Episode 25: Expressing Power

In their final episode in the series on leadership and power, Marti and Todd explore what makes each person's expression of power unique and valuable, and how these expressions create a sense of wholeness in teams, organizations, and communities.

From the Edge: Dam Dismantling (Todd)
Conscious Rant: In Case You Didn't Notice (Marti)

Series: People of Power

What if we think of power as potentiality and capacity, deeper than just the ability to act? Capacity—“to be able”—speaks more to a state of being. This power involves the capacity to act from an inner resource—an inner energy or knowledge—that has an expressive ability larger than itself. Potentiality and capacity suggest a fertile force that might spark germination and growth, not just the action of a force pushing on things.

In this series we explore what it means to be a person of power—one who stewards the process, rather than controlling it. One whose identity is so well grounded that s/he is completely part of life. People of power are leaders who impact the world significantly without effort and striving.

SPECIAL SHOUTOUTS

In this episode, we reference two luminous people in our lives, Arthur Brock and Miss tree turtle. We encourage everyone to learn about Arthur, tree, and the amazing legacies they have built over decades of creative service in technology and education.

To support the work of tree and the Wisdom Projects, you can learn more at their website, as well as understand the context for the story in this episode on the well documented page Community Participatory Mindfulness™.

Please consider making a contribution to the Wisdom Projects, and being a part of the Patreon community.

Timeline

0:46 Todd offers some post-recording context

2:41 Todd introduces expressing power with a metaphor

6:35 Power and luminous markers

13:22 Wholeness and uniqueness go together

15:38 Expressive capacity and Arthur Brock

18:34 Love and subatomic particles

23:47 Surprise and lightness of being

30:06 Little shifts can be monumental

36:00 Meowing with Miss tree turtle

42:07 From the Edge: Dam Dismantling (Todd)

46:10 Conscious Rant: In Case You Didn’t Notice (Marti)

54:36 Takeaways

Quotes

“If we want to be people of power—expressing power—creating better lives for all, we can’t keep talking about power as only political, positional, or material. We need to have a different conversation about power.” — Todd Hoskins

“The world needs persons of power right now—people who are connected to life force—to do the types of creating that are necessary.” — Todd Hoskins

“We have an expressive capacity.” — Arthur Brock

“We're here to create. This is what the human species is for, according to the elders, which means we are here to express our gift in the world.” — Marti Spiegelman

“In indigenous cultures, power and knowledge and medicine all mean the same thing. So the this business of expressing power, it, they're never talking about power over anything because that's not how we're supposed to be living in full consciousness. We don't overpower anything. We participate in the big system and the system supports us to be us so we can participate and serve the big system. So expressing power is just putting your gift into the world. It is loving in the way that supports the life and the person that you are. It's connecting and creating and, and resting and self-care.” — Marti Spiegelman

“We have forgotten that there are specific energies, especially coming from the earth and our local star of the sun that we need to drink in; we need to breathe in, in order to be healthy. As we breathe in those energies . . . it gives us more ‘power’ so we can then express our presence, our love, our creativity, our connectivity, our availability in the world.” — Marti Spiegelman

“There are things that can be known but not told.” — Marti Spiegelman retelling an Andean saying

“When the unknown shows up, the best response is to show it a little hospitality.” — Malidoma Some

“There is everything that is known and everything that is not known, and they coexist. They're a complementarity. But in modern consciousness, we put things that are opposite against one another immediately. Original human consciousness brought them together.” — Marti Spiegelman

“Being in relationship with larger powers is also part of being a person of power. Those larger powers express through us because we're connected to them, connected into them.” — Marti Spiegelman

“Part of the expression of power . . . is the openness to the gifts of the people around you—that they are known and unknown in every given moment. You have a sense of the capacity of your team, but you always can be surprised by their capacity too.” — Todd Hoskins

“The old mechanical way of viewing leadership is how do we get people to do what we think they need to do? That does not work—it's not effective with how we are as human beings. It's not effective for the long term viability, wellbeing, success of an organization, or a planet.” — Todd Hoskins

“Part of what we need to do in helping people understand the power of consciousness—the power of being fully conscious and being a conduit for the greater intelligence of the universe is to help people understand what an extraordinary gift human consciousness is to begin with.” — Marti Spiegelman

“To see one little piece of the world differently . . . these tiny things are actually very big and very powerful.” — Marti Spiegelman

“Consciousness as we're talking about it is not a moral code. It is not a list of things to do that are better for you or the world, or that will make you more successful or more wealthy. This is a way of being. That is why we call this ‘Leading from Being.’ This way of being comes from tapping into full consciousness, into power, into life force.” — Todd Hoskins

“The goal is to be more attuned to life, more living in accordance with life. Every time we have that little expansion, or we get out of our trapped awareness, we get closer to living attuned to life.” — Todd Hoskins

“It's not like we got a little rule book and if you do ‘these six things’ you're fully conscious. It's a state of being.” — Marti Spiegelman

“Are you people looking for a definition? Or the actual experience of consciousness?” — Marti Spiegelman retelling an Andean parable

“You can't put it in a handbook. You have to be it.” — Marti Spiegelman

“We only notice what we allow our awareness to connect with . . . People have forgotten that our awareness is something we are responsible for. We are the only ones who can place our own awareness on anything, and we can shift it. We can enlarge its scope. We can laser focus it. We can use awareness to hold multiple views at once. It's actually quite magical.” — Marti Spiegelman

“Our cultural habit is to focus on what's problematical, what's missing, what's just dead wrong. We don't seem to realize that when focusing on what's wrong becomes our habit, it also becomes our world. In a world where everything's wrong, it's nearly impossible to understand that you could make anything right. So our whole approach to everything has gradually become life negative—being against things instead of four things, being exclusive instead of inclusive.” — Marti Spiegelman

“We need to focus on what is emerging that is life-positive. We need to pay attention to Nature as it moves through big challenges and change. We need to focus our awareness on what is currently working, what is currently emerging that is conducive to life.” — Marti Spiegelman

“In case you didn't notice, there really is magic and wonder and infinite possibility for thriving and loving and community awaiting you, awaiting all of us in this crazy world. But whether you find it and connect with it, well, that all depends on how you use awareness.” — Marti Spiegelman

“We need a new outlook. And we need different awareness in order to get to that new outlook. Why not start with what is beautiful?” — Todd Hoskins