Healthy Power: Pathways to Success in Work, Love and Life

At its deepest essence, this book is about the interplay of light and shadow-good and evil-in constant motion throughout our lives. Like the ebb and flow of oceanic tides, rising and falling in concert with the moon, we move constantly back-and-forth between admirable and ignoble behavior. We are not fixed, and we're never perfect. No one is exempt-we are mercurial and ever-changing-thus any sense of permanence is merely an illusion. Each of us is born with an animalistic nature that is our ancient heritage and has served our species well through the millennia for basic survival. Since it appears that we are the only creatures endowed with higher consciousness, we are uniquely capable of contemplating our existence, thus we have evolved to the point that we can make choices above and beyond our mere survival. Moreover, through self-mastery, evolution has presented us opportunity to go beyond the reactivity that characterizes most other living things. Our species governs and reigns supreme over the planet with advanced reasoning and execution skills combined with skills in emotion management and impulse regulation-also setting our species apart from the animal world. However, the nature of our power depends not primarily upon this superior raw potential. Ultimately, our power is determined by the operating system we apply in self-governance, and that is the focus of this book. Moreover, it provides a framework for understanding power within eight dimensions in an attempt to illuminate those key forks in the road where choices are made in our pursuit of power, both healthy and destructive. Healthy power emerges from the development of a person's core strengths and is manifested in effective personal leadership. This, in turn, generates positive, values-driven results through our empowering influence upon others and systems. Welcome to your journey toward self-empowerment! "A stellar job, Craig: a well written, well organized and eminently readable book. I recommend it enthusiastically." -Wayne Dyer