It is understandable that many feel powerless today amidst the chaos and calamity found in headlines. At the same time, in many different ways. our everyday actions can be quite powerful – if we choose them to be.
On the very crowded 6 yesterday, a woman struggled to get onto the packed subway car. She asked her fellow passengers to move in. The person immediately in front of her tried to accommodate but could not move in enough to let her board the train. This resulted in shoving and shouting. A mere three feet from the commotion was a man standing with no one to his left. He had the power to move in allowing the person to enter the train comfortably and therefore stop the fight. Yet he did not. Finally I tapped him on the shoulder and asked him to please do so. He did. The woman entered the train. The conflict ended.
Earlier in the day, while teaching a lesson on power and bias, I showed my class two short videos about the abuse of power. One involving a game of monopoly and the other the famous Milgram shock experiment. As part of a planned follow up exercise, I asked the student to get into pairs and leave the classroom. One person had to lead their teammate – whose eyes were closed – back into the classroom, avoiding several obstacles and only using voice commands. After they had successfully completed the challenge, I told the students who were previously “blind” to leave the classroom, where I directed them to now repeat the exercise with them as the leaders. The only difference was that they were asked not to bring their teammate into the classroom but to lead them directly into a hard wall – with speed. They did so without any objection – even after having watched the two videos.
Later that evening, walking to an event in an under-resourced part of New York City, I saw a woman in a rather dark and drab laundromat. She was with her two toddler children – who were seated inside a laundry basket. As her mother spun them around in circles, smiles and giggles abound on all their faces. For a moment, they might as well have been in Disneyland.
Finally, at the event I was going to about the power of awe and wonder, I met two women. One one of them told me about a period of her life when she felt down with what the world had to offer. So for her birthday she decided to ask her friends to bring her “a moment of awe” to share as a gift. Three years later, these “Awe Church” events still happen regularly.
Each of these acts offered opportunities to act powerfully. A man had the power to resolve a conflict by moving a few steps to his left. Students had the opportunity to resist my direction that would embarrass their classmates – or even risk mildly hurting them – by running them into a wall. A mom had the power of her imagination to turn a mundane chore into a moment of joy. A woman used the power of her birthday wish to bring awe to herself and others during a dark time.
These individual actions or inactions add up. Social contagion is the very real phenomenon where our behaviors spread through a group – often without our knowing it.
Did you know that students perform better in class when their teachers smile at them? Or conversely, that when people are inattentive in an auditorium, either slouching or looking at their phone that others quickly follow suit? Or that If one person holds the door for another, that person will do the same for the another behind them?
We have the power to resolve conflicts, resist questionable distraction, manufacture joy, solicit awe, spread kindness and so on and so on. We often don’t. Instead we follow the leads of others who seed fear, doom or frustration. Or we resign ourselves to believe that our single action won’t make a difference. And yet that is the only thing that ever does.
We are more powerful than we know. Our actions impact those around us in both simple and profound ways. Whether we realize it or not, we exercise our power everyday by the look on our faces, how we interact with others, and the choices we make in everyday situations.
You are full of power. How are you wielding it?
This Week’s Recommendation: Check out this new essay from our Social Mobility Lab that “looks at four studies that explore how everyday habits—how we engage, how we rest and care for ourselves, and how we make sense of ‘what’s in the room’—influence classroom culture and our learning environments.”
Consider using your power to share this email with someone who might be feeling powerless.