This is The Nooner, a (very short) daily newsletter slash podcast that has its very own section within Dispatches from Inner Space.
To see the first post, which doubles as an explainer, click here.
Also a quick reminder that you can listen to the podcast version of each post wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Paradox of Power
I recently started working with someone who built a pretty successful brand around a podcast she started just a few years ago as a passion project.
As of now, many tens of thousands of people eagerly listen to her show, and a not insignificant percentage of them support her work financially.
Perhaps even more importantly, most of her audience trusts her more than they trust almost anyone else concerning her topics of interest.
This is power.
And it scares her.
For some time now, she’s gotten in the habit of disclaiming much of what she says with phrases like:
“But you shouldn’t just trust me!”
or
“Of course you have to do your own research.”
The way people (or institutions, or businesses, or whatever) get power is by providing value. And if we swap the word power for influence, and “providing value” for service, then what we’re left with is:
You get power by serving people.
And then, once you have power, you also have the opportunity to exploit the very people who gave it to you.
Because this podcaster friend of mine is an authentically virtuous person, she is painfully aware of this possibility. As her power grows, so does her fear that she might, even unintentionally, exploit or abuse the people over whom she is gaining such influence.
It would be nice if every person in power felt this way, but this isn’t usually how it goes.
Politicians, for example, almost always get the paradigm exactly backwards. They think that in order to get power to do some good, they’ll have to first do something they may find morally repugnant (i.e. exploit or deceive the very people they’ve been elected to serve).
But exploitation doesn’t generate real power. All it does is extract. All it does is make things worse in the long run. Sure, you can get rich, you can live a pampered life in the halls of congress, you can fly private jets and get into rooms where people make Big Decisions.
But real power is additive. Real power is leading people to do better than they would have done without you, to learn things, build things, and create new abundance for widening circles of community.
The other kind of power, the kind based on exploitation, deceit, and coercion, is corrosive. It perpetuates itself only by diminishing everyone else. It shrinks the pie to get a bigger slice.
I don’t know. I’m already tempted to argue with myself over the semantics. Isn’t power just the ability to get people to do what you want them to do?
Alright, granted. But we have to establish a meaningful distinction between what I just termed as “real power,” which is based on respect and persuasion, and, you know, the kind you get when you point a gun at someone’s head.
Using the same word for both of them makes it seem like there’s some kind of equivalence. There isn’t. One makes the world better, and the other burns it down.
I guess what I’m saying is, if you wind up with some of the first kind, please be very careful. Because I’m looking around, and it turns out practically everything is flammable.
Click at least one of these or else…
…I can’t guarantee that you won’t be carried into the sea by an army of angry interpretive dance instructors.
Please try not to burn the world down