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“A powerful person is one who brings the past to an outcome, settling all its unresolved issues. A strong person is one who carries the past into the future, showing that none of its issues is capable of resolution. Power is concerned with what has already happened; strength with what has yet to happen. Power is finite in amount, strength cannot be measured because it is an opening and not a closing act. Power refers to the freedom persons have within limits, strength to the freedoms persons have with limits.
Power will always be restricted to a relatively small number of selected persons. Anyone can be strong.”[1]
- — James P Carse, Finite and Infinite Games
There are many gems in James P. Carse’s masterwork (almost all of them missed by Simon Sinek’s threadbare cash-in, Infinite Games, by the way) but the distinction he draws between power and strength is fantastic.
Think of power as accumulated, finite resource; a historical acquisition that is depleted by use, the way a battery loses its charge or a hydro-dam runs out of water.
Strength is prospective: it regenerates energy rather than using it; is somehow anti-fragile, a muscle that grows the more you exercise it and give of it. There is a good word for it in Maori: mana.
The personal sacrifices one makes in the name of a wider cause; the good deeds you do when no-one sees, without asking for return the time and effort expended to acquire skills and experience: these give strength not power.