Derrick Ashong – Winning From Change
Derrick Ashong: When it comes to power and influence, one of the biggest lessons I have learned is that most of us don’t really understand them, and I include myself in that.
We think of power and influence as something that is far away from us, it’s like those people, they are powerful, look at this guy, he has influence, look at her, she has influence, it is something that is external. And the thing that I learned as I met and talked to people who are seen as having power and influence – was that a lot of it is actually inside you.
It’s like the saying I used to tell a friend – that leadership is not declared, it’s evidenced. So, what winds up happening is we see people who harness their internal energy and energy of what’s around them in a certain way, and we say they are powerful and influential and we focus on the results rather than the process, and the reality is everybody has the capacity to harness their own power and to have influence and to leverage that influence.
But the question is do we believe it and do we do it, and it’s shocking how many times I see gifted, amazing people disempower themselves because their perception of power and influence does not include them.
Marlise: You talked about wanting to build a bridge between cultures and the news is filled with massive division between people in every part of the world. And it is coming from cultural beliefs that have been passed down to every generation. So, how do you envision breaking these unconscious patterns that people can’t even see?
