The 8 Laws of Power: How to Get Power Using Science

have you ever wondered if you look powerful research has found that there is a look of power and this is one of the most fascinating experiments i've ever read it was done by researcher anthony little so what he did is he took eight presidential races and he took the faces of each candidate and he modified the faces so they were unrecognizable but they still carried the same facial features for example here's an image of george w bush and john kerry now you can't recognize them as george w bush or john kerry but you can see they have the same facial features so he took these photos and he asked participants to pick the more powerful face he did this with eight different presidential races and he found that in all eight races participants picked the winner of the actual election without knowing who that face was supposed to be so there is a look to a powerful face and somehow instinctively were able to decide or choose a more powerful face simply based on facial features alone this got me thinking is power a chicken or an egg problem and how do we up our power is it our facial features is it our actions is it our words in this video i'm going to dive into the science of power [Music] first what is power power is defined as the ability to influence the behavior of others the reason why we're obsessed with powerful people is because powerful people create change they can change things for us like our relationship status or our job like a boss can change our career status they also could change our opinion powerful people are very influential they might change our ideas so we're obsessed with seeking out and listening to powerful people because we want to know are they going to change us i also thought it was extremely helpful to look at what forbes uses as its four variables for power so when forbes creates its lists of the most powerful people there are four different variables that it looks at that i thought would be interesting for us to take note of the first variable is control control is the amount of people a person has influence over the second is wealth the amount of financial resources controlled by each person the third is spread the number of categories or spheres a person is powerful in and the last one is usage the ability of a person to use his or her power power law number one utilize the power confidence loop so power has an interesting chicken in the egg problem so the question is always what comes first the chicken or the egg power and confidence kind of have the same thing does powerful do powerful people feel more confident or do confident people get more power i'm gonna actually argue that it starts with confidence and the research shows this as well so researcher albert bandura at stanford university found that leaders start with confidence and this happens in a really interesting loop so i'm going to break out my drawing skills for you here uh just so you can see how this goes so if someone feels a little bit of confidence they have this spark right they feel good about themselves they had a good morning run they had a good morning routine they had this little bit of confidence what bandura found is that that little bit of confidence can trigger you to also be more effective so you had a really good morning run you're feeling pretty confident you get to work and in your morning meeting you make a really really good comment so you add to that meeting that makes you feel even more confident and other people start to say wow that was a really good comment and so that in turn gives you even more positive feedback you get nice compliments you get more opportunities your boss gives you a pat on the back so you get more opportunities and more confidence which makes you feel even more confident then the next time around you're going throughout the rest of your day and your boss says you know i really love that comment you made earlier i'm going to put you as lead on that new client project and then all of a sudden you get power you get put in a position of power because that little bit of confidence sparked something good which sparked even more something good well now you have this position of power and you're like wow i'm feeling really good i'm really confident my skills i'm really confident in my job and so then you have even more amazing moments you have a great team call you go home and you talk to your spouse and you're feeling really good you're feeling a good partner you're a great parent that day because you have so much energy from earlier in the day that you just feel like you're on a roll and then that contributes to even more good days i call this the power confidence loop a little piece of confidence triggers you to actually behave in better ways tell better stories think more quickly which then makes people see you as capable which makes them give you powerful positions which then makes you feel even more confident my goal for you is in this video is you to get yourself into one of these power confident loops that with just a couple of very small confidence moments a couple very small capable moments that can actually spur even more power and confidence in your life power law number two use powerful language one really easy way to spark just a little bit of confidence is to use more positive powerful language in fact studies have found that powerful people tend to use more activation words more positive words what we don't realize is we are constantly throwing away and using negative or neutral words so we'll open up a meeting and say gosh it's been so stressful or we open an email and say this has been a really busy time or we say gosh i'm just so overwhelmed all of those words take away our confidence when we talk about being negative or overwhelmed or stressed or worried or during this crazy time it actually takes away those moments of confidence so what i want you to actually do is start to identify when you are accidentally being negative negative by accident this happens with phrases like this i can't i don't believe i'm bad at i'm afraid of it's impossible over the next few days pay attention to when you're using these kinds of phrases the phrases that take away confidence the phrases that take away capability and i want you to begin to use phrases as much as possible especially in emailing and writing because we can think those through ways you can use more empowering language empowering language like i can i know i will i'm confident anything is possible if you really want to take this challenge the next level i highly recommend opening up your email sent folder and counting all the negative words and phrases you use all the times you take confidence away from yourself and then count up all the times where you had little moments of confidence where you said i can i will i'm on top of it i got it let's let's be productive let's be efficient i can handle it all those confidence building phrases my goal for you is that not only we can drastically reduce those negative phrases but we can beef up those positive empowering phrases those are those tiny sparks of confidence power law number three speak with power so when we talk about speaking we're not only talking about the words we use we're also talking about our voice tone our volume our cadence and studies have found that we love listening to people who are confident how do we hear confidence it has to do with the space and our chest and our neck and our mouth you think about this way when you're really anxious or nervous you tense your shoulders you tense your jaw you shrink your neck you might cross your arms over your chest when i'm like this it's really hard for me to get a lot of volume in fact after i talk into it in this way for a long while i begin to have vocal fry because i lose breath i lose volume the moment i take a deep breath and create space in my chest i lower my shoulders i loosen my jaw i open up my neck i get more volume i get more air and we can hear that it's actually called the maximum resonance point i did an entire tutorial on max residence points i highly recommend you go check it out but for now here's what i want you to think of when you are speaking on a video call on a phone call in a meeting i want you to make sure that you're using the lowest end of your natural register so instead of speaking like this in the highest end of my register take a deep breath lower your shoulders open up your chest and try speaking on the out breath whenever we hold our breath we go higher and it all tenses up and we speak on the out breath it creates more volume in space we love listening to people who have lots of volume and space power law number four build your personal board of directors so this is my favorite one of these skills because it's all about creating a support team so a really great way to start to build confidence is to actually try to focus on the top part of this circle so it's being around people who make you feel capable and confident so that you can have those moments where you're like yes i got this and then you get that feedback from people saying you did great while you rocked that meeting that was so clear thank you so much for doing that so focusing on the top half of this circle means surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded who you respect who want to support you i call this a personal board of directors or a mastermind this is three to five people who you respect who give you really good advice and you know support you i highly highly recommend thinking of three to five people who you can bring in as your board of directors maybe once a month or once a quarter you check in you go out to lunch you tell them your goals they tell you theirs you run advice by them you help each other succeed the nice thing about this is they don't have to be people in your job or in your industry or even in your company as long as they're people who you respect and you know support you those are the kind of people who create these small moments of confidence capability that when you get to a meeting or you sit down at a lunch they say so tell me all the good things that have been happening and you can celebrate together in fact i have three questions i recommend doing with your mastermind so if you're going to create a mastermind or a personal board of directors every time you get together ask yourself these three questions one what's my biggest success typically if you're doing these once a month or once a quarter you can say what's been my biggest success this month this gives you an opportunity to celebrate together to create a beautiful moment of confidence together and highlight each other's great work so start with your big success second is what was your biggest challenge this month this is a way that we can formally ask for help as people i know this we are so bad at asking for help we're always afraid that we're going to impose on people or they will feel like they're being put out but actually it's wonderful to ask people for help and advice this is a formal way to do that this is your opportunity to talk about your challenges to get feedback and advice and help from people you respect that also can create confidence because that means that someone is saying i want to help you i want to help you be the best version of yourself how can i help you best unless it's been my third question the third thing you should ask your personal board of directors is how can i support you this month and the best is when this is reciprocal when you are each other's personal board of directors and that's when you say yes i would love to help with all these things i love what you're doing i love what you're working on i can call this person i can post that thing i can give you advice on that let me send you that resource that is also confidence producing power law number five your five people so i talked about a mastermind creating a group purposefully of three to five people that you really respect but likely you're not going to get together with your mastermind your personal board of directors more than once a month if ever you do it every two weeks or every week that's amazing the next list i want you to make is a list of the five people you spend the most time with one of my favorite quotes is by jim rohn you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with i think this is so incredibly true and we often don't think about who we are really spending our time with so i want you to get a pen and paper and i want you to write down hopefully maybe you draw out your circle the last time that you felt this way you're five people so make a list of who are the people that you spend the most time with now something to think about here this is not necessarily the people you wish you were spending the most time with this is the people you are actually spending the most time with and it might be time over email over text over phone over social media sometimes it's not always people we're spending in time in person time with people who were interacting with a lot even digitally so i want you to make that list and then i want you to look at that list and i want you to think is that the list you want when you think about those five people are they the kinds of people who create these kinds of circles the people on this list give you confidence give you feedback make you feel capable are they people who rise you up into positions of power that are actually good for both of you if not i want you to consider making your ideal list who do you wish was on this list who do you wish maybe you had more boundaries around that you could move them to position 6 7 8 9 10 20 40 in your life who do you wish you had in your life more of could it be a soulmate or a new business partner or new colleague put your wish list here as well so your second list next to these folks is your ideal wish list so these are people who you wish you could have in your life they're the people that's little asterisks there if you can see it they're the people who create moments of confidence and power and capability power law number six self-assess research shows that we're not very good at assessing our strengths and weaknesses at least not when we purposefully do it really powerful people they truly know what creates their power confidence loops they know their strengths they know their capabilities and they're able to activate these circles in their life the question is do you know your strengths do you know something you can do as small as taking a beautiful picture and as big as giving a presentation that create the loops in your life and second do you know your greatest weaknesses do you know things that take away from these kind of loops that when you have something that you don't feel is good at you're able to say you know what this isn't my strength i'm going to make sure that i avoid a downward spiral so the opposite of this kind of loop is a downward spiral and these happen all the time this is when something bad happens this could be a bad email comes into your inbox or a bad piece of feedback and that creates a small negative effect a little bit of cortisol the stress hormone and then this makes you feel even less confident so you begin to doubt yourself you begin to have imposter syndrome you go into a meeting and you don't pitch yourself as well you don't present yourself as well or that one bad email makes you write a couple of other not so good emails back or you write back as not your best self that lack of confidence makes you feel even more doubtful the best way to represent this is with a sad face where you're like what am i doing anyway do i even deserve this i'm really bad at this and you begin to doubt your abilities and your effectiveness and your success that in turn creates even more negative moments where you're like yeah i got that really bad email i can't even make dinner i'm not even a good partner i'm not even a good parent that's called globalizing anxiety that's when you take one bad thing and you begin to apply it to every area of your life and of course the cycle continues with more bad things more sadness and then we get right back on that loop where we're creating more and more loops of negativity for ourselves so what's really important here is for you to self-assess what are your biggest strengths write them down right now what are your biggest weaknesses so when they happen you can make sure you don't let them globalize and affect your entire life and lastly i need to learn to are there weaknesses that you could turn into strengths by being stronger at them power law number seven know when to say yes and when to say no you need to be super clear on your priorities powerful people know their goals they know okay i need more of this in my life and less of this in my life the reason i had to go through that people exercise where you pick the people in your life and people you want to have in your life is because it helps you say yes to the right people and no to the wrong people if you don't know how to say no and set up boundaries the most empowering thing you can do for yourself is learn how to say no to the people who give you dread if you open your calendar and you have people you're seeing that cause you dread or there are things you're doing that cause you dread those are times where you're gonna have more and more negative loops i want you to start saying no to the things that cause you dread and yes to the things that cause you excitement power law number eight stand like superman so the last one i'm going to give you is the easiest one studies have found that the more physical space we take up the more powerful and confident we feel and this makes sense right we talked about this in our vocal power step that if we have volume in our chest and our neck we have more uh oxygen we're able to create more space the same thing happens in our space if we don't take up a lot of space we feel like we don't deserve to take up space so one easy way to do this is get a chair with armrests that can help you take up space make sure that when you're walking into a room you have your chest open don't cross your arms and you walk in like you own the place sometimes those small tricks can create little loops of positivity little bursts of confidence so when you don't feel so confident it's okay give it a power pose stand like superman take up space take a deep breath and remind yourself of your strengths i hope you like this video bottom line here is i want you to be yourself when you don't feel powerful it's very hard to fake it till you make it when you feel a lack of confidence that can contribute to more more nervousness and less confidence so what i'd rather have you focus on is doing things that authentically make you feel capable powerful people are doing things they're good at all the time so i want you to focus more on that what authentically makes you feel capable and good that in turn will make you feel more confident and more powerful are you living up to your full potential do you want more i would love to help you get started with my free training and learn more about people school today visit scienceofpeople.com did you like this video i would love your like subscribe tap the bell so you can get my next video and i can share it with you thanks

Channel: Vanessa Van Edwards

Views: 29,491

Rating: 4.9621973 out of 5

Keywords: vanessa van edwards, science of people, communication, nonverbal communication, verbal communication, power laws, Powerful people, how to gain power, how to get power, How to gain influence, how to gain power and influence, Gaining power, Gain power, How to have power, How to obtain power, How to gain power, I want power, How to gain power and influence, How to rise to power

Id: 7--8vdgNktk

Length: 19min 11sec (1151 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 22 2020