Tuesday, August 18, 2026

How to become the most powerful presence in the room

August 18, 2026 | Read online

How to become the most powerful presence in the room

There’s something interesting I’ve noticed about genuinely powerful people:

They rarely (if ever) seem rushed.

Not necessarily physically, but mentally and emotionally.

They don't chase after every single opportunity, respond to every provocation, or try to convince everyone in the room that they belong there. It’s easy to imagine how this would create a frantic or chaotic energy that looks very much out of control.

Instead, they just…let their presence speak for itself.

And that certainty communicates something:

I am not afraid of what happens next.

That might be one of the most underrated forms of power.

Most people operate reactively from the passenger seat of life.

Something happens → they respond.

Someone questions them → they defend tooth and nail.

Someone pulls away → they chase.

An opportunity appears → they grab at it like it’s water in a desert.

Silence enters the conversation → they rush to fill it.

The problem is, that constant reaction gives other people control over your internal state. You’re never really choosing how you show up, you’re just being yanked around.

Power begins when you create a gap between what happens around you and what happens inside you.

Before responding, ask yourself:

What would I do here if I had absolutely nothing to prove?

That question greatly influences what happens next.

Maybe you speak, maybe you don't.

Maybe you pursue the opportunity, maybe you let it go.

Maybe you explain yourself, maybe you simply allow your decision to stand on its own merit.

The point isn't to become cold or detached…it's to stop allowing every external stimulus to dictate your next move.

The strongest presence in a room is rarely the person working hardest to establish their importance.

It's usually the person who seems perfectly comfortable without establishing it at all.

That comfort creates gravity…

And people feel it.

P.S. This is increasingly the work I find most valuable with private clients: not adding more tactics, but helping them evolve into the person who can navigate consequential decisions, relationships, and moments from a stronger internal position.

If that's something that’d be valuable for you right now, reply to this email and let’s discuss how I can help.

Your coach,

- James Michael Sama

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228 Park Ave S, #29976, New York, New York 10003, United States

RTF Invitation: Thomas Gold's Deep Hot Biosphere and the Evidence for Abiotic Oil

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RTF Invitation: Thomas Gold's Deep Hot Biosphere and the Evidence for Abiotic Oil

Speaker: Mike Holmes - Wednesday 8pm ET/6pm MT

Rising Tide Foundation

Aug 18

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This Wednesday, August 19 at 8pm ET/6pm MT, I will be hosting a special evening lecture for all paid subscribers who want to know about the evidence for the abiotic origins of oil (ie: The evidence that oil does not originate from dinosaurs and plants, but is in fact constantly being generated from within the bowels of the Earth itself).

The speaker will be my friend and colleague Mike Holmes- who is both an 18 year veteran oil rig worker and scholar who co-curates the Home with Holmes Substack.

Mike will be using the works of the late Thomas Gold’s Deep Hot Biosphere as the base line for his exposition on the evidence for the abiotic nature of oil and how this impacts our notions of “scarcity” and life science itself.

Click on the zoom link below to access the live interactive event:...

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Saturday, August 15, 2026

RTF invitation: From Aeschylus to Jorjani: The Promethean Conspiracy

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RTF invitation: From Aeschylus to Jorjani: The Promethean Conspiracy

A David Gosselin RTF Lecture - Sunday Aug. 16 at 2pm ET

Rising Tide Foundation

Aug 15

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This Sunday August 16, you are invited to attend a live seminar featuring my friend and colleague David Gosselin who will shed light on the two opposing versions of Prometheus which have clashed since antiquity.

Where one myth of the fire-giver and enemy of tyrants flows from the school of the great poet/statesman Aeschylus- architect of the immortal play Prometheus Bound 2500 years ago… the other darker Promethean tradition has flown out of those occult followers of Hesiod who portrayed a much darker, Luciferian image of Prometheus more recently expressed by Crowleyite Thelemists, Hellfire Club members and by the American-Persian philosopher Jason Reza Jorjani in our present world.

How do these two opposing ideas of Prometheus shape the tension between good and evil across the arc of universal history?

What would Aeschylus say to followers of Aleister Crowley and Jason Reza Jorjani if he were alive today and what does knowledge of these two traditions mean for the future of the human species?

Tune into the live interactive presentation on Sunday August 16 at 2pm Eastern Time using the Zoom link below.

Speaker bio: David Gosselin is a poet, translator, essayist and editor of the New Lyre Magazine. He publishes regularly on his Substack Age of Muses, and hosts the Escaping the Brave New World Podcast. His recent book A Renaissance or New Middle Ages: Magic, Mystery, and the Trance Formation of the West can be purchased here...