Power, On Your Own Terms

Your toolkit and references.

Everything from the YEO session, in one place. Both frameworks, the working sheet, the research, and the slide deck. Use R4 and L.A.T.T.E. this week, not someday.

The slide deck

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The complete deck lands here right after the session. Bookmark this page and check back, no second email to dig for.

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Framework one

R4: your retention system

Name it. Water it. Build it. Own it. A cycle you run so power does not cost you yourself.

Risk

Name the vote, the bill, or the public position you are carrying right now that you are debating whether to spend your power on. One sentence.

Resilience

Your three people. The ones who knew you before the title and would tell you the truth. When did you last actually talk to them, not text?

Reset

Your line for the day it goes sideways, in your own name: "Okay, [name], you have done harder rooms than this one." Distanced self-talk, from Kross.

Reward

Defined by you, before any outcome arrives. This term is a win to me if ____.

Framework two

L.A.T.T.E.: the negotiation you avoid

Not the contract for your district. The one that is for you: a fair salary, a bigger staff budget, protected time. Five moves.

Look

What is actually on the table, including the thing you need and have not said out loud.

Anticipate

The real objection, priced with a clear head, not the catastrophized version.

Think

Your walkaway zone, your trade zone, your floor. Decide these now, not live.

Talk

The ask, said once, cleanly. Write the sentence you will actually say.

Evaluate

After it happens, come back: what you would repeat, what you would change.

Three phrases that hold the line without apology
Help me understand what is driving the number.
Based on what we've covered, a fair approach is ____. Where does that land for you?
I need to hold that. What else can we move?
Working sheet

Put it on paper.

A prep sheet without a date is a wish. Print this, fill it in, keep it close.

Your terms

Your terms. The two or three values that, if you traded them away to hold this office, would mean the office cost you more than it gave you.

R4
Risk
The position you are debating whether to spend power on. One sentence.
Resilience
Your three people. When did you last talk to them, not text?
Reset
"Okay, __________, you have done harder rooms than this one."
Reward
This term is a win to me if ____.
L.A.T.T.E.
The ask
The negotiation you have been putting off, the one that is for you, not your district.
Look
What is actually on the table, including the unsaid thing.
Anticipate
The real objection, priced with a clear head.
Think
Walkaway: ____ Floor: ____
Talk
The one clean sentence you will say.
Evaluate
What you would repeat, what you would change.
I will have this conversation by:

Come as your full self. Now you have a way to keep it.

References

Read the sources yourself.

Every claim in the talk traces back to one of these.

Book

7 Rules of Power

Jeffrey Pfeffer

The mechanics of how power is built, and the line that gives you permission to want it: if you want power used for good, more good people need to have it.

Book

Chatter

Ethan Kross

The science of the voice in your head, and the distanced self-talk technique behind the R4 reset move.

Book

Unbought and Unbossed

Shirley Chisholm

The resilience anchor. Chisholm on staying recognizable to yourself while you hold the seat.

The research behind the science
  • Creswell, J. D., Welch, W. T., Taylor, S. E., Sherman, D. K., Gruenewald, T. L., & Mann, T. (2005). Affirmation of Personal Values Buffers Neuroendocrine and Psychological Stress Responses. Psychological Science, 16(11), 846–851. (UCLA.)
  • Lieberman, M. D., et al. (2007). Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity. Psychological Science. (UCLA.)
  • Kross, E., et al. (2014). Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism: How You Do It Matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
  • Moser, J. S., et al. (2017). Third-person self-talk facilitates emotion regulation without engaging cognitive control. Scientific Reports.
  • Munyon, T. P., Summers, J. K., Thompson, K. M., & Ferris, G. R. (2015). Political skill and work outcomes: A theoretical extension, meta-analytic investigation, and agenda for the future. Personnel Psychology, 68(1), 143–184.
  • Perrewé, P. L., Ferris, G. R., Frink, D. D., & Anthony, W. P. (2000). Political skill: An antidote for workplace stressors. Academy of Management Executive, 14(3), 115–123.
  • On power posing: the hormonal effects failed to replicate (Ranehill et al., 2015) and co-author Dana Carney has stepped away from the claim. The smaller effect on the felt sense of power has more support.
On Brandon Scott and Michelle Wu

The Scott and Wu case studies are drawn from public reporting and official records: Baltimore Watchdog and the Baltimore Banner on Scott; CNBC, PBS NewsHour, WBUR, the Boston Globe, and the Harvard Gazette on Wu, including her definition-of-power line from Harvard Class Day 2022. Chisholm's resilience anchor is from her memoir, Unbought and Unbossed (1970).

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