Develop his power rather than his power
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Dear readers, dear readers,
I am Morgane Miel, editor-in-chief of “Madame Figaro” in charge of business matters. For fourteen years, I have been exploring issues related to the professional life of women, to help them overcome obstacles, to move forward without sacrificing everything, but also to establish their influence and their impact on the world of tomorrow. I wanted, after all these years, all these articles, to go to the other side of the mirror. To tell you “I”, to weave with you the thread of a more direct conversation. I can’t invite you all for coffee, but the spirit is there. Welcome to this newsletter, this space for expression designed for you, which you will find every two weeks. Do not hesitate to answer me, to write to me, to suggest avenues of reflection to develop together.
Vital and inner energy Maria Stavreva, Guetty images.
It’s what you might call a revelation. This slightly suspended moment when suddenly everything becomes clear. Where a hitherto confused, nebulous thought revolves around a keystone. It happened to me recently, when I was leading a business master class around the idea of vision – “how to be one step ahead?”. While the three guests debated, seeking to describe as precisely as possible this long mental process that leads to the feeling of being in the right direction, one of them, the philosopher and writer Julia de Funès, decided with passion .
A conviction from the depths
Of course, setting a course with foresight requires having first gathered as much information as possible. Not to be blinded by the usual cognitive biases. To assess its share of risk. But above all, she continued, this requires being able to align her decisions with her values, and to affirm her convictions. “This potentiality, we all have it in us, concluded the philosopher. This is what Nietzsche calls the “will to power”. It is the opposite of the will to power, which generally consists in crushing the other in order to better “bring out” oneself. The will to power is a conviction from the depths, a vital and interior energy, a personal radiance which makes one desire what one desires and one wants to say what one is saying. . It’s the courage to be yourself.”
Read alsoMore impact, meaning, collective… These new values that replace ambition
Suddenly, everything became clear – sorry, I can’t think of another word. I finally understood what I had been trying to formulate much less clearly for many years in my articles. When I wrote: “Access to positions of power yes, but for what?”. Or when we decided to put forward in our columns a new generation of leaders, inhabited by this ambition to reach high positions to defend a cause greater than themselves. I think that being “aligned”, carried by a project allows you to grow with it, to overcome obstacles in a more “organic” way, to maintain your creative energy.
The magnet effect
If in us conflicting forces clash, explains Nietzsche, it is precisely the hierarchy of these forces that says who we are and, when we know how to listen to it, allows us to surpass ourselves. To ward off, too, sad passions. From this alignment is born a power that sweeps away everything in its path; unites through membership – where power isolates; and knits around it a whole network of initiatives, desires, talents, a momentum that helps to look reality straight in the face and to accept uncertainty, well seated on its base. Power, force issued from oneself, is equal to all powers. I hope never to forget it…
My diagnosis:
If you too want to unleash your power, you can:
– Reread Nietzsche. Or not 😉
– Define the values that matter most to you. As psychiatrist François Bourgognon explains in his book Don’t let your life end before you start it (Éditions First), being in harmony with one’s values is the secret to a happy and meaningful life.
– “Develop in you the desire to win, not in the sense of performance, but rather of always creating, of constantly surpassing oneself. (…) Getting on board not thanks to vertical authority, but thanks to an attitude, an appetite for creativity, an approach to the usefulness of activities, an approach to others, and thanks to a project that goes beyond the simple fact of run the business.” Marion Darrieutort, in The Time of Pop Leaders (Ed. of the Dawn).
– Encourage creativity around you. Because the power of some feeds that of others.
– Choose your cause. The one that talks (also) about you.
– Learn to love the unexpected, as advised. Life always has more imagination than us, and sometimes that’s good news.
Three mantras to meditate on until the next letter:
“I am what I am» Gloria Gaynor
“Where is the thought, there is the power.” Victor-Hugo
“Conviction is the human will attained to its greatest power.” Honoré de Balzac
