You Think You Have Power. Do You?
What if most of what we call power is not actually power at all? In this episode, Chisom Udeze challenges common assumptions about power, distinguishing it from confidence, influence, and representation, and introduces a practical framework for understanding how power is built, exercised, and sustained. The episode concludes with a Power Audit to help you identify where power truly sits in your own life—and what you may need to build next.
With Chisom Udeze, Solo
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Show Notes
What if most of what we call power is not actually power at all?
We often confuse power with confidence, charisma, visibility, status, access, representation, influence, or simply having a seat at the table. But none of those things necessarily tell us who can decide what happens, whose decisions become reality, or who can make other people adjust around them.
In this episode, Chisom Udeze takes apart the language of empowerment and builds a more demanding definition of power from the ground up. She explores the difference between agency and power, the systems that impose outcomes without consent, and five distinct ways power can be built.
The episode also asks the harder question that comes after acquiring power: what is it for? Because gaining power is not the same as changing the conditions that made power necessary in the first place.
You will leave with a practical Power Audit to help you identify where power currently sits in your own life, what is being decided for you, where your dependencies are, and what you may need to build next.
This is not a conversation about feeling powerful. It is about whether anything actually changes.