Our political leaders are giving us the soup. The media drama that hijacks us daily as hostages to squeeze their negotiations makes the last few weeks since the elections seem like years. But what happens to these guys when they are in power?
This week saw the launch of a new book of poetry by Antonio GarriguesAmores vivos, amores muertos" (Living loves, dead loves). It was an intimate and heartfelt event in which several of his poems were recited. Carlos Rodríguez Brown He read the last one, addressed to our political leaders, and as he read it, two tears slipped down my cheeks without my noticing. We all left in shock.
Juan Fernández-Aceytuno, director of Sociedad de Tasación, asked us to Mario Alonso Puig and me, "What is wrong with these people?" And as it was a cocktail party where we were going to be interrupted at any moment, the three of us agreed to sum it up: "They lose their way when they come to power".
The question is why. None of us thinks we will lose our way if we are suddenly given the top job in our organisation, and yet it can happen to anyone. We only realise it - the fewer of us, that is - after the event, when we look back and reflect on our own excesses.
I think the easiest way to understand the effect of power is to imagine it as a current of energy of oceanic proportions over which we must flow or surf in some direction. Those who have not had power cannot understand what it feels like to have it.. It's like a kid on the sand on the beach giving his opinion on what the world surfing champions who are risking their lives at every moment on waves tens of metres high are doing wrong. The adrenaline rush and the physical effort they put in are literally life and death.
Being in charge of a country or rubbing shoulders with the global elite of the G20 has the same effect. On the one hand, so much power under our feet throws us off balance physically and mentally. Our emotional reactions are so intense that they overwhelm us and our minds slip away to some pleasurable place of fantasy. The pressure of the telephone, the enormous opportunities that open up before us and the terrible blackmails that come after us like hungry sharks, burn our skin so much and rob us of sleep, that our mind escapes into a state of self-inflated inebriation. Just like a line of coke (I imagine).
That is why power is a drugBecause as it quickly saturates or drowns us, our mind escapes to a scenario in which we are supreme and invincible. It turns us into supermen and superwomen so that we can watch from the skies what is happening down there among the mortals. And this, you will find very curious, is basically what victims of violent trauma do when their mind does not know how to cope with the sensory reality of what is happening to them. They detach from the body and view the scene from the ceiling.
Power, therefore, challenges us to our utmost limit every moment of every day. It intoxicates us with self-enchanted pleasure and enslaves us with its pressure and its unpredictable movements, thus revealing to all and sundry any defects of form or substance in our personality.
Learning to surf
So, for example, we have seen again how Nicolas Sarkozy struggles to look taller than his supermodel wife in this week's Paris Match photos. How can a man with the success and charisma he has still feel self-conscious about his height? Marrying the queen of Parisian beauty and sophistication elevated him socially, but in doing so subjected him to the scrutiny of his own self-conscious gaze. Nobody cares more about Sarkozy's height than Sarkozy.
The more power, the stronger the wave we have to surf. And the easier it is to get knocked off our feet, lose our footing or break, or even fall off our brand new Buzz Lightyear President's board: "To infinity and beyond! aviator glasses in Falcon pose and all.
The challenge is, therefore, to learn to surf the wave of power without becoming unsettled, saturated or drowning in the intensity of the emotions of a position of maximum influence. Years of experience with all its upsets, deceptions and failures help a lot in this. If you do crazy things for love, you also do crazy things to stay in power.
Just like a crush that is too intense, there is nothing like a huge heartbreak to sober you up suddenly and make you realise all the stupid and/or terrible things you have done in order to win the gunfight at any cost. And if one suffers several disappointments, one gets less and less lost in one's fantasies, learning over the years to accept the realities.
If I am going to give advice to the ocean surfers of the G20, here from the disempowered beach of executive coaching in a country very resistant to self-questioning, I can only say one thing: Everything you invest in personal growth will prepare you to surf big, complex waves. Coaching - the kind that questions us and makes us see new things; not the kind that flatters us and promises to solve our problem -, practising meditation and mindfulness to better manage our own reactions and emotions, regularly retreating to reflective spaces, are the tools that work.
You learn to surf by surfing. If you analyse what went wrong every time you get off the board, you get better at catching waves. Without miracles or magic. With effort and time, those who know how to always look in the mirror to find points of improvement end up flowing with real tsunamis of power without holding on to them or getting hung up. And these champions of influence surfing are those leaders who make an impact with their eyes and serve their people from the heart.
Pino Bethencourt
Coach and founder of Club Comprometidos