Getting comfortable with power

- My favorite superhero is Wonder Woman. As a little girl, she was the only female superhero, holding her own among the likes of Captain America and Superman. She was beautiful, strong, and brave, powerful, and I wanted to be just like her. If you were like me, you grew up thinking power was a good thing. It helped you leap from tall buildings and save people, but as you got older you probably saw how power could be used in negative ways. In real life, that bad guys sometimes won, people got hurt, and maybe power was even used against you. Because of this, you may have a conflicted view of power. Maybe you know that for women in particular, power often comes with increased exposure to judgment and attack. So in an ironic way you know that the more powerful you become the more vulnerable you are. It doesn't have to be that way. You can become more powerful while also becoming stronger and more resilient. In this lesson, I am going to show you how to be powerful by tapping into your values or what I like to call your superpowers. But first, let's explore what power is. Power is your capacity or ability to do something. And in our society, some people have more of it than others. If you are less powerful in our society, perhaps due to your gender or other identity, then you must find alternative power sources, and one of these is your personal values. Values are your core beliefs, what you stand for in life, which is why values are so powerful. They can't be taken away from you, they can't be controlled by others, they are who you are, what you stand for, and ultimately what you'll refuse to compromise on. To help you identify your values, take a moment to reflect on these questions. Who is a person you admire? What values do they embody? Think about an activity work related or otherwise that makes you feel the most like you, what values are you living? Now think about activities or people that frustrate you, which of your values are being challenged or violated? So for me, a person I admire is my colleague, Patricia. Nothing gets her down, not even a cancer diagnosis. The value she embodies for me is hope. At work I come alive when I'm helping people learn and grow. Serving others is a core value for me. On the flip side, an activity that is draining for me is monotonous detail oriented work. This helps me see that I really love being creative and free. Positivity, serving others, creativity, and freedom, these are my values, my superpowers, ready to find out yours? To help you get started I've included a worksheet in the exercise files that you can use to define your values as you consider these questions. After you've written down and identified your values, narrow down the list to the ones that are the most important. These are your core values, your superpowers, and now I'm going to show you how to use them. Whenever you find yourself in a situation that scares you or intimidates you. Perhaps you're giving a presentation to your boss or need to deliver some tough feedback to a colleague. You can call upon your values, your superpowers, to guide and protect you. Focus on those instead of your fear. Let those determine what you say and do, everything else will fall into place. I've seen women use the value of family to negotiate a raise, the value of integrity to leave a job, and the value of equality to advocate for other women. By connecting into your values you become incredibly powerful, just like Wonder Woman.