Life at full power online. Living at Full Power - Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz. Living at Full Power - Book Review

Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz

Life at full capacity. Energy management is the key to high performance, health and happiness

Preface

Cure for downshifting

Many have been waiting for this book for a long time. They waited, not yet suspecting its existence, title or authors. They waited, leaving the office with a greenish face, drinking liters of coffee in the morning, not finding the strength to take on the next priority task, struggling with depression and despondency.

And finally they waited. There were specialists who convincingly, comprehensively and practically answered the question of how to manage the level of personal energy. Moreover, in various aspects - physical, intellectual, spiritual... What is especially valuable are practitioners who have trained leading American athletes, FBI special forces and top managers of Fortune 500 companies.

Admit it, reader, when you came across another article about downshifting, the thought probably crossed your mind: “Maybe I should give up everything and go somewhere to Goa or to a hut in the Siberian taiga?..” The desire to give up everything and send everyone to any of the short and succinct Russian words is a sure sign of lack of energy.

The problem of energy management is one of the key ones in self-management. One of the participants in the Russian Time Management community once came up with the formula “T1ME” management - from the words “time, information, money, energy”: “time, information, money, energy.” Each of these four resources is critical to personal effectiveness, success and development. And if there is quite a lot of literature on time, money and information management, then in the field of energy management there was a clear gap. Which is finally starting to fill up.

In many ways, of course, you can argue with the authors. Undoubtedly, they, like many Western specialists, tend to absolutize their approach and strictly oppose it to the “old paradigms” (for which it is in fact not a negation at all, but an organic continuation and development). But this does not in any way detract from the main advantages of the book - relevance, simplicity, technology.

Read, get everything done and fill your Time with Energy!

Gleb Arkhangelsky, General Director of the Time Organization company, creator of the Russian Time Management community www.improvement.ru

Part one

Full Power Driving Forces

1. At full power

The most precious resource is energy, not time

We live in a digital age. We are running at full speed, our rhythms are accelerating, our days are cut into bytes and bits. We prefer breadth to depth and quick response to thoughtful decisions. We glide across the surface, ending up in dozens of places for a few minutes, but never staying anywhere for long. We fly through life without pausing to think about who we really want to become. We are connected, but we are disconnected.

Most of us are just trying to do the best we can. When demands exceed our capabilities, we make decisions that help us break through the web of problems but eat up our time. We sleep little, eat on the go, fuel ourselves with caffeine and calm ourselves down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with unrelenting demands at work, we become irritable and our attention is easily distracted. After a long day of work, we return home completely exhausted and perceive family not as a source of joy and restoration, but as just another problem.

We have surrounded ourselves with diaries and task lists, handhelds and smartphones, instant messaging systems and “reminders” on computers. We believe this should help us manage our time better. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask, and we demonstrate our willingness to work from dawn to dusk everywhere, like a medal for bravery. The term “24/7” describes a world where work never ends. We use the words “obsession” and “madness” not to describe madness, but to talk about the past working day. Feeling that there will never be enough time, we try to pack as many things as possible into each day. But even the most effective time management does not guarantee that we will have enough energy to get everything done.

Are you familiar with such situations?

– You are in an important four-hour meeting where not a second is wasted. But the last two hours you spend the rest of your energy only on fruitless attempts to concentrate;

– You carefully planned all 12 hours of the upcoming working day, but by the middle of it you completely lost energy and became impatient and irritable;

– You are going to spend the evening with the children, but are so distracted by thoughts about work that you cannot understand what they want from you;

– You, of course, remember about your wedding anniversary (the computer reminded you of this this afternoon), but you forgot to buy a bouquet, and you no longer have the strength to leave the house to celebrate.

Energy, not time, is the main currency of high efficiency. This idea revolutionized our understanding of what drives high performance over time. She led our clients to reconsider the principles of managing their own lives - both personal and professional. Everything we do, from walking with our children to communicating with colleagues to making important decisions, requires energy. This seems obvious, but it is what we most often forget. Without the right quantity, quality and focus of energy, we endanger any task we undertake.

Each of our thoughts or emotions has energetic consequences - for worse or for better. The final assessment of our lives is not based on the amount of time we spend on this planet, but on the basis of the energy we invest in that time. The main idea of ​​this book is quite simple: effectiveness, health and happiness are based on skillful energy management.

Of course, there are bad bosses, toxic work environments, difficult relationships, and life crises. However, we can control our energy much more completely and deeply than we imagine. The number of hours in a day is constant, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us depends on us. And this is our most valuable resource. The more responsibility we take for the energy we bring into the world, the stronger and more effective we become. And the more we blame other people and circumstances, the more our energy becomes negative and destructive.

If you could wake up tomorrow with more positive and focused energy that you could invest in your work and family, would that improve your life? If you are a leader or manager, would your positive energy change the work environment around you? If your employees could rely on more of your energy, would the relationships between them change and would this have an impact on the quality of your own services?

Leaders are the conductors of organizational energy—in their companies and families. They inspire or demoralize those around them—first by how effectively they manage their own energy, and then by how they mobilize, focus, invest, and renew the collective energy of their employees. Skillful management of energy, individual and collective, makes possible what we call the achievement of full power.

To be fully energized, we must be physically energized, emotionally engaged, mentally focused, and united in spirit to achieve goals that lie beyond our selfish interests. Working at full capacity begins with a desire to start work earlier in the morning, an equal desire to return home in the evening, and drawing a clear line between work and home. It means the ability to immerse yourself in your mission, whether it's solving a creative problem, leading a group of employees, spending time with the people you love, or having fun. Working at full capacity requires a fundamental lifestyle change.

Living at Full Power examines the four main types of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. These energies are interconnected, they can be spent and accumulated.

Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz - About the Authors

Tony Schwartz is an American journalist and writer, author of several best-selling books, founder and CEO of the company.

Schwartz began his career as a journalist in 1975 and worked in American media for 25 years. He wrote a column for The New York Post, was an assistant editor at Newsweek, a reporter for The New York Times, and a staff writer for New York Magazine and Esquire. In 1988, he co-authored with Donald Trump the book “The Art of the Deal,” which became a global bestseller. In 1995, Tony Schwartz published What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America.

In 1998, he co-authored the book Risking Failure, Surviving Success with the future head of The Walt Disney Company, Michael Eisner. From 1993 to 2003, Tony Schwartz led the training company LGE Performance Systems as CEO. In 1999, co-authored with Jim Loehr, chairman of the board of directors of LGE, he published the book “One hundred percent! How to organize your workday and succeed in business" (English: The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy Not Time).

The book became a No. 1 bestseller according to the Wall Street Journal, topped the New York Times bestseller list for eight weeks, and was translated into 28 languages, including Russian. In 2003, Schwartz founded The Energy Project, and in 2005 a European branch was opened with headquarters near London. May 2013 Schwartz writes a weekly column - DealBook - in the financial news section of The New York Times. (c) Wikipedia

Jim Loehr, Chairman and CEO of the Human Performance Institute, is widely known for his work in the field of performance psychology. His training center's clients include hundreds of world-class athletes, police and secret services, rescue teams and FBI special forces. Since 1993, his center has been a successful applies in practice independently developed principles of training not only famous athletes, but also senior managers. The book's authors, Jim Lauer and Tony Schwartz, provide a compelling explanation of how to do this and why it's important. In addition, they offer new approaches to managing our power and talk about various aspects that are essential for the formation of reserves of positive energy.

Life at full capacity— Book Review

Energy

We all often experience fatigue, irritability, lack of motivation and other symptoms. According to the authors, this is due to the loss of positive energy. Therefore, people must have a balance between energy expended and energy recovered. Often our efficiency lies not in the ability to work long and hard, but also in the ability to relax during breaks.

There are four main types of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It is the interconnected and harmonious work of all these energy reserves that ensures life at full capacity. Energy can range from positive to negative, high to low, as the illustration below reflects. The greatest effectiveness is demonstrated by those whose energy runs between high positive energy (active work) and low positive energy (rest and recovery).

Physical Energy

Physical energy is one of the most important energies. It fuels all other types of energy. Therefore, it is very important for people engaged in intellectual work to shift their attention to physical energy by performing some kind of physical exercise.

Physical energy also includes breathing, proper nutrition and sleep.

Emotional Energy

Emotional energy includes your favorite activities and hobbies, hobbies, going to the theater, cinema, traveling and much more. Emotional energy is what you want to do! It is very important to be able to shift your attention to emotional energy.

Mental Energy

Mental energy helps us develop our personality and not stand still. It is worth noting here that our brain is very plastic and we can constantly improve its functioning by giving it mental exercise and learning something new.

Spiritual Energy

By spiritual energy, the authors do not understand the religious component, but our values ​​and goals. Spiritual energy makes us act, gives us perseverance and perseverance. The main component of spiritual energy is our character, which needs to be cultivated in ourselves.

Training and practice

Setting a goal

Human development occurs from the bottom up - from the physical level to the spiritual. However, changes must be directed in the opposite direction, starting from the spiritual level.

By setting interesting goals for themselves, they become a powerful tool for accumulating positive energy. The main thing to remember is that the goal should be positive, the goal should be yours, the goal should not be selfish.

It is also important to experience true values ​​in our characters - kindness, mercy, care, etc. Values ​​become our virtues when we act in accordance with them.

Be honest with yourself

Pay attention to your negative and positive sides. Studying yourself should become a constant habit. Listen to your inner self. Be flexible - try to critically evaluate your established ideas

Positive rituals - energy management tools

According to various estimates, we can instill in ourselves any habit within a period of 7 to 30 days.

You need to step out of your comfort zone and instill rituals gradually so as not to break down too quickly. There is no need to take on too many commitments at once, promising to completely change your life from the new year or from Monday. Try to concentrate on one important change in a certain time period.

Rituals based on deep values ​​are the best tools for energy management. They allow us to consolidate good habits, define new priorities, change our lifestyle and train the “muscles” of our energies.

Anything happens in life. Sometimes you feel like a victim with no way to change anything. In fact, there is always a choice: to perceive yourself as a victim of fate, or as the master of your reality. William Urey, in his book Make a Deal with Yourself, says that we always have a choice. It is necessary to understand that responsibility to oneself has nothing to do with self-blame. When you blame yourself, you engage in self-flagellation and judgment: “How could I be such a jerk at work!” Self-responsibility looks to the future for solutions: “What can I do to become a better person?”

Don't label yourself as a victim

One day, a student in Jerusalem was hiking in the Golan Heights and stepped on a mine left there after the Six-Day War. Barely surviving, he lost his leg. In the hospital, when he was full of grief, anger and self-pity, the soldier in the next bed said to him: “Jerry, this will be the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Or the best. It's up to you".

And Jerry took responsibility for his life, stopped feeling sorry for himself and seeing himself as a victim of circumstances. “I was completely unhappy with the image of poor, unhappy Jerry, who allowed one unfortunate situation to erase the rest of his life,” the guy wrote in his book “I Won’t Break.” He co-founded a global company helping victims of war and terror. His work helped earn the International Campaign to Ban Landmines the Nobel Peace Prize.

Control the experience

Yes, you only partially choose the circumstances, but your experience is completely under your control. Only you choose how to interpret what is happening. If a deal or negotiation turns out to be a failure, you can blame others, or learn lessons, draw conclusions and take on a new business. In the event of a divorce, you can blame anyone but yourself and let the event define your experience, or you can listen to your feelings, accept them and move on.

Own your relationships

When you take responsibility for a relationship, you are in control. Think about relationships that make you uncomfortable. Have you ever felt like you wanted to blame the other person and cast yourself as the victim? This is a very common practice, but each conflict can be viewed from different angles. Try to recognize yourself as part of this problematic relationship. It takes two to create a mess, but it only takes one to start making a difference.

For example, if your ex-wife calls you, you shouldn't think, “Oh, no, it's her. Now she will tell me that I don’t care about the children at all, and I will again get angry and offended by her. She always does this!” Instead, you can create the conditions for a new story to develop by accepting the role of a person who is responsible for his own actions, but does not take on other people's problems. You can change everything with this conversation. Your ex won't attack because you won't be her target anymore.

NAOS technique

The most important source of power is the best alternative to negotiated consensus (NAOS). Use it when you can't get what you expect. For example, if you participate in an interview and fail, your best alternative would be to look for a new position. NAOS will give you confidence: regardless of the outcome of the negotiations, you have a good alternative. This way you are less dependent on your opponent.

Think about the internal alternative in the same way. You are able to take care of yourself regardless of the actions of others. In the interview example, the external NEOS is looking for another job offer, and the internal NEOS is the commitment that you will take care of yourself no matter what. The key phrase is “no matter what.” NAOS is your duty to stop blaming yourself and circumstances for your dissatisfaction, take responsibility and accept yourself no matter what.

Create your own happiness

You change the way you perceive the world and immediately feel better. You are much more resilient to shock than you think. Your desires and worries are usually exaggerated because you set yourself an unattainable goal. Sometimes you look for happiness around you, but in fact it is in you. Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right when he wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that people are only as happy as they decide to be.”

Who is responsible for satisfying basic psychological needs? If you believe that someone else is, you give them your power. Self-responsibility gives enormous energy. The blame game makes you a victim. Accept this fact and you can live to your fullest potential.

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to change your life, but something always stopped you?

Today there is no time, too much fatigue, unfinished tasks, bad mood...

However, absolutely everything that we see around us is a projection of our internal state onto the external world. But how can you start living life to the fullest?

It is very important to pay attention to what is happening inside us:

1. It is important to form new habits and maintain them.
2. It is important to learn to keep track of all the good ideas that come to your mind about your life, and be sure to continue them! If you want to start playing sports, start from today; if you want to start working on a new project, start it right now.

Of course, it is necessary to take into account the rhythms that always accompany us in our lives. As you have noticed, we always start doing something new when we are on the rise.

There is a lot of excitement, inspiration, anticipation - this is how we start any business. It is this novelty that attracts and invigorates us.

Emotional hole after the climb

But after this burst of energy there is always some decline. The main catch is to be able to maintain yourself in a state of inspiration.

• Criticism and dissatisfaction are the main enemies of all endeavors. If we don’t monitor our condition, they appear out of habit, no matter what we do.

We are very good at feeling bad. When we find ourselves in some kind of pit, depression, laziness, we immediately begin to scold ourselves. We are drowning in a familiar swamp, from which it is difficult to get out.

Fear of moving forward

Try right now to remember what you thought about yourself at that moment when you didn’t want to do anything. What were you thinking to yourself?

1. Realizing that you are faced with a serious task, you suddenly begin to realize the full responsibility of the situation and slow down, even recoil back at the mere thought of it.
2. I want to plunge into the world of melancholy, to feel small and insignificant, but freed from the obligation to go all the way towards my goal.
3. Suddenly you think whether you need all this, maybe you live well with the amount of money you have now.
4. You suddenly become lazy, as if all your energy is spent just thinking about something new.

How do limiting attitudes manifest themselves?

• You understand that in order to earn money, you will have to work tirelessly. Is this really necessary? You start looking for excuses.
• Maybe you always thought that you don’t need to get money, your husband will earn money - why did you even get involved in this game, because others can perfectly increase their income.
• Also, the fear is that you do not have enough awareness and responsibility, while successful people have enough of this. You think that you are a failure and nothing will work out.
• Some people develop allergies due to stress, you begin to get sick more often, for example, your neck gets stuck - the body resists new actions.
• In fact, you will experience downright pleasure from the realization that you cannot fulfill your plans, you have no strength, no time, you don’t know how, and so on.

Such behavior is a child’s reaction: when in childhood our parents did everything for us.

There are no arms, no legs, I can’t do anything. No responsibility, no worries!

We have a whole bunch of excuses: I don’t want to, I’m afraid, I can’t. We will discuss the situation with the husband and partner in another article: the possibilities of earning and attracting money with the help of men.

At this stage, you can see what is stopping you from developing your projects and starting to live the way you have always dreamed. Start life to the fullest!

Now you can find these reasons, choose how to replace old settings and, as a result, you will begin to maintain yourself in a new state. Or you can always stay with the old one. Of course, new installations are difficult to stick.

The main thing is not to give up

Remembering the conversation about habits, you know that they are formed in twenty-one or, even better, forty-five days. All habits are important to maintain every day.

• Do exercises - continue, develop a sense of responsibility for yourself.
• Get into the habit of using .

It is important not to quit what you started, to be attentive to yourself.

Don't let your soul get lazy

We always give ourselves some slack, and one of the rules of successful people is not to let yourself relax.

Rain, blizzard, blizzard, flood - they still go to work and do what they decided to devote a certain time of their lives to.

• Women's excuses give us the opportunity not to stress.
• Our emotions jump, and our mood is very unstable.
• Women are easily hurt, they are so sensitive.

On the one hand, this dignity, such manifestations allow us to be so sensual and sensitive in life, but in terms of work, excessive sensitivity very often interferes.

First, you can keep a notebook of research on your excuses if you want.

Just to write them down, cross them out, work with them somehow, crumple them up, throw them away. It is important to see them very consciously and carefully, to notice when they bloom in lush colors in your head.

Secondly, don't beat yourself up about them.

Do not blame yourself or judge yourself under any circumstances. Just note their existence, treat them neutrally. You look for them so you can throw them away so you can do something with them.

How to work with affirmations?

Many people are interested in the question of whether affirmations need to be spoken out loud or whether they can be mentally reproduced. You should say them out loud, while you interact more with the outside world.

It’s great to say prayers and mantras out loud. I have no doubt that everyone has some moments when they can do this.

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So, it is important not to give up, not to stop there. Even if the achievements are not so tangible for you. You need to be able to enjoy what happens.

Current page: 1 (book has 11 pages in total) [available reading passage: 2 pages]

Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz
Life at full capacity. Energy management is the key to high performance, health and happiness

Preface

Cure for downshifting

Many have been waiting for this book for a long time. They waited, not yet suspecting its existence, title or authors. They waited, leaving the office with a greenish face, drinking liters of coffee in the morning, not finding the strength to take on the next priority task, struggling with depression and despondency.

And finally they waited. There were specialists who convincingly, comprehensively and practically answered the question of how to manage the level of personal energy. Moreover, in various aspects - physical, intellectual, spiritual... What is especially valuable are practitioners who have trained leading American athletes, FBI special forces and top managers of Fortune 500 companies.

Admit it, reader, when you came across another article about downshifting, the thought probably crossed your mind: “Maybe I should give up everything and go somewhere to Goa or to a hut in the Siberian taiga?..” The desire to give up everything and send everyone to any of the short and succinct Russian words is a sure sign of lack of energy.

The problem of energy management is one of the key ones in self-management. One of the participants in the Russian Time Management community once came up with the formula “T1ME” management - from the words “time, information, money, energy”: “time, information, money, energy.” Each of these four resources is critical to personal effectiveness, success and development. And if there is quite a lot of literature on time, money and information management, then in the field of energy management there was a clear gap. Which is finally starting to fill up.

In many ways, of course, you can argue with the authors. Undoubtedly, they, like many Western specialists, tend to absolutize their approach and strictly oppose it to the “old paradigms” (for which it is in fact not a negation at all, but an organic continuation and development). But this does not in any way detract from the main advantages of the book - relevance, simplicity, technology.

Read, get everything done and fill your Time with Energy!

Gleb Arkhangelsky, General Director of the Time Organization company, creator of the Russian Time Management community www.improvement.ru

Part one
Full Power Driving Forces

1. At full power

We live in a digital age. We are running at full speed, our rhythms are accelerating, our days are cut into bytes and bits. We prefer breadth to depth and quick response to thoughtful decisions. We glide across the surface, ending up in dozens of places for a few minutes, but never staying anywhere for long. We fly through life without pausing to think about who we really want to become. We are connected, but we are disconnected.

Most of us are just trying to do the best we can. When demands exceed our capabilities, we make decisions that help us break through the web of problems but eat up our time. We sleep little, eat on the go, fuel ourselves with caffeine and calm ourselves down with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with unrelenting demands at work, we become irritable and our attention is easily distracted. After a long day of work, we return home completely exhausted and perceive family not as a source of joy and restoration, but as just another problem.

We have surrounded ourselves with diaries and task lists, handhelds and smartphones, instant messaging systems and “reminders” on computers. We believe this should help us manage our time better. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask, and we demonstrate our willingness to work from dawn to dusk everywhere, like a medal for bravery. The term “24/7” describes a world where work never ends. We use the words “obsession” and “madness” not to describe madness, but to talk about the past working day. Feeling that there will never be enough time, we try to pack as many things as possible into each day. But even the most effective time management does not guarantee that we will have enough energy to get everything done.

Are you familiar with such situations?

– You are in an important four-hour meeting where not a second is wasted. But the last two hours you spend the rest of your energy only on fruitless attempts to concentrate;

– You carefully planned all 12 hours of the upcoming working day, but by the middle of it you completely lost energy and became impatient and irritable;

– You are going to spend the evening with the children, but are so distracted by thoughts about work that you cannot understand what they want from you;

– You, of course, remember about your wedding anniversary (the computer reminded you of this this afternoon), but you forgot to buy a bouquet, and you no longer have the strength to leave the house to celebrate.

Energy, not time, is the main currency of high efficiency. This idea revolutionized our understanding of what drives high performance over time. She led our clients to reconsider the principles of managing their own lives - both personal and professional. Everything we do, from walking with our children to communicating with colleagues to making important decisions, requires energy. This seems obvious, but it is what we most often forget. Without the right quantity, quality and focus of energy, we endanger any task we undertake.

Each of our thoughts or emotions has energetic consequences - for worse or for better. The final assessment of our lives is not based on the amount of time we spend on this planet, but on the basis of the energy we invest in that time. The main idea of ​​this book is quite simple: effectiveness, health and happiness are based on skillful energy management.

Of course, there are bad bosses, toxic work environments, difficult relationships, and life crises. However, we can control our energy much more completely and deeply than we imagine. The number of hours in a day is constant, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us depends on us. And this is our most valuable resource. The more responsibility we take for the energy we bring into the world, the stronger and more effective we become. And the more we blame other people and circumstances, the more our energy becomes negative and destructive.

If you could wake up tomorrow with more positive and focused energy that you could invest in your work and family, would that improve your life? If you are a leader or manager, would your positive energy change the work environment around you? If your employees could rely on more of your energy, would the relationships between them change and would this have an impact on the quality of your own services?

Leaders are the conductors of organizational energy—in their companies and families. They inspire or demoralize those around them—first by how effectively they manage their own energy, and then by how they mobilize, focus, invest, and renew the collective energy of their employees. Skillful management of energy, individual and collective, makes possible what we call the achievement of full power.

To be fully energized, we must be physically energized, emotionally engaged, mentally focused, and united in spirit to achieve goals that lie beyond our selfish interests. Working at full capacity begins with a desire to start work earlier in the morning, an equal desire to return home in the evening, and drawing a clear line between work and home. It means the ability to immerse yourself in your mission, whether it's solving a creative problem, leading a group of employees, spending time with the people you love, or having fun. Working at full capacity requires a fundamental lifestyle change.

According to results published in 2001 by Gallup 1
American Institute of Public Opinion, founded in 1935. Here and further, where not otherwise noted, notes are given by the editor.

Survey, only 25% of employees in US companies are working at full capacity. About 55% work at half capacity. The remaining 20% ​​are “actively opposed” to work, that is, they are not only unhappy in their professional lives, but also constantly share this feeling with their colleagues. The cost of their presence at work is estimated at trillions of dollars. What's even worse is that the longer people work in an organization, the less energy they devote to it. After the first six months of work, only 38% are working at full capacity, according to Gallup. After three years, this figure drops to 22%. Look at your life from this point of view. How fully are you involved in your work? What about your colleagues?

The idea of ​​the importance of energy first came to us in the “living laboratory” of professional sports. For thirty years, our organization has worked with world-class athletes to determine what allows some of them to perform at their best over the long term under constant competitive pressure. Our first clients were tennis players - more than eighty of the world's best players, such as Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, Arancha Sanchez-Vicario, Sergi Brugueira, Gabriela Sabatini and Monica Seles.

They usually came to us at the moments of the most intense struggle, and our intervention often led to the most serious results. After our work, Arancha Sanchez-Vicario won the U.S. for the first time. Open 2
The US Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

And she became first in the world rankings - both in singles and doubles. Sabatini won her only U.S. Open. Brugueira rose from world No. 79 to the top ten and won the French Open twice. 3
The French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.

Then athletes from other sports began to come to us - golfers Mark O'Mira and Ernie Els, hockey players Eric Lindros and Mike Richter, boxer Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, basketball players Nick Anderson and Grant Hill, speed skater Dan Jensen, who won the only his life's Olympic gold medal only after two years of intensive training with us.

What made our method unique was that we did not spend a second studying the technical or tactical skills of our players. The common cliché is that if you find a talented person and teach him the right skills, he will produce the best results. But in practice this happens very rarely. It turns out that energy is the unobvious factor that allows you to “ignite” talent to its full potential. We never wondered how Seles hits the ball on a serve, how Lindros flicks the puck, or how Hill shoots free throws. They were all extremely gifted before they came to us. Instead, we focused on helping them learn to manage their own energy to accomplish whatever task they were faced with.

Athletes have proven to be very demanding experimental subjects. They were not at all satisfied with “uplifting” conversations or sophisticated theories. They were interested in measurable and lasting results - the number of aces 4
In tennis terminology, a point won by one hit. ** The ball hits the opposing team's scoring zone.

From the first serve, percentage of free throws, victories in tournaments. They wanted to be sure they could make the eighteenth hole, make a last-second three-pointer, or score a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Everything else is chatter. If we could not help athletes achieve the results they need, our work in this area would not be measured in decades. We have learned to be responsible for the numbers.

As word of our success in sports began to spread, we began to receive numerous offers to “export” our model to other areas of human activity that require high impact. We worked with FBI hostage teams, marshals, and emergency medical technicians. Nowadays, the bulk of our work is related to business - with CEOs and entrepreneurs, managers and salespeople, and more recently, also with teachers and officials, lawyers and medical students. Our corporate clients include Fortune 500 companies such as PepsiCo, Estee Lauder, Pfizer, Brisol-Myers Squibb, Hyatt Corporation and many others.

As we worked in these new fields, we discovered something completely unexpected: the demands placed on ordinary people doing ordinary jobs far exceeded the demands placed on any professional athlete we had ever worked with. How is this possible?

If you take a closer look, this is not surprising. Professional athletes typically spend 90% of their time training so that they can compete the remaining 10% of the time. Their whole life is organized around receiving, retaining and renewing the energy needed for a short period of competition. They build very precise procedures for managing their energy in all areas of life - eating and sleeping, studying and resting, charging and discharging emotions, concentrating and psychologically preparing for the tasks they set for themselves. Ordinary people, not accustomed to spending time on such detailed preparation, must work to the maximum of their capabilities for eight, ten, and sometimes twelve hours a day.

In addition, most professional athletes have a long break between seasons. After months of competing under extreme pressure, a long off season gives athletes the time they need to rest, heal, renew and grow. But for ordinary people, the “off-season” is limited to a few weeks of vacation per year. And even these weeks they rarely manage to fully devote to rest and recovery - most read and respond to email, exchange SMS and think about work.

Finally, the average career of professional athletes lasts between five and fifteen years. If they manage to organize their finances wisely during this time, they will have enough earned money for the rest of their lives. Very few of them are forced to look for a new job. Ordinary people work for forty to fifty years without significant breaks.

Given these facts, what allows you to work at the highest level of productivity - without sacrificing health, happiness and color in life?

You must work at full capacity. The answer to the challenge of peak performance is to effectively manage all of our energies to achieve our goals. There are four key types of energy. They are at the heart of the change process that we will describe in the following pages, and they are critical to creating the ability to live and work effectively, efficiently and to the fullest.

Principle #1

Full power requires tapping into four interconnected sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Man is a complex energy system; To use full power, you need to use all energy sources. You cannot rely on just one of them, and you cannot do without any of them, since they are all deeply connected to each other.

Energy is the common denominator in all aspects of our lives. Physical energy is measured in quantitative terms (high or low), while emotional energy is measured in qualitative terms (positive or negative). These are the two main sources of energy because without enough fuel, no task will be completed. In the diagram we have depicted the change in energy from low to high and from negative to positive. The more “toxic” and unpleasant the energy, the worse it helps to achieve high results - and vice versa.

The importance of full power is most obvious in situations where the consequences of low power can be fatal. Imagine that you are about to have heart surgery. Which of these energy sectors should your surgeon be in? Would you want him to walk into the operating room angry, anxious, and upset? Tired, depressed and exhausted? Or uncollected, complacent and relaxed? Surely you would like him to be energetic, confident and cheerful.

Imagine that every time you get involved in a scandal, do a sloppy job, or can't concentrate on your work, you are putting someone else's life in danger. Very soon you will become more thoughtful about your energy. We must be responsible for how we manage our energy, and this is what we should be rewarded for. And we must learn to manage all types of our energy with equal responsibility: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

Principle #2

Since our energy capacity is reduced by both overuse and underuse of energy, we must maintain a balance between energy expenditure and energy storage.

We very rarely think about how much energy we spend, believing that we have endless reserves at our disposal. In fact, if the need for energy grows, then its reserves begin to gradually deplete - especially since the “capacity” of energy sources decreases with age.

By training our ability to manage all types of energy, we can significantly slow down the decline in the physical and mental areas, and even achieve growth in the emotional and spiritual areas. And vice versa - living life “linearly”, that is, spending much more energy than we can store, or storing much more than we can spend, we end up with poor health, chronic fatigue, atrophy, loss of taste for life and even premature death. Unfortunately, the need for restoration is too often seen as a sign of weakness rather than as an important aspect of long-term high performance, and we end up paying little attention to renewing and expanding our energy reserves - both individual and collective.

To maintain a powerful rhythm in our lives, we must learn to expend and renew energy rhythmically. The richest, happiest, most productive lives are characterized by the ability to fully devote ourselves to solving the problems facing us, but at the same time periodically completely disconnect from them and recover. But most of us live our lives as if we were running an endless marathon, pushing ourselves far beyond healthy limits. We maintain a constant level of mental and emotional activity, but we only spend these types of energy without thinking about their restoration. On this path we will face, albeit slow, but inexorable wear and tear.

Think about how many long-distance runners look: tired, exhausted, with dull eyes and sunken cheeks. And what sprinters look like: powerful, agile, impatient - energy literally splashes out of them. The explanation for this is simple. Regardless of how much energy they have to expend, they can already see the finish line from the starting point. We must learn to treat our lives as a series of sprints - giving it our all on the track and completely forgetting about it outside the stadium.

Principle #3

To increase the capacity of our energy reserves, we must go beyond the usual norms of its expenditure, that is, train as systematically as the best athletes do.

Stress is not the enemy of our lives. Paradoxically, it is precisely this that is the basis of growth and development. For example, to increase muscle strength, we must systematically load (that is, actually stress) them beyond their normal capabilities. This leads to microscopic tears in the muscle fiber. By the end of the workout, you should feel tired and your functionality will be exhausted. But give your muscles 24 to 48 hours of rest, and they will become stronger and better prepared to perform exercises you previously couldn't do. This phenomenon is widely used to increase physical strength, but it is also applicable to the development of any of our other “muscles” that use other types of energy: from empathy and patience to focus and creativity, and further to integrity and commitment. This idea both simplifies and revolutionizes the way we overcome the barriers that stand in our way.

We build reserves of emotional, mental, and spiritual energy just as we build reserves of physical strength. We develop all our qualities by expending the right types of energy outside our normal boundaries, and then recovering. If you train muscles without reaching the point of fatigue, that is, without going beyond their capabilities, they will not develop, and with age they will also lose strength. What limits us in developing any kind of “muscle” is the fact that it is difficult to overcome ourselves and not retreat at the slightest sign of discomfort. To meet growing demands, we need to systematically develop and strengthen the “muscles” in those areas in which our reserves of power are insufficient. Any form of stress that causes discomfort provides an opportunity to increase the capacity of our reserves - physical, mental, emotional or spiritual - provided that the stress is accompanied by adequate recovery. As Nietzsche put it: “What does not kill us makes us stronger.” Since the requirements for “corporate athletes” exceed the requirements for professional athletes, the former must learn to train even more systematically than the latter.

Principle #4

Positive energy rituals—that is, precise energy management procedures—are the key to achieving full power and ongoing high performance.

Change is difficult. We are slaves to our habits. Most of what we do is based on automaticity and is not controlled by consciousness. Most likely, today we will do the same as yesterday. All attempts at change run into the impossibility of long-term repetition of conscious efforts. Willpower and discipline are much more limited resources than many realize. If you have to think through an action every time you take it, you probably won't be able to do it for very long. The habitual way of acting has a powerful magnetic effect on us.

A positive ritual is a behavior based on deeply internalized values ​​that becomes habitual over time. We use the word “ritual” for a reason. We want to emphasize the importance of clearly defined, structured behavior. Unlike willpower and discipline, which force you to push yourself towards a certain behavior, ritual itself pulls you. Let's take something simple, like brushing your teeth. Usually you don't even have to remind yourself to brush your teeth. Brushing your teeth itself “attracts” you to itself, because it has a clear and well-known value for your health. You brush your teeth on autopilot, without any conscious effort or intention. The power of rituals is that they ensure minimal use of conscious effort, leaving us free to focus our energy on strategic avenues of creativity and development.

Look at any part of your life in which you are effective. You're sure to discover a few habits that help you achieve this. If you consistently eat healthy, then most likely you are simply used to buying healthy food in stores and ordering healthy dishes at restaurants. If you are in good shape, then you probably have dedicated days and times to go to the gym or stadium. If you have success in sales, it means that you have a well-established ritual of preparing for conversations with clients and have rehearsed the words that you will say to yourself in case of refusal. If you manage your employees effectively, it's likely because you've developed a communication style that makes them feel empowered rather than threatening. If you have good family relationships, it is because you spend time with your spouse or children in accordance with established and mutually acceptable rituals. If you manage to maintain high positive energy levels despite the extreme demands of your job, you almost certainly have proven ways to pause and recharge. The most effective way we have found to manage energy and bring it to its full potential is to create positive rituals.