How do you act with power?

Below ** is one mindset that you can use, to act with power. I have mentioned the mindset in prior posts.

I repeat it again because, my recent reflection of the mindset, and acting in accordance with the mindset – has notched up the impact of how I present myself and communicate my ideas.

I also repeat it, because in our time-poor world, the pressure to speed up your speaking cadence, to be afraid to pause and to not, feel deserving of the time you’re taking when you speak, is relentless.

** “… when we feel powerful, even our voices spread out and take up more space than they do when we feel powerless. Stanford University psychologists Lucia Guillory and Deborah Gruenfeld refer to this as “a way of claiming social space.” We don’t rush our words. We’re not afraid to pause.

We feel deserving of the time we’re using.

We even make more direct eye contact while we’re speaking.

Guillory and Gruenfeld suggest slow speech demonstrates a kind of openness: “When people speak slowly they run the risk of being interrupted by others. In speaking slowly one indicates that he or she has no fear of interruption. People who speak slowly have a higher chance of being heard clearly and understood.

They also take up the time of those with whom they’re communicating.”

Here is Gruenfeld’s book Acting with Power.

Own the Conversation

Here’s an implementation process:

(1) In a safe interaction, while you are speaking, have a concurrent sound track playing, inside your head, with this message. “I am deserving of the time I’m taking.”

(2) Reflect on the impact of doing this task.

I have found that when I have the sound track ‘on’, when making pressured phone calls – for example prospecting for new business – there has been a noticeable change in my cadence, and an uptick in my strike rate in booking meetings.