Temper Your Power

Between the carrot and the stick, there is another way.

The other day, my 8 year old came home visibly upset.

Her teacher had asked her to answer a maths question in class. My daughter froze and wasn’t able to answer.

And so the teacher got annoyed and told my daughter that if she wasn’t able to answer more questions the following day, she’d get a failing grade.

This may not seem like too much of a big deal, but to my daughter it was — she told me this with tears welling in her eyes.

Now, I’m not blaming — nor even judging — the teacher.

I’m a teacher myself and I know how difficult it can be to be emotionally attuned to the needs of every student.

That said, the story illustrates something I’ve been thinking of lately:

You hold more power than you think, and that power has unintended consequences.

Become aware of the power you hold

You have power over the people in your life.

It’s easiest to see this in our relationships with our children because it’s where this dynamic is the most obvious.

On a daily basis, we boss them around:

• "Clean up your toys!"

• "Do your homework!"

• "Eat your dinner!"

• "Brush your teeth!"

• “Go to bed!”

We bark out orders all day. (And may be fine to you; they need to learn after all).

But now imagine doing the same thing to an adult.

"Hey John, go brush your teeth!"

You'd never do that.

It sounds ridiculous to even contemplate it because it would an unacceptable infringement of personal boundaries.

It would be deeply disrespectful.

The negative consequences of power

Why am I telling you this?

Because imbalanced power dynamics, when expressed carelessly, leave wounds.

How many of us, as children, experienced a lack of emotional restraint from the adults in our lives? How many of us have had that angry, mean-spirited boss churn us out?

I’m assuming these experiences didn’t encourage growth in you.

So, what I’m saying is this:

We are all in positions to hurt those around us, especially those who are dependent on us.

• Our children, sure.

• But also our colleagues, our partners, our friends;

• And those who rely on us for their pay-checks.

That’s why we owe it to them to become aware of the consequences our actions have on their lives.

From coercion to cooperation

So how can we move forward?

There exist mechanisms other than coercion — if only we’re willing to explore them. For example, we can shift from telling to asking.

Rather than dictating, we can try to understand. We can choose to honor the intelligence and autonomy of the other person.

Where are they coming from?

How does that fit in with your perspective?

It's more difficult to do this, yes, but it's also much more meaningful.

Now, more than ever before, we can encourage those we impact to lean into their innate abilities.

In a world that feels like it's becoming ever more divisive, we can choose to show a little more compassion.

And so it’s up to you.

What will you choose?

Will you choose to stamp your authority or will you do the more courageous thing?

Honor the agency of the person standing in front of you — and trust that your message will pass through.

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Hi there 👋

If you made it this far, you might be interested to know how I’m doing growing Seeking Wisdom. So here’s my version of building in public:

This past week, I decided to delete inactive subscribers from my emailing list. This wasn’t an easy thing to do.

See, it’s so easy to get locked into the game of accumulating more and more subscribers — it becomes like a game where you see your level going up.

The reality is, behind those numbers are people.

And sometimes the reasons why they subscribed changes; perhaps they’re not getting what they thought out of my posts or they’re simply too busy to read.

I get it, we’re all oversubscribed.

In any case, I figured there is zero value in continuing to send emails to people who haven’t opened them in months.

Not only does it add noise to their inboxes, there’s also a much bigger chance email clients will label my emails as spam.

And so, this week, I deleted over 300 subscribers. As you can see below, that represents roughly 3 months of growth.

I could view this as taking a step back, but it’s not.

Building a reader-base is about connecting with people with whom I can have a dialogue. Otherwise, what’s the point?

I want to build quality relationships over absolute numbers.

So, thank you for being here.

Till next time, enjoy the rest of your weekend! ☀️🚶‍➡️🌲

Ben

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