The Tao of Influence - Karen McGregor

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lasting influence is more likely to occur.

      The Four Pillars

      • Power

      • Presence

      • Purpose

      • Potential

      Our relationships to potential, like power, presence, and purpose, are relationships that invite us to observe our thoughts, actions, and choices. Making space for potential, treating it as sacred, and asking for assistance from both your earthly team and your Divine Team is critical.

      One of the least talked-about characteristics of powerful influencers is their reliance on Divine support—the unseen, the intangible, the mystical. When influencers speak of potential and possibility, they are visionaries asking us to see things that are not yet recognized by the human eye. They pull things into existence that were never there before, because they have faith in, and are working collaboratively with, Divine Power.

      About This Book

      As a part of my research for this book, I had the great pleasure of interviewing numerous global influencers, all of whom had something in common: their journeys were launched on a foundation of personal development. They each journeyed within first and came to know themselves through the process of self-examination. Bestselling author of Mass Influence, Teresa de Grosbois, said it this way: “The biggest turning point for me was the moment I made the decision to do my own personal development work. During that time, my business had failed, my marriage ended, and my health was in a tailspin. So, I had an idea to renovate my home, and as I was in the bathroom working on the tiles, the only thought I had was how utterly unhappy I was. I could not point to a time in the past ten years that made me feel happy. I decided that I needed to be renovated, not the bathroom. It was from that point forward that life slowly started to transform for me. Change had to start with me, and changing myself. You have to do the inner work to do the outer work.”

      This book guides you to do the inner work, in keeping with the principles of the Tao. Through these pages, you will have the opportunity to dedicate yourself to become a change-maker and influence others for the collective good. It may be challenging at times, but it is worth it. As Robert Frost put it, “It has made all the difference.”

      This book is designed to help you evolve your personal capacity for influence and empowerment and guide you to explore your potential both in the earthly realm and the Divine realm. Your ability to walk in both worlds is what I call the Holy Flow, which leads to enduring and infinite influence.

      Within each chapter, you will discover how the ancient truths of the Tao can become your current reality. At the end of each chapter, you’ll have an opportunity to reflect on, and take steps to integrate many of the profound teachings of the Tao into your life. Like all sacred teachings, each one is eternal and can sustain you consistently. When you apply them to the Four Pillars, using the practical, everyday processes in this book, you will discover a new state of influence: the Way of the Tao. In that state, people will feel your heart, soul, and your commitment, and be moved to act in ways that serve the greater good.

      I will also describe how you can bring your mystical relationship with the Divine into much-needed action. We will explore mastery, and the ability to create at a high level. You might be motivated to begin or join a movement, for example, or to become an activist. As the Tao Te Ching often states, it is vital that our influence not be self-indulgent and expressed only within our own private desires. It’s important to support the many people and the environment in ways that alleviate widespread suffering and destruction of all that is good.

      The words “Tao Te Ching” mean “living and applying the Great Way.” What is the Great Way? Scholars have debated that for centuries. But, since I will be referring to the Way of the Tao frequently throughout this book, the closest explanation I can offer is to say that it is the essence of love. The Tao speaks to what often gets in the way of love; the awareness of interruption in our natural state of love is at the heart of the Tao. And with awareness, comes transformation. I quote liberally from the Tao Te Ching (Translator, Jonathan Star) so that you can experience the Way of the Tao, influencing real and lasting change.

      The Sage helps all things come to know the truth they have forgotten.

      —Tao Te Ching, Verse 64

      Power is a mystery to most of us. People often think of it as either a positive or a negative force: something that can either destroy the planet or change the world for the greater good. One dictionary definition of power is: “The ability to influence a course of events or the behavior of others”—for better or for worse.

      Throughout the many years of working with powerful people, I’ve come to recognize that the most significant outcome of power is the ability to influence. Yet influence can be fleeting and damaging if power is fueled by personal fear and egoic needs. We need not look far to see how that has played out. Greed, corruption, manipulation, and deceit are rampant among those who are driven by a need for power. They are constantly strategizing their next move to get something from someone or something. While many might consider these actions powerful, they are not an expression of true power because their influence is temporary. As the Tao Te Ching says in Verse 55, “Whatever is not Tao comes to an early end.”

      True power doesn’t come from the mind or the ego. We cannot think our way to being powerful. True power originates in the love we are born with—the only energy form that creates true lasting influence. I call it love-power because of its infinite capacity to influence. Love-power cannot be contained by the ego or the mind. In fact, the mind has no capacity to contain even the smallest grain of infinite love. The job of the mind is to be our personal computer and collector of facts; it was never meant to be the source of our true power.

      Yet Western civilization sees the mind as the source of power, confusing power with intellect. But the intellect is often intertwined with the ego, so love-based power often morphs into fear-based power, which I call distorted power. This is where destructive actions come from.

      While popular self-help books refer to the term “losing your power,” I don’t believe we can ever lose it. However, we can distort the power we are born with and close off our access to our love-power. In other words, most of us begin life with our love-power quite active—we are happy, curious, in an unending state of awe, quick to forgive, and wide open to other people and to new opportunities. But, after a few years, we inevitably experience the fear or suspicion that we are not enough as we are. This suspicion leads to thoughts and emotions that become a set pattern of behaviors, which in turn become our state of being, taking us out of our inherent pure love-power and into fear-based, distorted power.

      These patterns are so commonplace that many misinterpret negative power as “normal.” Other than condemned, premeditated acts of violence, we often perceive control, domination and force as acceptable everyday behavior—behavior that has become normalized as “who we are,” or worse yet, “who they are.” For example, if we are quick to react to a text that we consider undesirable, we don’t think of it as a misuse of our power, but as a justified tendency to be “hot-headed.” When our natural power of love becomes distorted, we turn to trying to exert power—but as we do, we end up diminishing our own power just a little more. Each time we lower the energy of love, we close ourselves off to the only true source of true positive, influential power.

      The field of quantum physics has now made speculations about energy a reality. In terms of measuring energy, our power vibrates fast or slow, depending on whether we have distorted our power or remain in our love-power. This is why we often feel that we are “losing our power.” We feel less energy physically. We feel emotions

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