Do you leave conversations frustrated because you did not say what you were actually thinking or feeling? Do you muzzle yourself, then replay the moment later? Do you feel responsible for keeping everyone comfortable?
In this conversation, Rick Wilkes and Anissa Centers explore power as something more grounded than dominance. Healthy power is the ability to stay connected with who you are, notice what is true for you, and choose an appropriate expression within the real situation.
Power Over Is Not the Only Model
Many people learned power through examples of force, hierarchy, interruption, control, or performance. If that model feels wrong, a caring person may reject power altogether.
But refusing power does not make us powerless. It often makes our influence unconscious. We still affect the room through silence, withdrawal, over-functioning, resentment, rescue, or the pressure to be agreeable.
Power within can look quieter:
- knowing what you feel before automatically matching the room
- naming a concern without needing to dominate
- asking for time to consider a decision
- declining responsibility for everyone else’s mood
- choosing when your voice is useful and when silence is honest
- bringing the most appropriate version of yourself to the situation
Move From External Reference to Inner Reference
Children naturally study the outside world: What makes the adults happy? What earns approval? What keeps me connected? Those skills can become so automatic that external confirmation remains the prime directive long after we have choices.
Anissa describes the cost of building a successful image that was not fully sustainable. Awards, competence, and approval did not remove the strain of performing who she believed she was supposed to be.
The shift is not to ignore every external expectation. Workplaces, relationships, and communities have real agreements. The shift is to include an internal reference:
- What is true for me here?
- What range of expression is both authentic and appropriate?
- What would be sustainable if this situation repeated?
- What am I agreeing to, and what am I merely absorbing?
You Are Not Responsible for Being “On” All the Time
A generous quality can turn into an obligation. If people enjoy your optimism, humor, steadiness, or emotional availability, an old part may decide you must provide it continuously.
That is not sustainable power. It is a role with no off switch.
Permission matters: permission to have a difficult day, need quiet, take a bathroom break, wait before answering, or let another person have their feeling without joining it. A bad mood does not erase your gifts. Resting a gift can keep it voluntary and alive.
Let the Body Help With Discernment
Sensitive people may accurately perceive someone else’s emotion and still have a choice about joining it. Perception is not obligation.
Notice the difference between resonance and compulsion. Joining someone in grief may feel like a whole-body yes: connected, tender, and grounded. Matching their urgency may feel like contraction, pressure, or losing yourself.
The body does not supply a perfect verdict, but it can reveal when the story in your head is drowning out important information. A brief pause, a trip to the restroom, one minute of breathing, or tapping on the chest pressure can restore enough inner reference to choose.
Practical Power at Work
Authenticity does not mean bringing every impulse into every meeting. Anissa names the most appropriate version of you for the situation. Professional range can still include individuality.
If you need time and the decision allows it, ask for time. If the show begins in two minutes, the available version of power may be narrower: ground, do the task, and make space to recover later. Healthy power responds to context without abandoning the self.
Look for predictable pressure points and prepare practical supports. Know where you can pause. Decide what deserves a boundary. Identify the colleague who can help reality-check a difficult interaction. Power becomes more usable when it has a method.
About Anissa Centers
Anissa Centers is a motivational speaker and trainer whose communications experience includes work as an Emmy Award-winning television news anchor. She combines that background with decades of personal-development study to help people see new possibilities and show up more confidently in their lives.
Her TEDx talk, Looking Good While Falling Apart: There Are Some Things in Life Even a Great Pair of Stilettos Won’t Fix, gives additional context for her teaching. It is a separate talk and was not used as the transcript source for this Guide.
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This Guide was adapted from a Thriving Now conversation with Rick Wilkes and Anissa Centers, recorded February 24, 2019. The transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.