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The Power Paradox

How We Gain and Lose Influence

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The Power Paradox

Written by: Dacher Keltner
Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith
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About this listen

A revolutionary and timely reconsideration of everything we know about power. Celebrated UC Berkeley psychologist Dr. Dacher Keltner argues that compassion and selflessness enable us to have the most influence over others, and the result is power as a force for good in the world.

It is taken for granted that power corrupts. This is reinforced culturally by everything from Machiavelli to contemporary politics. But how do we get power? And how does it change our behavior?

So often, in spite of our best intentions, we lose our hard-won power. Enduring power comes from empathy and giving. Above all, power is given to us by other people. This is what all too often we forget and what Dr. Keltner sets straight. This is the crux of the power paradox: By fundamentally misunderstanding the behaviors that helped us to gain power in the first place, we set ourselves up to fall from power. We can't retain power because we've never understood it correctly - until now. Power isn't the capacity to act in cruel and uncaring ways; it is the ability to do good for others, expressed in daily life, and itself a good a thing.

Dr. Keltner lays out exactly - in 20 original "Power Principles" - how to retain power, why power can be a demonstrably good thing, and the terrible consequences of letting those around us languish in powerlessness.

Includes bonus PDF with images, graphs, and exercises.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2016 Dacher Keltner (P)2016 Penguin Audio
Management & Leadership Popular Culture Psychology Relationships Business Compassion
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What the critics say

“An innovative look at the idea of power.... [This] paradigm-shifting book challenges readers to find a new level of awareness about themselves and the leaders they choose to follow.” (Publishers Weekly)

The Power Paradox, compelling and eye-opening from start to finish, will change your view of what power is. Power turns out to be a subtler force than it seems, influencing us for better and worse more than we realize. This book explains how people get power, keep it, and keep from being corrupted by it. The good news is the radical claim at the heart of the book: that the best way to get and keep power is to use it for the greater good. This pathbreaking book is full of fascinating and little-known findings, and Dacher Keltner’s many years of creative work on the psychology of status and influence make him uniquely qualified to write it.” (Robert Wright, author of The Evolution of God and The Moral Animal)

“Dacher Keltner shares insights into many aspects of power, including afternoon tea in Britain and how Lincoln won the presidency. His combination of academic sophistication and clear style delivers a new concept of power in our society today that is provocative and intriguing.” (Sheryl WuDunn, coauthor of Half the Sky and A Path Appears)

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