Academic LaNysha Adams’ thesis in ME POWER is simple and powerful. In order to live happy, productive lives, we need to be empowered, and truly know ourselves. Adams’ agenda is to help the reader to realize their potential through “me power”: we should embrace our barriers, focus on our strengths, speak for our life, choose our guides, and ritualize our reflection. Adams is at her most persuasive when critiquing the American educational system. Positing that the system in its current form results in too many students graduating from college unprepared for the rigors of life off campus, Adams bemoans the “cookie cutter” approach that “[doesn’t] allow for the kind of personal growth and empowered learning many people need”. Adams might have added the extraordinary expense of a university education in today’s America, which can leave graduates paying off debt for decades. Some would contend that the notion that “the drive for disciplinary knowledge over self-knowledge is based on an obsolete learning model” seems based on a false dichotomy; I am not sure that many, if any, academics these days truly hold that one should put one’s own journey of self-discovery on hold in order to hit the bookshelves.

But there is no denying Adams’ thrust – what holds far too many of us back is the reluctance to fully understand who we are and what we want, and to internalize the criticisms and limiting opinions of others. Adams’ recounting of a disturbing incident during her student days, when as a graduate student she was dissuaded from pursuing doctoral studies by an overbearing advisor despite achieving excellent grades and being a Gates Scholar (she defied the professor and gained her doctorate anyway), is a depressing lesson in how the words of those in authority can perpetuate inequalities and discourage those wanting to excel. The emphasis here is firmly on self-discovery, not through bucket lists or pursuing peak experiences, but through simple contemplation of our wants, needs, and goals. Adams is impressively broad in her sources, crossing disciplines in order to bring some impressive evidence to bear to show how we can defeat ourselves through such machinations as ANTs, or automatic negative thoughts, a term borrowed from psychology.

The book is less convincing on those (thankfully rare) occasions when it swaps clear-headed analysis for obscure language. To some extent this is a quibble of terminology. Of course Adams has a point when it comes to motivation being central to self-actualization; there can be few of us who have not quailed when faced with a seemingly immovable obstacle or adverse circumstance in our lives. But one feels that point could have been conveyed far more resoundingly without recourse to New Age-esque notions of “manifesting energy” and “high-vibrating energy”, neither of which are defined, and which detract from objectivity somewhat. Adams is also a keen advocate of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a tool for understanding oneself. The MBTI continues to be used in a variety of professional contexts, but has come in for sustained criticism due to its inability to predict behavior, and because some of the “dichotomies” it presents may not be perceived as dichotomic at all. Adams acknowledges the former criticism, but not the latter, and the point that most of America’s Fortune 500 companies employ it in some form amounts to an argument from authority. These drawbacks do not invalidate ME POWER as a source of inspiration. In an age where societal roles and the workplace are in a state of perpetual flux, knowing precisely who you are is more important than ever; Adams know this, and talks up resilience, perseverance, and learning.

In its quiet insistence on the centrality of self-knowledge, LaNysha Adams’ ME POWER is a guide to empowerment, and benefits from clear thinking and positivity, offering a powerful message for today’s turbulent times.

~Craig Jones for IndieReader