Gaining Personal Power by Association. Example
I personally tried "Power by association". I teamed up with someone else and together we agreed that whenever some other person malign us verbally, we both will combat him.
Several times when somebody tried to malign me, my associate replied him and tried to create a defence against him. We did this for protection against evil not to become an evil and it was successful.
So as for as gaining a personal power is concerned I will suggest option 2 in an area where there is lot of human interaction.