The Only Thing That Can Never Be Taken Away

The only thing that can never be taken away from you is the knowledge, experience, and skills that you have gained during your life, as well as your intangible character traits. No one can take away your confidence. No one can touch your charisma. No one can erase what you have learned or your ability to play an instrument. The only thing that can never be taken away from you is who you are, or more accurately, WHAT you have created yourself to be.

In The Count of Monte Cristo, while Edmond Dantes is in prison, he meets the Priest, and the Priest asks Edmond to help him dig a new tunnel. Edmond laughs when the priest tells him it will take 13 years. 

Priest: Does something else demand your time then? Some pressing appointment?

Edmond shrugs

Priest: In return for your services, I offer you something priceless.

Edmond: My freedom? *laughs

Priest: No. Freedom can be taken away, as you well know. I offer you knowledge. Everything I have learned. Mathematics, economics...

Edmond: To read and write?

Priest Of course.

The Priest knows that you are the sum of your experiences. Your knowledge is the sum of the time you have spent learning different things. Your skills are the sum of the time you have spent practicing different activities. Your character was developed through the difficulty and hardship of gaining experience. Now it is yours, forever. It is the one thing no one can take from you. You can be thrown in prison, but you still are who you are. You can lose your money, you still are who you are. You can lose support or status, health or loved ones, you can suffer terribly just as Edmond Dantes did, but you will still be whatever you created yourself to be. 

One of my favorite new shows is a pirate show called Black Sails. The protagonist of the show, Captain Flint, has an interesting backstory. He was a British naval officer, with his own ship command, before he was disgracefully dismissed from the British navy and sent into exile in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for the British, he still WAS what they created him to be. Within 4 months of his exile in the Caribbean he was a pirate captain with a ship and a full crew at his command. His first order of business? War on all British ships.

The British could take his position, they could take his land, his money, imprison his friends in England, and ship him across the world, but they couldn’t take away who he was. That went with him, and when it landed on the Caribbean island of Nassau, people immediately took notice.

This is the difference between “title power” and “personal power.” Title power is given by a group organization. Titles come in all shapes and sizes, captain, admiral, manager, pastor, senator, assistant manager, vice president, principal, coach, teacher, chief, head chef, emperor, whatever. 

Why do we have to do what they say?

Because they’re the ___________________

That is “title power.”

“Personal power” is different. You can sense when personal power walks into the room. It’s immediately felt by everyone. It’s the sum of what a person has created themselves to be. When Captain Flint arrived in Nassau, he had no title or position. What got him a ship and a crew was personal power. People feel it and they follow it.

If a 6’5” bodybuilder walked confidently into your workplace and knew everything about your craft, you would feel intimidated, not just by their physical presence but by their knowledge. If they offered you a job, you might take it, you might follow them. 

The other element to “personal power” is reputation. Imagine if that person was well known in your area or community. You had heard the stories and you knew they meant business. You’d be even more likely to quit your job and hop aboard their ship.

Imagine if that person was Dwayne Johnson (The Rock). In that situation, you’d probably give him whatever he wanted for free and beg for a picture, because what he has created himself to be is globally impressive. If he offered you a job, you’d just take it, no questions asked. 

Personal power is forever (or as long as you maintain it), but title power CAN be taken away. In the show Vikings there is a king, with a fairly solid grip on his position. He’s not as strong as he once was, but he is respected and feared. He has a right hand henchman who’s a little stub of a man, short, bald, and annoying. Everyone in the village hates him because he uses his position as the right hand of the king to get anyone he doesn’t like thrown in prison or killed. A lot of resentment builds up towards this little man, and then the king is killed. 

Can you guess what happens within 4 seconds of the king dying?

That’s right. The dumpy right hand immediately gets what he deserves. 

Unfortunately for him, he was all “title power,” and no “personal power.”

Now I’m not saying title power is a waste of time. By all means, apply for the manager position. Just keep in mind that it works a lot better when you have personal power to back it up, because people want to look at their leader and have it make sense. 

Titles are created by the organization, whether it’s a government, a military, a church, a school, or a Dairy Queen. If you don’t have the personal power to validate your position in the organization, then it’s only a matter of time until the king protecting you falls and the peasants underneath you get rid of you. 

Lastly, not all personal power looks like a 6’5” bodybuilder. In The Count of Monte Cristo, the Priest teaches Edmond how to fight and duel with swords, but he also teaches him mathematics and economics, and how to have a quick and agile mind. Knowledge gives you power. People pick up on what you know when you speak and they notice intangible characteristics, such as charisma, that you have developed.  

As a teacher, I have a student in my class who is a master communicator. When he speaks, the whole class listens. He’s such a powerful communicator, that he can hijack my train of thought, and drive it wherever he wants! I often have to wrestle the conversation back from him, reverse down the tracks, and try to pick up where I left off, with a now completely distracted class! His personal power is in communication and persuasion.

In the movie Troy, Achilles tells Odysseus, “Play your tricks on me, but not on my cousin.” 

Odysseus responds, “You have your sword, I have my tricks. We play with the toys the Gods give us.”

Odysseus knows he has power with his words, just as Achilles has power with his sword. We each have a different natural skill set, and it is in developing that skill set that we are able to gain personal power in that area. Why should we?

Because what is developed can never be taken away. Who you are, your character, your knowledge, your experience, your skills. What you create yourself to be, who you become, can never be taken away.