The Source of True Power

The source of true power

You can have access to true power right now if you are not stuck in your thinking mind.

Unfortunately, most of humanity is still stuck in their thinking mind. In most of our interactions with others, there is an internal conversation going on from which we derive our power.

I'm smarter than he is. I'm prettier than she is. He makes more money than I do. He's my boss, so I can't share what I really think. I have a nicer car than she does, and so on. That is not true power. That is egoic power.

We don't need to make any comparisons.

When we take our attention just a little bit beyond the thinking mind, we can sense that we are the presence behind the thinking mind. We are the witness, the observer.

We are the aware presence behind the thinking mind, which is deeper. This is where true power resides.

There is amazing liberation when we can access this power. Now we can begin to relate to other people without any sense of superiority or inferiority.

You can connect with anyone else, human to human.

When I reach out to interview a top leader of a multi-billion dollar corporation, there is no feeling of inferiority because I feel they are more important than me.

I can ask this person the big questions that I never would have considered asking before. I can meet this person human to human. We discover that this bigger-than-life person is a human too.

When we have access to our true power, we can show up more authentically and as who we truly are.

When I post articles like this on LinkedIn and elsewhere, I don't need to worry about what others will think of me.

Many times I discover that former colleagues are very tuned into my work but never display it publicly. They have not discovered their true power yet.

It's wonderfully liberating to be able to meet other human beings and have no interest in finding out whether you are superior or inferior.

The power that is the way

On any given day on social media, you'll encounter any number of posts on how to be a better leader. For example, here are a few from today:

• The 5C's that Help to Build Great Leaders
• Leadership Is Solving Issues and Challenges
• Great leaders do not desire to lead but to serve.
• The UN's New Leadership Framework

We've been fed a steady diet of articles like this for decades, but are they really helping us be better leaders?

Several people, including Monique Borst, Marc Hanlan, Liz Guthridge, and Dennis German, have made some very insightful comments on LinkedIn about last week's post, Why We Still Have a Leadership Problem.

I agree with what you're saying, especially how we relate to uncertainty which is the number one driver of fear and doubt ... but also learning and discovery, growth. — Monique Borst

Terrific post, Bill Fox! And we’re going to continue to have a leadership problem until we realize we’ve got to stop cramming people’s heads with more stuff to learn and instead start helping them build more mental, physical and spiritual capacity to deal with all the increased complexity in our businesses, communities and world. Outer complexity demands leaders to do inner work, as you’ve discovered for yourself. And so many leaders and those who provide leadership development aren’t fully aware of this, are committed to the current types of training, are in denial or something else. — Liz Guthridge

SO true, Bill....and may I suggest that an additional component is that we don't want to have a new form of leadership...that we are scared of what we don't know and don't want to know... — Marc Hanlan

I invite you to access your true power and share your thoughts on LinkedIn. STOP. Let the thinking mind rest. What comes up for you?

— Bill

I invite you to share what you found most intriguing in the comments (online) below.

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— Bill Fox, Founder, Space Beyond Boundaries