The Power Within

You can get a ticket to see Tony Robbins’ 3 (and a half) day ‘Unleash the Power Within’ event in Palm Beach in November for $795, or $1195 if you want to ‘do the firewalk’.

It’s a great event and I know many people who have ‘seen Tony Robbins’.

Trouble is, very, very few of them have done anything about putting all the good stuff that Tony teaches into practice.

Robbins is really very inspirational, but most people never turn that inspiration into motivation or subsequent action.

Most people do nothing, other than perhaps to book to see another inspirational speaker, or go back and see Tony again.

You see, as my mentor Mary Morrissey says, “Inspiration without action is merely entertainment”.

And Tony Robbins is good entertainment, as are all the other speakers on the inspirational circuit.

But you and I know that we can be inspired by a speaker but there’s no such thing as a ‘motivational’ speaker, because the only person who can motivate you or I is ourselves, and you and I can inspire others, but we cannot motivate them to do anything.

That comes from within.

That comes from the power within that we all possess.

I see a lot in the media and on social media and even on billboards in the street about ‘empowering’ this or that group. The most common being ‘empowering women’, followed by various ethnic groups and other sectors of the community.

Strangely I’ve never seen the term ‘empowering men’ and it seems that particular phrase is on the verge of being ‘politically incorrect’.

It seems that it’s assumed that men, and particularly white men, are the ones who either wield ‘power’ over all the others or have even taken away the ‘power’ from other groups.

Most men however, from all ethnic groups, also need to be ‘empowered’ as much as any other group.

So what is this ‘power within’? Why can’t anyone actually take it away, and why do people need to be ‘empowered’?

There are two definitions of ‘empowerment’.

The first is ‘to give someone the authority (or power) to do something’.

We elect councils, committees and governments, we employ security forces, and we give people authority in many different circumstances to make and implement decisions on our behalf.

But even when people take those authorities and powers upon themselves as happens in totalitarian societies it doesn’t negate the second definition of empowerment.

Which is: ‘to make someone stronger and more confident in controlling their life and claiming their rights’.

You and I have our own ‘power within’.

Viktor Frankl, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, held in a concentration camp had everything taken away from him in terms of material possessions and family, but he stated in his book published in 1946, that there was still one thing that no-one could ever take away, his soul, his reason for living, his inner power. That remained, regardless of his circumstances.

But that power often has to be awakened, probably before it can be ‘unleashed’.

Which is why everywhere you and I go we find people offering through coaching and other means to help the particular groups they are interested in, become ‘empowered’ – to recognise, awaken, accept and unleash that power.

Sadly this ‘empowering’ process is often misinterpreted, because of the dual definitions, as taking ‘power’ from one group of people and giving it to another group.

But it’s not about Group A taking power from Group B – far from it.

Helping individuals in Group A to realise, awaken and make use of their personal power, can often make it easier for people in Group B to realise theirs as well.

As more and more individuals come to understand their personal power, become ‘empowered’, the whole community becomes a better place.

Because when you and I recognise and implement our own personal power we also recognise the ‘power’ of everyone else we come into contact with, even though it may be dormant.

We know that it’s there and so we can understand and help others better.

That’s what ‘empowerment’ is all about.

Society in general though, doesn’t help, egged on by the media, ‘popular’ entertainment and to some extent the education system, people get the impression that they have no power, that they are just pawns in the game, that they just do what they are ‘supposed to do’, and, well, ‘that’s it’. There is no other way.

And for most people, listening to an inspirational speaker or attending an event, one or many times, doesn’t ‘work’ – because they don’t know how to put it all into practice, they don’t know how to harness their power, how to change the way they think and ultimately the way they live their lives.

Until of course they find someone who can coach them, show them the way, and help them believe in themselves and that they can.

Whatever it is – they can – one way or another make things better for themselves. Sometimes in a small way, sometimes in a big way.

And once they know how to do it for themselves they, in turn, can help others.

I’m helping a few people right now.

How about you?