Many personal development gurus–with Tony Robbins being one of the most famous–advocate for the development of personal power. Who needs more personal power? Those of us who lack the ability to control ourselves, and in particular to get ourselves to do the things we want to do. Also those of us who suffer from social anxiety, setting appropriate boundaries, or integrating our anger and aggressive drives. In other words, most everyone!
The questions I never hear asked however in personal development are “who doesn’t need more personal power? When does someone have too much personal power? How much do we want? What is the optimum amount, and what happens when we have too much?”
From my personal experience watching people in personal development communities and developing personal power myself, too much personal power can definitely be a bad thing. Let’s take an example.
Imagine a weak, shy young man who has terrible luck with women and who decides he wants to become more confident with the ladies. He does all sorts of inner work to get in touch with his emotions and communicate more authentically, all of which is really good stuff. But since he’s framed his life around the development of personal power, he now sees all social interactions in terms of hierarchies, and aims to be top dog (alpha) in all situations. While he’s not exactly a macho jerk due to his innate sensitivity and his new slick communication skills and emotional authenticity, he’s still a bit of an asshole in a strange way. For instance, nobody else can get a word in when he walks in the door due to his overwhelming personal power and charisma. He can’t be missed, as he now dresses in stylish and even flashy ways. He tells extremely interesting stories, talks loudly, and takes up a lot of space.
Sound far fetched? Sound like “it could never happen to me?” Well, yes, it can happen to you. It happened to me for a while, and I’ve seen it directly happen to others I know personally and peripherally. It’s a strange experience, going from a sense of such deep unworthiness and shyness to suddenly (and very naturally) dominating conversation, holding listeners enraptured with every word, beaming confidence and taking up space.
When one is afraid of taking up space, often the injunction from personal development literature (and popular men’s work and “seduction community” stuff) is to confidently take up space, even with your body language (hold your legs apart when you sit, speak loudly and quickly, etc.). But this frames social interaction in terms of a zero-sum game (if I win, you lose or vice versa). If there is only so much social-emotional space to occupy and I’m now taking up more than my fair share, it leaves less room for others.
When you see social interaction as a non-zero-sum game (we can both win), then personal power becomes far less important, and in fact having a lot of it can overwhelm or overpower someone else who is say wanting to contemplate an idea slowly and carefully.
When I was first developing and working on getting enough personal power, I held certain people up as role models: Tony Robbins, breakdancers, even rap artists. But now I see things a bit differently. The Tony Robbins of the Personal Power tapes sounds to me like a self-absorbed narcissist (I don’t know him personally though, and it was the 80’s). Breakdancers sometimes appear overly confident, as if picking a fight so they can show off. Rap artists seem sex and power obsessed (how many women and cars does one man need?).
Everyone has a need for personal power, just as everyone has a need for food. But just as our need for food is not infinite, and taking in too much can be harmful, too much personal power could be problematic for an individual, or at the very least for the people around that individual.
What do you think? Is there a limit to how much personal power is appropriate for a given person in a given context? Add your thoughts in the comments.