wish to go, and what you want to achieve.
This could include firming up on any or all of your own purpose, your personal vision, your core values, or even just some goals. There's no need to get too spiritual over this (though some of you may wish to). Getting greater direction helps you to view more clearly where other people might be preventing you from living a fulfilled life - and others might not be doing this deliberately. Besides, having clear purpose, vision, values and goals delivers a momentum on its own. Seaweed will only stop a boat if the boat had little momentum to begin with. If it had momentum, it would sail through the seaweed.
Expression
When you have the first two principles sussed, the next step is to express yourself to others when they are undermining your power, accidently or otherwise. Your own direction and feelings will tell you when an event matters if you listen to yourself. So if someone is undermining your power, say something, along the lines of:
"When you criticise me publicly, it undermines me. I'd like you to stop doing this in future"
"I'd like you to support me in my work"
"I'd like you to come with me to see our friends"
The basic rule on expression is to say whatever is true for you. Not aggressively, but clearly. You have just as much right to verbalise your needs, wants and desires as the next person, as long as you're not harming anyone. Avoid the temptation to dress up what you say in the hope that others might 'get the drift'. Usually they won't - the problem with hints is they're not always clear to other people.
If you have difficulty doing this, practice in front of a mirror, get a coach, talk to a friend, whatever. But do something to improve this skill. It is in these times of truth where we say something, or avoid saying something, that our very lives are defined as happy or depressing.
But do remember that in your desire to get to where you want to go, don't trample others into the dust. Other people have rights too. Which leads us nicely to the last principle.
Forgiveness
Many of us find it difficult to forgive somebody, unless we're like Gandhi. For some people, it's forgiving ourselves we can't deal with. We run around berating ourselves for things we did, or didn't do in our past life - often a long time ago. We feel bad about this. For other people, it's forgiving others that is the difficulty. Others who wronged us in the past. Betrayed us, undermined us, embarrassed us, got the better of us. There are people out there who go around collecting lists of 'bad people', and don't forgive them, for all sorts of stuff.
We might have a tendency to favour beating ourselves up, or beating others up - perhaps even both. We might hide our feelings, but we still haven't forgiven. I only want to emphasise one thing about forgiveness.
Non-forgiveness destroys our own power. It destroys it for one reason. Whether it's ourselves or others we fail to forgive, the act of non-forgiveness ties up our energy. Ties it up fighting battles from the past. Ties up energy on beating ourselves up. Ties up energy that could be used now to gain momentum, and this is the essence of power. We can live in the past or live for now, and ethically powerful people choose the second option. Let's be clear, the only person you're harming by wallowing in non-forgiveness is you. What's the point in that? So again, find someone to counsel you, clear the air with those who have 'offended' in the past, talk to the mirror, but find a way to get over it. Otherwise you won't move on.
There it is. The four key principles - connect with your emotions, get clarity on your direction, express yourself , and forgive people for their (and our) past deeds. Enhancing your ethical power is crucial to living a great life, and to helping others round you to achieve the same.
I conclude with a wish, a variant on an old 'Star Trek' saying (I admit to liking Star Trek!). Spock, the Vulcan, used to say 'live long and prosper'. My variation on that, to you, is 'stand up and live'.
Power is a wierd thing, and it has absorbed me for several years. On one hand, it is essential to our existence, and to living. Without power, the ability to convert energy into momentum, we have no existence whatsoever. Yet many people I meet don't desire power. Isn't that strange?
Perhaps not. After all, we often associate power with corruption and misuse. Consequently, we view power as undesirable, even if it is important. Not an easy conflict to deal with. Indeed, it has been one of my significant challenges in life, and it's why I penned my book on power. I titled it 'Stand up and live' because to me power and living go together.
In my book, I describe nine steps to ethical power through a storyline. Since publication, I've realised that there are four core principles that sit beneath the steps. Working on the four principles should make a huge difference to your own power, in addition to helping you to become more ethical in deploying it - a real win win. Outlined below are the four principles. The closer you do these, the more ethically powerful you will feel.
Feelings
The significance of being in touch with our own feelings is often talked about in a self help context. There are many significant benefits from getting in touch with how we feel in the moment. One of the most significant benefits is to keep us in touch with our own state of power. Put simply, the better we feel about a specific situation or aspect of our life, the more powerful we are likely to be in it. Having a say in what goes on in our own life leads us to feel better, and people who are empowered don't use this to make themselves feel miserable! All of this means our feelings are an accurate barometer to our state of power.
Direction
Get clarity on your direction in life, and do whatever it takes to become clear. If power is the conversion of our personal energy into momentum, then where is the momentum going? As the saying goes, if you don't know where you're going, you will probably end up somewhere different. There will be no shortage of people telling you where you ought to go if you are not clear yourself! So get clear where you wish to go, and what you want to achieve.
This could include firming up on any or all of your own purpose, your personal vision, your core values, or even just some goals. There's no need to get too spiritual over this (though some of you may wish to). Getting greater direction helps you to view more clearly where other people might be preventing you from living a fulfilled life - and others might not be doing this deliberately. Besides, having clear purpose, vision, values and goals delivers a momentum on its own. Seaweed will only stop a boat if the boat had little momentum to begin with. If it had momentum, it would sail through the seaweed.
Expression
When you have the first two principles sussed, the next step is to express yourself to others when they are undermining your power, accidently or otherwise. Your own direction and feelings will tell you when an event matters if you listen to yourself. So if someone is undermining your power, say something, along the lines of:
"When you criticise me publicly, it undermines me. I'd like you to stop doing this in future"
"I'd like you to support me in my work"
"I'd like you to come with me to see our friends"
The basic rule on expression is to say whatever is true for you. Not aggressively, but clearly. You have just as much right to verbalise your needs, wants and desires as the next person, as long as you're not harming anyone. Avoid the temptation to dress up what you say in the hope that others might 'get the drift'. Usually they won't - the problem with hints is they're not always clear to other people.
If you have difficulty doing this, practice in front of a mirror, get a coach, talk to a friend, whatever. But do something to improve this skill. It is in these times of truth where we say something, or avoid saying something, that our very lives are defined as happy or depressing.
But do remember that in your desire to get to where you want to go, don't trample others into the dust. Other people have rights too. Which leads us nicely to the last principle.
Forgiveness
Many of us find it difficult to forgive somebody, unless we're like Gandhi. For some people, it's forgiving ourselves we can't deal with. We run around berating ourselves for things we did, or didn't do in our past life - often a long time ago. We feel bad about this. For other people, it's forgiving others that is the difficulty. Others who wronged us in the past. Betrayed us, undermined us, embarrassed us, got the better of us. There are people out there who go around collecting lists of 'bad people', and don't forgive them, for all sorts of stuff.
We might have a tendency to favour beating ourselves up, or beating others up - perhaps even both. We might hide our feelings, but we still haven't forgiven. I only want to emphasise one thing about forgiveness.
Non-forgiveness destroys our own power. It destroys it for one reason. Whether it's ourselves or others we fail to forgive, the act of non-forgiveness ties up our energy. Ties it up fighting battles from the past. Ties up energy on beating ourselves up. Ties up energy that could be used now to gain momentum, and this is the essence of power. We can live in the past or live for now, and ethically powerful people choose the second option. Let's be clear, the only person you're harming by wallowing in non-forgiveness is you. What's the point in that? So again, find someone to counsel you, clear the air with those who have 'offended' in the past, talk to the mirror, but find a way to get over it. Otherwise you won't move on.
There it is. The four key principles - connect with your emotions, get clarity on your direction, express yourself , and forgive people for their (and our) past deeds. Enhancing your ethical power is crucial to living a great life, and to helping others round you to achieve the same.
I conclude with a wish, a variant on an old 'Star Trek' saying (I admit to liking Star Trek!). Spock, the Vulcan, used to say 'live long and prosper'. My variation on that, to you, is 'stand up and live'.
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