Beginning The Power Paradox

This week I started reading [[The Power Paradox]] and so far it has been great. The main idea behind the book is reframing power as "our capacity to make a difference in the world by influencing the states of other people." Instead of the machiavellian idea of power many of us think of, Keltner brings to light the everyday power interactions we encounter every day.

Through this reframing, Keltner establishes some principles

• Power is about altering the states of others
• Power is part of every relationship and interaction
• power is found in everyday actions
• power comes from empowering others in social networks.

The start of the book fleshes out how his new ideas support those principles, and the effects.

• This reframing really jumped out at me. Suddenly common social interactions with friends and strangers are acts based on power between the two of us - but not in a negative way.

This brought to mind the new wave of online writers that plan to start businesses after [[building an audience first]]. They are building up their ability to alter the states of other people.

• "state" in this case can be something qualitative like mood or emotion, or something more concrete like a bank account. Any form of altering the state of being of another person [[Building an audience first]] makes the person with the audience more powerful, which is what makes this strategy so useful for starting a business. You've built credibility that other people use as a base to allow you to change their state.

One last thing

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