Hey professionals, if you support people and you want them to feel
empowered, then stick around, because in this video, I want to
explain why we've got our language around empowerment, all wrong.
I'm going to explain why we can't actually empower other people, and
I mean that. I'm going to explain why people thinking you can empower
them is paradoxically disempowering. And I'm going to talk about what
we can do to assist people, to access their power and more
importantly, channel it. Now, my name is Steve and I coach
professional people just like you to combine personal brilliance
with inner peace, for a happier and stress free professional life.
Now, first let's get clear about what kind of empowerment we're
talking about because there are broadly two types. There's
empowerment as in delegating authority to somebody, for example,
delegating authority to spend company money up to certain
designated spending limits and there's empowerment as in people
feeling their own internal personal power. That's a phrase you'll be
familiar with if you've read any Tony Robbins books or been to any
Tony Robbins seminars, because he talks about personal power a lot.
Now that kind of personal power isn't about delegated authority.
That's about accessing the power that resides in all of us to make
a difference in our lives and in the lives of other people. And I
want to be clear that in this video, it's that second type of empowerment
I'm talking about. You see I have no problem with the idea that in an
organization where authority is delegated, I've got no problem with
the idea that that can be given to somebody that somebody can be
empowered with authority in an organization. But when it comes to
giving people their personal power, that's something else. And the
reason for that is simple: I cannot empower you, because your
power doesn't come from me! It never did! And if either of us
really believed that your power was bestowed on you by me, then
we'd be setting up a problematic relationship. And in fact, when
somebody believes that it's somebody else who is giving them their personal
power, then that is paradoxically disempowering. Because if their
personal power really was coming from somebody else, then it's not
coming from within them. And that is the very definition of being
disempowered! It's really important that we don't get confused that the
source of our personal power is always us. It's never another person.
You cannot give somebody their personal power. So why do we say
things like I empower people? Well, honestly, it's probably because it's
simply become a figure of speech. I don't think people who say those
words actually mean to imply that I possess your personal power and I'm
going to give it to you. I don't think they mean that. It's
just that the words taken as they are imply, that and words are
powerful because words shape how we unconsciously model, how things
work in the world. And that's why I would urge you to shift the
language from, "I empower people," to what I think we really mean,
which is, "I assist people in accessing the power they already
possess, to access it and to channel it." And make no mistake because
it is about both accessing and channeling, because accessing power
without channeling power is a little bit like igniting a supercar engine,
but just leaving it revving in neutral. That alone, isn't going to
get you anywhere. By the way, if you're enjoying this video so far,
do give it a thumbs up and don't forget to subscribe to the channel
and click the notification as bell so you'll get notified when more
content like this arrives. So how do we access our power?
And by the way, notice that I keep saying access, not create this personal
power. Doesn't need to be created. It always already resides in all of
us. What varies is our access to it in the moment. And that can be
shaped by things like our mood, like our energy levels and our
current levels of self-belief. Now, there are lots of ways that
we can access our power and assist people in accessing theirs. And
I'm going to highlight a few of them here. One is to create an watch
what I would call a life highlights real. Think about sports. Think
about a sports coach, a football coach, perhaps, and you really want
to feel your team with a sense of what they can do. So what you
might do is you might go to the video archives and you might get
that team's best games, and you might then snip out of those
best games, the best moments of those games, and you stitch them
together in a highlights reel, and you played on a loop in
the changing rooms and in the bar. So people keep seeing what it is
they're capable of. Now, that's going to energize people and
remind people what they're capable of. And so a life highlights reel
is a bit like that. Now, not necessarily a literal video, I
don't expect you're going to have whole loads of video stacked
up that you can access. I'm talking about this as a mental
process to go through an actual remind yourself of the greatest
achievements. You've had the things that you're proud of, any
adversities that you overcame and stitch the best moments of
those, the winning moments of those into your life, highlights
real and repeat, watch it. And if you're struggling to think
of things to put in your highlight reel, then use your
friends, use your family, use your coworkers and ask them,
please remind me what I've done. That's great in my life, because
sometimes we don't see ourselves straight. I mean, I did this
once. I actually spoke to a number of people that I'd worked with
nd for, and I asked them to tell me what they thought my strengths
were. And I have to say, I was really surprised at the things
that I was hearing, because I kind of knew them, but I'd forgot
to think of them as special because somehow we don't seem to see our
own achievements as, as other people see them. So it's sometimes
useful to get that outside perspective. Another way to tune
into our personal power. If you want to call it in those words is
to also look at inspiring people in the world, maybe inspiring
people in your own life or inspiring people in history.
People like Victor Frankel, people like Anne Frank, people
like Gandhi, people who themselves dealt with great adversity or had
great achievements. And the reason it's useful to look at other people,
because you might be asking, why would I look at the achievements
of another person to access my personal power? And the reason is
this because it's the same power that resides in all of us. They
simply showed us how they accessed it and how they challenged it. And
that can be an inspiration to work. They can be the reminder of
how great humanity can be, by the way, one thing that gets in the
way of us accessing our personal power is a lack of self care. And
if you want any assistance in that area, then this video up here will
help. Now, what about channeling or directing our personal
power? Well, I've got a three step process for that. Step one is to
decide what you want to channel it into, what you want to direct
your personal power at. Now, sometimes that's going to be as
grounded as I want to build a school in a country where children
are in poverty. And sometimes it's going to be something as simple as,
today, I'm going to get my tax return done. Step two is to mentally
rehearse you applying your personal power. This is another thing that
sports people do. They mentally rehearse. They mentally rehearse
the run up to their sporting event. They mentally rehearse
their performance. In the sporting event, they mentally rehearse
accessing their greatest resources, taking their best shots, and then
mentally rehearse going through the wind and the celebration. And
there's something about that which directs our mind aligns up
the resources that we're going to be using. And step three is to take
the first action and to take it with energy and enthusiasm because
when you set your direction and you've mentally rehearsed and you
take the first action, the other actions will follow. Now another
thing that gets in the way of us accessing and channeling our power
is overthinking. So to take your skills in this area to another
level, then watch this playlist. It's a short playlist,
which talks about how we can deal with various forms of overthinking.
Or if you've already watched that video, then watch this one here
instead. This is Steve wishing you health and happiness.