"All of us have available at all times a computer far more advanced than the most elaborate artificial intelligence machine--the human mind itself," stated Dr. David Hawkins, author of Power vs. Force. The critical crux is that we don't fully understand the mind's immense capabilities and how to effectively cultivate its power.

In the 1970s, Dr. John Diamond pioneered a new discipline called Behavioral Kinesiology, which involves investigating how the human body reacts to stimuli at a muscular level. Dr. Diamond found that muscles either gain measurable strength or weakness depending on whether a subject is presented with positive or negative stimuli.

Several years later, Dr. David Hawkins elaborated on these findings by leveraging Kinesiology testing to gauge muscular reactions and test our human instincts. These findings allowed Dr. Hawkins to better understand the human subconscious and deduce and monitor positive and negative reactions.

More specifically, Dr. Hawkins created a profile of human experience, which he calls a Map of Consciousness. He performed countless experiments to study how humans can bolster our power and influence.

Dr. Hawkins tested how our body's reaction differs when subjected to different stimuli - stimuli that ranged from classical music versus metal music, to being told a truth versus a lie. As it turns out, listening to metal music temporarily weakens our body and our subconscious is powerful enough to identify a liar.

Several others have explored the power of subconscious. Research published in Psychological Science cited similar results related to human lie detection. Scientists determined that, as compared to more-conscious mental processes, less-conscious mental processes are more accurate when it comes to predicting whether someone is telling a lie.

Those of us who love numbers will appreciate that Dr. Hawkins made the concept even more tangible by using logarithmic scale to rank different levels of consciousness.

Levels were based on the muscle reactions he observed throughout his studies, ranging from shame (0) to courage (200) to enlightenment (700+). Those emotions assigned higher numbers translated to increased power. All emotions assigned levels below 200 were deemed destructive.

So how can we take Dr. Hawkins research and apply it to business, an arena where power is perceived to be the ticket to success?

First, it's important to appreciate that Dr. Hawkins distinguished between power, which resides inside of us and force, which is dependent on what we project out onto others. Power instills influence even when we don't have direct authority.

Simon Sinek once said, "when we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders." We see this concept come to fruition in the workplace when management uses an iron fist to rule with fear or when companies are built around trust and empowerment.

According to research, leaders that don't believe in themselves will tend to apply force and fear to entice their employees to do what they want. In contrast, when true leaders understand their role beyond self interest, they inspire viral loyalty.

True leaders rely on heightened emotional intelligence (EQ) and exhibit a willingness to confront their own feelings, while instilling empathy within others. They harness diversity and empower people to work together from the ground up. They set their egos aside and innervate the team to reach objectives.

Other studies support these results. Dr. Travis Bradberry found that 90% of top performers have high EQ. What's more, EQ alone is responsible for 58% of job performance.

It is difficult to deny that effective leadership and power needs to be cultivated from within. Force may reap short term results, but it cripples you from building a strong foundation of trust and loyalty amongst your team.