The Five Powers of the Sage
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Last week I wrote about the sage and how we can choose approaching life from the sage’s perspective. In this post, we will explore the five powers of the sage, which we all have and can develop. Simple situations may require one or two; complex events may require the use of all five.
Our sage and its five powers can meet every challenge, no matter how daunting.
1) Empathize
Empathy is one of the most powerful emotional intelligence skills to connect with others, with ourselves (self-compassion), and to project and gain trust.
Empathizing is about feeling and showing appreciation, compassion, and forgiveness.
Empathy recharges our batteries. Think about when you are not feeling at your best and someone shows empathy. Something stirs and you feel like the world and everything around you is not so bad after all.
We use this power when our emotional reserve is running low, and we need to recharge before moving on to problem-solving.
A technique I learned from the book Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Chamine is to visualize the other person (or ourselves) as a young child (usually younger than ten). Kids are full of energy, curiosity, questions, and many times they can be both annoying and fascinating. Even when they start to irritate us, we find ways to see their innocence and how they are seeking our approval and love. Their true essence shines like a diamond.
This technique can be applied to ourselves. I have a picture of me when I was two years old. When my inner critic is particularly vicious or I start to feel like a victim, I locate the picture and see myself in my true essence – a girl full of life, sense of humor, confident in her own skin, with big feet, hands, and smile, who knew she was enough.
It is amazing what happens when we start to see the adults around us and imagine them as five-year-old children. Switching from judgment to empathy becomes significantly less difficult. Try it next time you see your exasperating coworker and observe what happens.
“The opposite of anger is not calmness. It’s empathy.” – Mehmet Oz, American-Turkish TV personality
2) Explore
The explore power is based on curiosity, openness, wonder, and fascination with what is being explored.
This power is most helpful when understanding a situation or problem deeper could put us on a better path forward.
It is about the beginner’s mind curiosity. Do I, before I go into figuring out what to do and take action, deeply comprehend everything I need to about the situation? What more can I discover?
We become a keen observer of what is without trying to judge, change, or control the situation. The only goal is to discover things exactly as they are.
“An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” – Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States
3) Innovate
You guessed it. This power is about inventing what does not yet exist. I am not talking about the next rocket, or a driverless car, or the cure for cancer. Although all those things are generated from this power.
I am referring to changing our approach to a situation, to generating outside the box ideas, to at least daring to dream. The question is ‘what is a completely different way to do or face this?’
The classic tool of brainstorming is very powerful here. The objective of the power of innovate is to have a large number of ideas regardless of their quality or if they can be implemented. You would be surprised at how a ‘crazy’ option could transform into something actually doable.
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein, Theoretical physicist
4) Navigate
This is one of my favorite powers. It consists of choosing the path that best aligns with our values, purpose, and overall goal. The choice is based on wisdom, joy, and love. We choose our path, not the one that our family, friends or society dictate to us.
In this power is where we connect with our gut, with the physical sensations in our body.
Imagine you received a job offer at another company. When you tell your boss, she immediately matches the offer to retain you. You are at a fork in the road. What do you choose? Do you leave your known company and team and venture into the unknown or do you stay in a comfortable and manageable job?
It is helpful to visualize yourself one, five, ten, twenty years from now pondering on each decision. In the first visualization you have stayed at your current job. How does the imaginary future you feel about that decision? Would she/he regret it?
In the second visualization you took the new job. How does the imaginary future you feel about that decision? Would she/he regret it?
What are you feeling in your body? What does your gut tell you? How is each decision aligned, or not, with your values and overall purpose?
“When it comes to forks in the road, your heart always knows the answer, not your mind.” – Marie Forleo, American entrepreneur
5) Activate
The beauty of the sage is that it is not limited to insights or exploring our feelings. There is action involved. The difference is that actions do not come from the chaotic, stressful place we normally operate in. They come from a place of wisdom, joy, love.
Once you decide on the actions you will take, you have laser focus, there are no distractions or procrastination, and equally important, no expectations on the results. You trust the process.
The beauty of this power is that it includes ‘fire drill’ type of actions as well. The most urgent action can be taken by the quietest of minds. This is the opposite of the frantic energy we usually bring to urgent situations.
“You cannot score a goal when you are sitting on the bench. To do so, you have to dress up and enter the game.” – Israelmore Ayivor, Author
Bringing all five powers together
Let us see all five powers in action using an example common to many people – financial stability. There is no specific duration for each power. Depending on the situation, you may need to stay longer in explore than in empathize, or in activate vs. navigate.
You and your significant other decided that this year you will put your finances in order. You will start paying attention to your income and expenses, evaluate which debts you can decrease or eliminate, and increase your emergency fund.
The moment you finish writing down the goal, your inner critic’s voice becomes increasingly louder – ‘Yeah, right! YOU will put your finances in order?! I’d love to see that! How dare you want to become rich! You are not smart enough to handle money!’ You take a deep breath and use the power of empathy toward yourself and your partner. You switch to see the beautiful essence in both of you.
The next step is to explore and educate yourself on managing debt and expenses, increasing your income, the topic of money and relationships, etc. What else do you need to know about the current situation? You put together a spreadsheet with all your sources of income and how much you receive from each one. You then proceed to tally your expenses by type. There is no judgment in this process. Like an anthropologist, you are observing the situation ‘as is’.
You decided to start with the expense category. How can you decrease your expenses and use that money to accelerate debt payoff? Here you and your partner do a brainstorm session. You are using the innovate power to generate as many ideas as possible. Neither of you is judging the ideas or evaluating them to see if they are doable. You do several sessions and then select three options.
Your three choices are stop donating money for a while, cut dining out from three times per week to twice per month, and bring your lunch to work instead of eating at the company’s cafeteria.
Using the navigate power you do a gut check with your present self to see how each option feels like. Then, you imagine your future self five years from now pondering on each of the three options you have. In this process, you discover that not donating money is not an option for you. It goes against your values. It does not sit right with your current self, and your future self will feel disappointed.
Lastly, you go into action using the activate power. You decided to start bringing your lunch to work twice per week to see how it works. You and your partner agree that you can immediately start dining out twice per month (vs. three times per week).
One more thing before you go
Have you ever experienced moments in your life when things are just flowing, when the pieces of the puzzle come together almost magically?
That is how operating from the sage perspective feels like – at ease and in flow. Things are not forced; all seems to be in perfect alignment – because it is.
The five powers of the sage – empathize, explore, innovate, navigate, and activate – are applicable to all aspects of life. From losing weight to getting a promotion, to delegating, to starting or strengthening a relationship of any kind, even to traveling.
I invite you to try each power and see what happens. It is easier than you think, and your life will be completely transformed.
Which power will you start practicing first? Please, let us know in the comments.
Source: Positive Intelligence
As a leadership coach, I enable talent to achieve bold goals with high standards. My mission is to empower underrepresented women in the financial industry transition from mid to senior level leadership positions using mental fitness to achieve peak performance, peace of mind, and healthier relationships.