A person without energy is dying.
Exhausted leaders have neglected personal energy.
4 kinds of personal energy:
- Physical energy concerns your body. Movement, rest, and nutrition impact physical energy.
- Emotional energy concerns perception. Perception produces emotion. Perceived threat produces fear, for example.
- Mental energy concerns your ability to focus, process, and make decisions.
- Spiritual energy concerns love and purpose. When compelling vision energizes you, it’s purpose-driven energy.
Energy is a web of connections. Spiritual energy, for example, connects to physical, emotional, and mental energy.
In leadership, positive energy is 4x more important than position.
3 ways to increase personal energy:
#1. Expend energy:
You are designed to expend energy, not store it. Adequate rest and proper nutrition restore energy. Too much rest and nutrition produce fatigue.
Squandered energy multiplies fatigue.
Energy used skillfully ignites vitality. When you invest in purposeful activities, vitality goes up. The more you do, the more you want to do. (Within the confines of human limitation.)
#2. Choose focus:
“Where focus goes, energy flows.” (Attributed to Tony Robbins.)
- Focus less on things happening to you and more on things you control.
- Focus on fighting-for instead of fighting-against.
- Focus on a BIG YES instead of a big no.
Purpose and resolve enable you to focus personal energy.
Joseph Campbell said, “Follow your bliss.”
#3. Define your world.
Shift perceptions from problem to opportunity. The world is filled with opportunities.
Leaders pursue opportunities. Everyone else runs around solving problems. Incremental improvement comes from solving problems.
Siezing opportunities enables exponential growth.
Money and personal energy:
Think of personal energy as money. Everything you do either spends, invests, or squanders energy.
- Spend energy to fuel momentum.
- Invest energy in meaningful action.
- Pinch pennies. Never squander energy.
Treat energy like money.
How might people increase their personal energy?
