The Alignment of Posture, Stance and Position
Chidimma Stella Nwafor
Title: Here I am, Again II 2023 Runner up of the Kuenyenhia Prize for Contemporary African Art, 2023.
I'm tryna flex
Truckbed made of Cedarwood
This where I count my checks
We just got it painted baby please don't make a mess
Look inside my cup, I'm so confused - where's the rest
Oh sh@! don't forget
The drink don't need no mix…
- The drink don’t need no mix
Country and hip-hop artist Shaboozey, 2024
Last week, I listened to my good friend Rebecca Bell, a psychologist and faith entrepreneur, speak about PPS.
PPS, I hear you ask?
Yes, PPS stands for Posture, Position, and Stance. I had never considered the difference between the three until I heard her speak.
As I listened, all my life decisions, including my numerous failures (and recent successes), began to flash through my mind. I realised that at the root, I had failed in one of three things: my posture, my position, or my stance.
Why did I come so close to closing multimillion-dollar deals in my entrepreneurial days but never manage to cross the finish line? Using Rebecca’s talk as a foundation, the clarity of all three ideas became clear to me:
Posture:
I heard a guttural scream behind me. It made me jump. As I quickly turned back from the rowing machine, I saw a massive, bearded bloke who had dropped a heavy weight and was flexing his muscles in the mirror.
He was posturing.
As I began to look at him with disdain, the proverbial “remove the log from your eye before you remove the speck from somebody else’s “came to me. How often have I ‘postured’ on social media, in front of friends, or the mirror?
Posturing gives the outer world an impression of what we may (or may not) be inside. It helps us create and control the image we want people to see.
We call it integrity or authenticity if that image truly reflects who we are inside. We call that duplicity if the image deflects from who we are inside.
As a chronic people-pleaser, I continually battle for my posture to reflect who I am inside and to avoid duplicity. I also struggle to avoid the reality that was my nickname in high school: Amoeba. Amoebas contort themselves to fit whatever environment they find themselves in. If we want to stand out from the crowd and follow our values, we must first declare our stance...
Stance:
In her recent, brilliant 2025 book Defy, Dr. Sunita Sah recounts the often-heard story of George Floyd, but she offers a different perspective. When Derek Chauvin held his knee against the neck of hapless George Floyd, two other police officers were also restraining him. One of them, a Black rookie policeman, Alex Keung, who joined the force to bridge the deteriorating relationship between the police and the Black and Latino community, felt deeply distressed as he witnessed what was happening to George Floyd. He had the power to prevent George Floyd's death. He checked George Floyd’s pulse and found that he had none, yet he continued to obey Chauvin, whose knee remained on Floyd’s neck until he finally died.
As hard as it is to accept, the Black policeman, Alex Keung, was fully complicit in the murder of George Floyd by failing to act on his stated values.
We can posture all we want, but real success never happens until we take a stance- when we stand by our sworn values through thick and thin, despite the tension we feel. Defiance, or as my friend and author Joe Barnes calls being a ‘rebel’ in his book The Rebel Code, demands guts. It requires us to say no when the whole world around us is screaming yes.
As Dr. Sah says, we all feel that ‘tension’ when there is a conflict between the environment and our values. I have experienced it many times. Yet, on numerous occasions, I have overlooked my values and stance and complied. Because of that poor decision, I have felt what I call, in my book Pay the Price, ‘green flag pain’.
But just having a stance is not enough. If we really believe in our stance, we need to display it for people to see, and that involves moving our position...
Position:
Posture is an external manifestation which may or may not reveal our true inner values.
Stance is an internal manifestation of our true values and what we believe inside.
Position combines both our posture and stance. Having a position reveals our willingness to move from where we are to where we believe we should be. All Alex Keung had to do to become a hero and align with his values in that instance was to literally adjust his position.
I have met so many social media influencers who have the right posture and stance but have not moved their position. And when I meet them in real life, I am surprised. This year, in 2025, I finally decided that if I were to maintain my gains from 2024, I needed to move my position toward where I wanted to be.
When our posture, stance, and position align, we are ready to take on the world and succeed on our own terms.
It is then, and only then, that we can find our passion, love our work, and build a richer life, as bestselling author and serial entrepreneur Simon Squibb writes in his book, ‘’What’s Your Dream?’’
It’s never too late to start. I have.
Whilst you're here:
1. Work with me. I can public-speak, mentor, write or consult. Hop onto www.stevenadjei.co.uk for a taste, read what people say about my work, and holler at stevenadjei@me.com for a chat. I'd love some feedback on the above article as well.
2. Buy my book. You won't regret it. It's won several awards and has been a #1 Amazon best-seller in EIGHTEEN different categories in multiple countries. (https://amzn.eu/d/3rHZVFw)
If you already have, I'd love an honest review on Amazon. Reviews really do help us out.:)
Please watch this space for information on my second book, Chasing Permanence, published by Routledge, a world-leading publisher.
3. Talk to me. I won't judge. My most vital values are empathy and resilience. As someone who's experienced much pain, I can help you overcome (or manage) your business pain and turn it into victory.
4. From 2025, this newsletter will have a more business-oriented tone in its articles in preparation for the release of my new book, Chasing Permanence. The audio version of Pay The Price and corresponding courses will accompany both books. Stay tuned.
Let's talk!
Rooting for you,
Steven.
If you HAVE bought and read the book, please leave a review on Amazon + share it on social media. :)
Thank you!
Steven
