Our personal and passionate need to assure our uniqueness vitalizes the demand for stimulants, energy shots … and consumerism, in every form. Yet, even without additives or effort, unique you are, possessing great potential — power extraordinary by type or degree. At the very least, this is true for you!
The success formula is simple: Above all, respect yourself, and appreciate your life and the lessons provided. But, doubt often is more intriguing.
Each person has power in some potential forms. The secret to unlocking power is the gift of awareness-of-ease. (Even the suspicion of a differentiating power can become the unlocking key.) But, obstacles abound: Social ignorance, abuse, laziness, self-pity, false contentment, lack of self-respect, and the naivety of social entitlement — to name a few.
So, for most, the struggle to be worthy entails untangling from the self-doubt that surrounds us. Co-workers and neighbors with co-dependence and unattended trauma are so familiar we accept them as “normal.”
We admire the ease of one who has attained true mastery. The master of anything worthy has discovered how to develop the capacity to perform with extraordinary power and comfort and perseveres up levels of learning by daily practice. His or her journey began with the gift of a personal commitment to their worthy goal. To do so requires setting aside doubt, sufficiently. Indeed, the gift may be in the coincidence of goal and self-discipline, with the hope of extraordinary potential.
This conversation requires more precision than most. I am using terms in a particular way, to convey a system of thought. Sometimes these terms are used in other ways, for other purposes.
Here, gift is the awareness of ease with a power. Without this gift, powers lie dormant and unacknowledged. Undeveloped, dormant powers provide no fun, glory, fuel, or models for others to emulate.
Power is the ability to perform — extra-ordinarily. Powers come in many, many forms.
Talent is power manifesting extraordinarily. The enabling gift is awareness-of-ease — the diligent person practices — careless or lazy ones do not. Theirs is cheap contentment.
Popularly observed powers are mathematical (physicists and mathematicians), spatial (architects and engineers), musical (composers, singers, musical instrument players), athletic (batters with high batting averages or home runs; extraordinary speed or leaping distance). It gets complex: musicians with extraordinary mathematical power, athletes with extraordinary spatial power.
Less popularly observed until we knowingly observe them are powers like healing, nurturance, harmony, synthesis, persistence, and proportion. Subtle powers may combine with relative complexity. Consider the holistic healer whose very presence grounds and eases the patient. Consider yourself when you are truly wise.
All powers reside as potential before the awareness-of-ease gift occurs. The parent and coach of the untalented hope the power merely slumbers and awakens real soon! There are notable examples. Itzhak Perlman grew beyond his disdain for musical practice by his parents’ iron-willed insistence, despite the polio-disabled boy’s genuine desire to run and play with his friends. When the gift of awareness finally occurred to him, his practicing took on self-discipline with growing self-acknowledgment, and the violin virtuoso emerged.
Manifesting extraordinary power entails an aligning that is often challenging: alignment where inspiration, faith, and self-discipline are ultimately fused. Ease encourages talent to flow, but ease may not come easily. The initial lack of ease commonly discourages but is not a reliable predictor for the presence of potential.
For everyone, at least one job type fits one’s power. To discover this fit, it helps to have talent manifesting. The probability of personal happiness and vocational success soars in a job that fits with talent.
For many years, the goals of personal wealth building and greed have been overemphasized. Greed has narrowed and obscured awareness of powers, their manifestation, and fit, while absurdly exaggerating command and control, autocratic strategies (the popular alternative use of the “power” word). There are signs this imbalance has abated, and more effective forms of authority—being truly empowered to influence core human values — will increasingly be demanded.
Note the re-emergence of systematic and comprehensive thinking that highly respects human beings and witnesses conscious leadership, constructive workplace culture, and Conscious Capitalism. Hopefully, your leadership awareness brilliantly displays your talents for wisdom, insight, and persistence — and with your mastery, the initiatives you take will further your discerning conversation.