The 5 principles – Riding the waves of personal and professional high performance

Leadership development riding the waves

Our always-on world takes a heavy toll on our work-life balance. As technology blurs the gap between home and work, we find it exceedingly challenging to disengage. We work longer hours than ever before [1], yet cannot focus, as we continuously multitask and are constantly distracted. As if that was not bad enough, we overburden our mental capacity in endless meetings and tight deadlines yet have little regard for our bodies, reducing sleep to the bare minimum, not exercising enough and not paying sufficient attention to how, when and what we eat.

This unceasing state of overwork causes an emotional overload, increasing toxicity, fear, stress, exhaustion and burnout, as we unsuccessfully try to quiet down the noise in our heads by continually increasing our medication.

And in all other aspects of our life—we survive.

We survive mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

We survive at home and at work.

Survive. Not thrive.

Survival is our basic instinct, our baseline, but in order to thrive, we need to exert additional energy, and most of us simply don’t have that extra energy to spare. We, literally, gave at the office, and we have nothing else to give.

Most people and organizations struggle with managing their time. Yet, to continuously sustain high levels of performance in today’s world, managing our time is not enough. We need to focus on managing our energy.

In this article, I explain the five basic principles of managing and expanding our energy resources to achieve sustained high performance both in our personal and our professional life. I conclude with a list of practical tips.

Principal 1: The four energy resources

Contrary to common belief, we do not have a single energy resource.
We actually have four different resources:

  1. Physical
  2. Emotional
  3. Mental
  4. Spiritual

The physical resource is our body’s power, stamina and resilience. To strengthen our physical resources, we need to take care of our body through exercise, a balanced healthy diet, and an ample amount of sleep every night.

Our feelings fuel the emotional resource, what we feel about ourselves, our view of the world around us, and the connections we have with others. For example, our emotional resources can be depleted much quicker if we live with an alienated spouse or work for an overbearing, demanding boss as opposed to living in a loving relationship and a caring and nurturing work environment.

The mental resource is what we use when we think, create and innovate. It is what allows us to work, concentrate, make decisions, self-control, learn and focus for extended periods. When this resource is depleted, we quickly lose focus and clarity, experience negative thinking and a sense of tunnel vision.  Research shows that when people are under stress, they are unable to use their mental resources efficiently. In one such study, people under stress showed a loss in their mental capacity equivalent to 13 points on their IQ test [2].

Our Spiritual resource is our connection with that which is greater than us. For some people, it is God; for others, their purpose, vision or dream. It is what elevates us and, in terms of work, turns a job into a calling. In essence, the Spiritual resource allows us to answer the most important question: “What is my special gift to this world?”

As we will see in the following principles, understanding we have not one but four different resources allows us much more flexibility and efficiently in using our energy resources.

Principal 2: Use it or lose it; abuse it and lose it

Principal number 2 is made of two opposing rules:

  1. If you abuse a resource – you deplete its energy and are left exhausted
  2. If you do not use a resource – you deplete its energy and are left exhausted

Just like muscles, over-exercising a resource may cause pain, fatigue and lead to long-term injury. In contrast, under-exercising a resource makes us feel sluggish and heavy while creating atrophy.

These two opposing yet complementing rules urge us to be attentive to the ebbs and flows of our energy, allowing us to engage in the task at hand entirely and then fully let go when these resources need to recover and rebuild.

Unfortunately, most people are not aware or attentive to these energy levels. Many managers I work with had gone through periods of burnout. They often share the experience of working themselves to the limit, for long periods of time with no breaks. They work that metaphorical muscle to its last drop of energy until it gives way, and they have nothing else to offer.

Over 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci commented on the ideal way of working:

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer…since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose power of judgment.”

In my workshops, I often ask participants to share instances where they experienced important breakthroughs in their life. The stories are often very similar, e.g., “during my walk”, “in the shower”, “when I was washing the dishes”.

Yet, Showers are not the source of our creativity; otherwise, we would all experience breakthroughs once every evening. We get our ideas and breakthroughs because we first deeply engage with the task at hand and then fully disengage in the shower. Both engagement and disengagement have a crucial role in this process.

When we learn to practice full engagement followed by complete disengagement intentionally, we allow our internal natural resources to bring out the genius in us.

“We live in a world”, writes Jim Loehr,” that celebrates work and activity, ignores renewal and recovery, and fails to recognize that both are necessary for sustained high performance.” [3]

Principal 3: Timing is everything 

As we saw in principle 2, we must use our energy to the fullest yet not abuse it. However, this is not enough. To be able to engage with our resources fully, we need to be aware of the timing.

Consider a wave surfer at sea. To become a master surfer, one must learn the art of timing. When the wave arrives, you need to paddle forward and find the exact time to jump on the wave and let its energy carry you forward. If you jump too soon, you miss the wave, jump too late and you crash and burn [4]. During the day—as well as the week, month, and year—our energy levels follow the same patterns of the wave: from crest to trough and then back again.

Learning to catch the waves of energy early on and ride their energy longer is what makes one a master of sustained high performance. However, most people are oblivious to these cyclical waves of energy. Like a lost surfer, they paddle ceaselessly in the vast ocean, continually fighting against the immense power of the waves in an ever exhausting and futile battle.

Once we become aware of this inner cycle of energy—a much more potent and sustainable timekeeper than the strict and unbending tyranny of our human-made clock—we can ride the waves skillfully and use their power to allow us more energy for extended periods without exhausting ourselves.

Principal 4: United we stand

Our four energy resources are interconnected, each one affecting the other. We all experienced such days when we feel emotionally down while also feeling a lack of physical energy, so much so that often we want to go to bed and hide under the covers.

This interconnectedness of the emotional resource affecting the physical one works both ways. When our physical resources are low, it can also deplete our emotional resources, for example, losing our emotional control after a long sleepless night.

Yet this interrelation between energy resources can also work to our benefit. For example, when we are emotionally happy or mentally stimulated, we often wake up; when we are physically energized, we are better able to weather the emotional storms of life.

Similarly, a milestone longitude research shows the interconnectedness between the emotional and physical resources. This study, often referred to as the “Nun Study”, studied 678 Catholic nuns from an average age of 22 up until their death and showed a very high correlation between positive emotions and longevity. Nuns who expressed more positive emotions lived on average a decade longer than their less cheerful sisters.

These nuns have also agreed to donate their brains to research following their death. The findings—that were focused on Alzheimer’s disease—showed that happier, more positive nuns were less prone to the disease. Yet one of the most mind-boggling findings was that although 15 of the nuns who were very optimistic had signs of Alzheimer’s in their brain, they did not exhibit any symptoms of the disease during their life [5].

These findings could mean that a robust emotional resource can not only make us feel better and happier but also fill up our physical resource, allowing us to live longer and fend off degenerative diseases.

Principle 5 – Creating balance

In our modern way of living, we tend to disconnect from our physical and spiritual resources. We ignore our physical needs by not exercising, getting ample sleep, and eating healthy nutrition. We drink coffee and eat sugary and oily foods to block the fatigue, and we medicate ourselves to keep ourselves moving forward. Spiritually, we tend to lose connection with our purpose, our ‘raison d’être’, drifting through life, letting external events, conventions and fears direct us without choosing our own path.

In stark contrast to our neglect of the physical and spiritual capital, we repeatedly overuse and abuse our emotional and mental resources. We continuously create emotional turmoil and drama in our life while mentally remaining stuck in distressing loops of ruminations and overthinking.

What we really need in order to create a sustainable high performance is balance—putting much more emphasis on the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives while allowing ourselves to go on a periodic emotional and mental diet.

If we equate our four resources to a tree of life: our physical resource as roots, our emotional resource as the trunk, our mental resource as branches, and our spiritual resource as the crown of the tree. To keep our tree of life stable and balanced, we need the physical roots to dig deep inside the ground while the spiritual crown is firmly planted in the sky. Only then can we genuinely withstand the violent turmoils as they constantly pound against our emotional and mental trunk and branches.

Ready to go to the next level? here are some practical tips and suggestions to put these ideas into action – Practical tips

 

References:

[1] Sudan et al., (2020). You’re Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings,

[2] Mani, A., Mullainathan, S., Shafir, E., & Zhao, J. (2013). Poverty impedes cognitive function. science, 341(6149), 976-980.  

[3] Loehr, J., Loehr, J. E., & Schwartz, T. (2005). The power of full engagement: Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. Simon and Schuster.

[4] How real (wo)men surf the big waves (Maya Gabeira, broke the world record for 2019-2020) New York Times, 2020 here

[5] Danner, D. D., Snowdon, D. A., & Friesen, W. V. (2001). Positive emotions in early life and longevity: findings from the nun study. Journal of personality and social psychology, 80(5), 804.

Resistance is futile – why change is hard and what on earth should we do about it

Successful Change

This article discusses personal, team and organizational transformation; why it is so difficult to change and how to use the three basic rules of change to find the path of least resistance

Ok, I am just going to come out and say it: The fundamental truth is that changing ourselves is very hard, and resistance is futile. Well, kind of…

We fail to change ourselves all the time. We try to eat healthier, drink more water, sleep eight hours a night, keep a balanced life, be or become loving parents and spouses, be excellent and dedicated workers, be more confident, satisfied, and successful. Yet, often we don’t succeed.

This usually happens because people are not following the three basic rules of change.
However, before we discuss the rules, let’s look at how most people try to change.

Most people’s attempts to change are, at best naïve. New Year’s resolutions are a perfect example of this approach.

At the end of the year, you look back at your life and make up your mind that from this day onwards, you will eat healthier, exercise more, lose weight, save more money, quit smoking and work fewer hours.

Yet, research clearly shows that after a week, only 75% will maintain their commitment; after a month, only 64% will still be going to that GYM or eating healthier [1], and at the end of the year out of 77% of people who were very confident or somewhat confident they would keep their resolution, only 7% report sticking to all their resolutions [2].

Although research does show that it is better to commit to New Year resolutions than to not make any resolutions—as the mere act of committing improves the chances of actually sticking to those resolutions [1]—the success rate of these commitments is very low and get even lower as we grow older.

When discussing team and organizational transformations, the statistics are not significantly different. Most researchers (although not all [4]) claim that the success rate of breakthrough transformations in organizations is between 30-38% [5].

Following these grim statistics, is it clear that we need to find a different path, a path that is much more in-line with our inherent nature as human beings.

Enter the Three Basic Rules of Change.

Rule #1: Change patterns, not people

It is (nearly) impossible to change ourselves. But the good news is that we don’t need to.

There is no need to change ourselves. What we do need is to change the beliefs and patterns that are not working for us, and that is so much easier.

Beliefs and patterns are simply emotional, mental and behavioral habits. If you are an excellent employee, parent, or partner, it means you already have excellent— often unconscious— habits that you use that make you so. Similarly, if you eat healthily and exercise often, you already own a set of emotional, mental and behavioral habits that support you.

Ok, I hear you ask, but what if I don’t have this set of habits?
In that case, you would need to start thinking like a tortoise.

Rule #2: Be the Tortoise, Not the Hare

The easiest way to create a habit is by creating a micro-habit. A micro-habit is all about finding the smallest and simplest part of the new habit you want to acquire (or eradicate) and start practicing until it becomes…um…a habit.

Using micro-habits circumvent our internal defense systems that work extra hard to keep us from changing. These systems were put in place to continually survey the surroundings and keep us in a stable homeostasis state. However, when we introduce a tiny change into our lives, our natural alarm system does not perceive it as a threat and does not go off. Like the Tortoise and the Hare, this technique of “going under the radar” allows us to—slowly but surely—insert new habits into our internal system without provoking internal resistance, causing much less friction and thus easier change.

Although people are often skeptical about this method, I found it to be one of the most effective techniques in the long run. Paraphrasing Bill Gates, people will always overestimate the change that they can do in a week and underestimate the change they can make in a year.

Almost ten years ago, I started practicing this technique when I felt my energy levels were pulling me down, and I didn’t feel I had enough energy to be with my kids after work. Since I didn’t have enough time or motivation to exercise, I decided to commit to doing one push-up, one sit-up and one minute of meditation a day.

At that time, most of my clientele were in the US, and due to the time difference, I would go to bed at 2, 3 AM and sometimes even 4 AM. Still, since this habit was so tiny, even if I was exhausted or forgot to exercise that day, I would drag myself out of bed and practice my micro-habit for 1-2 minutes.

Some days I would only do the minimum I was committed to; other days, I would do more push-ups, sit-ups or a prolonged meditation session, but I kept to at least my minimal commitment no matter what.

After a while, my energy levels started going up, and I started exercising 12 min a day using a workout App. Soon I started running once a week, first running very short distances – my very first run was 1.5 km, and I finished it utterly exhausted. After 12 months of continued practice without pushing myself or struggling with lack of motivation, I signed up for my first marathon, which I completed four months later.

Today I run between 20-30 km a week and weight-train three times a week, and although I am a decade older than when I began, my kids are now having a hard time trying to catch up with me. Yet, I never forgot how it all started with only one short minute of commitment per day.

I know for a fact that if my training regime had initially been 30 minutes every three days or even 12 minutes per day, I would probably have never dragged myself out of bed at 4 AM. However, as my internal security system assessed the risk of this new micro-habit and realized it was only one minute—an insignificant amount of time that did not produce any internal conflict— it went along until a new micro-habit was created, which triggered the next one and the next one.

It is important to note that micro-habits don’t only apply to creating healthy lifestyle habits. They apply to every aspect of our lives. More importantly, they apply to personal change as well as team and organizational transformations.

Rule #3: Consistency is paramount

The first step in change is to decide what you would like to focus on first.

I say first, as most people want to change everything, and they want to do it now (or better yet, yesterday). This goes against our nature and will fail more often than not.

Remember, consistency and not quick wins is the name of the game.

In the following section I present a very effective change model using the three rules of change.

Figure 1 shows how a small step can go a long way

 

 

Figure 2 demonstrates a greedy (Hare) attempt to create a quick change that can often lead to failure after a week, a month or a year.

The integrated micro-habits change model

Select and write down in as much detail as possible the aspect of change (e.g., health, relationship, parenting, work) and the level of change (e.g., personal, team or organization) you would like to focus on for now.

The change type could be:

  1. Addition – creating a new habit
  2. Eradication – an old habit that needs to be eradicated
  3. Augmentation – an existing habit that needs to be expanded/enhanced
  4. or Contraction – an existing habit that needs to be reduced

In some cases, you may want to try the Hare method first. i.e., defining the change you would like to create and trying to reach it in one fell swoop.

If the Hare method does not work or the price of failure is too high, always revert back to the Tortoise method.

  1. Choose the tiniest habit-change possible – this change needs to feel trivial – like something you can do with your eyes closed.
  2. Commit to this micro-habit repeatedly until it sticks and you do not need to put any mental effort into it.
  3. If you find that you fall off the wagon, go back to step (1) and chose an even smaller change, then start again.

Simple right? Now it is up to you. What would you like to change in your life, your team or your organization?

How do you think the micro-habits model could support you? Let me know in the comments below or send me an email if you have any comments or questions and I would be glad to answer.

References:

[1] Success predictors, change processes, and self‐reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers, Norcross et al., 2002

[2] YouGove results, 2019, retrived 10.1.21: link

[3] New Year’s Resolution Statistics via Statistics Brain: http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/

[4] Stop using the excuse organizational change is hard, HBR, 2017

[5] The inconvenient truth about change management, Why it isn’t working and what to do about it, Keller & Aiken, 2009

The fallacy of work-life balance

Work-Life Balance concept

Over a decade ago, a survey from Harvard Business School showed 94% of people in professional services were putting in over 50 hours of work a week, with nearly half of the survey participants working over 65 hours a week [1]. The article later mentions that these individuals are also spending an extra 20-25 hours a week working outside the office monitoring their—nostalgic moment ahead in… 3,2,1—BlackBerrys. 

One would think that with the multitude of studies showing the health hazards of not adhering to work-life balance [2], we would see a significant shift in organizations and employees’ behaviors by now. But a recent survey shows that things have not improved at all. In the wake of Covid-19, when the boundaries have blurred to such an extent where it is hard to ascertain if one is currently “at work” or “at home”, employees are putting in an extra 48.5 minutes per day on average [3] while taking less time off, even when they feel unwell [4]. 

Although the concept of work-life balance is often discussed, as far back as the early ’80s [5], it is no nearer to being resolved.


Why is work-life balance not working? 

One of the reasons is that the concept itself is flawed.

When we talk about work-life balance, we are actually pitching two important and integral parts of our lives, one against the other; Is it really either work or life? Is work not an important and richly rewarding part of our life? (if your answer is ‘No’, we need to discuss Work Restructuring). This misleading juxtaposition of work vs. life creates an unnecessary inner conflict as if one must yield for the other to succeed instead of aiming towards a peaceful and empowering resolution, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Some researchers [6] are now referring to this field by calling it work-life integration. This is indeed an improvement but still emphasizes an artificial duality and inner split between two opposing parts that now need to be somehow integrated.

Additionally, the attempt to achieve a state of balance is doomed to fail. Firstly, any attempt to stay perfectly balanced while trying to navigate our lives in an unstable, unpredictable world will incur energy, extra work and frustration. Moreover, there is no growth in balance; we need imbalance in order to grow. For example, it is impossible to develop a muscle without moving it out of balance; this imbalance creates those microscopic tears that allow the muscle to grow.


What is it that we really want?

The fact is that most people are not interested in balance at all. They want to grow, expand, learn and succeed professionally and personally.

Think about it, weren’t some of your most meaningful times during or after a period that you worked hard and gave it your all? I for one can say that most of my greatest achievements were done while working long hours for weeks on end. Moreover, research shows that we experience many more moments of “flow” when we are at work rather than at home [7]. Should we set aside these feelings of accomplishment and fulfillment for the sake of an imaginary balance?

So, what are you looking for? Fulfillment or balance? I am guessing most if not all of you would choose the former rather than the latter.

We still need work and life balance, but not the static one, and not the one that pitches an imaginary good against evil. Rather than focusing on balancing work vs. life, we need to focus on the energy and the engagement we bring into all aspects of our life. We need to create what I call an Engaged Living.

An Engaged Living emphasizes the energy we create and the engagement we feel and expend throughout the day, in both our personal and professional lives. While time is a limited resource that causes the all so familiar conflicts of personal vs. professional, research on work with athletes shows that energy can be much more malleable. We can create energy, maintain it and utilize it more efficiently once we understand the basic rules of sustainable living.

When I started my business, my kids were very young. Being an entrepreneur, I would come home every day exhausted from a long day of work. Although I had more control and flexibility over my work schedule, I still worked so hard that when I finally met my kids, I was either too tired or too distracted and usually both to actually be present with them. I literally “gave at the office,” and I had nothing more to give at home.

Interestingly, even during those instances where I came home earlier, I still carried my heavy bag of worries and distractions with me. I was spending more time with my kids, but not in a meaningful way; I was simply not fully there.

One day, after a painful marketing failure I experienced at work, I dragged myself from work to pick up my kids from kindergarten. As I was looking at them running around in the playground, I realized I was totally drained. My focus on succeeding at work had left me no energy for anything else. I was physically with them, but I did not, so to speak, bring any fertile soil for us to grow and engage in. I was sitting there like an empty shell. I was burnt out.

After that day, I started researching and gradually testing and applying a more sustainable way of living, one that allows me to create a high-performance sustainable living, a life of engagement, in both my professional and personal life.

I realized through this process that my energy can be fuelled by my actions, decisions and internal motivation, and more importantly, that energy was much more pliable than time.

While time is unchangeable and finite, energy levels are not. We all had this experience where we were exhausted and felt like sleeping, but suddenly experienced an interesting occurrence, which woke us up immediately. These kinds of quick transitions from low to high energy can occur spontaneously, but they could also be designed and planned throughout the day by using a few basic practices.

In addition, while awareness of time creates a sense of conflict due to its limited nature, the awareness of energy is a dynamic flow. As humans, we were never meant to set our lives according to the strict ticking of a mechanical clock but the gentle wave of our inner rhythmic cycle.

“We live in a world”, writes Jim Loehr, “that celebrates work and activity, ignores renewal and recovery, and fails to recognize that both are necessary for sustained high performance.” [8]

Just like riding a wave, one can use the high end of our energy, the crest, to tackle the difficult obstacles of our day while being aware and allowing ourselves to rest and regenerate energy when it is time for the crest to become a trough. This cycle is much more natural to us as opposed to the strict and unbending characteristics of time. Once we become aware of this inner rhythm, we can choose to ride the waves skillfully and use their power to allow us more energy for longer stretches of time without exhausting ourselves.

A few years ago, I created an eight-dimensional course that teaches a step-by-step process of tapping into the internal reservoirs of energy and designing and implementing an Engaged Living.

While it is impossible to squeeze such a comprehensive course into a quick list of tips, in the following article, I wrote a shortlist of five principles to quickly get you started on designing your own Engaged Living.

Instead of focusing our energy on work, life and the balance between them, I invite you to take the first steps to a kinder and more sustainable personal and professional living, one that is based on managing and growing energy, not time, which in turn can lead to a greater feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment.

What is your method of managing your energy at work and in life? Feel free to share your questions, thoughts and ideas below in the comments.

References

[1] Perlow, L. A., & Porter, J. L. (2009). Making time off predictable–and required. Harvard business review, 87(10), 102-9.

[2] Virtanen, M., & Kivimäki, M. (2018). Long working hours and risk of cardiovascular disease. Current cardiology reports, 20(11), 1-7.

[3] Dembe, A. E., Erickson, J. B., Delbos, R. G., & Banks, S. M. (2005). The impact of overtime and long work hours on occupational injuries and illnesses: new evidence from the United States. Occupational and environmental medicine, 62(9), 588-597.

[4] Caruso, C. C. (2004). Overtime and extended work shifts; recent findings on illnesses, injuries, and health behaviors.

[5] Sadun R. et al. (2020). You’re Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings, Harvard business school working knowledge.

[6] Work/Life Integration (n.d), Berkely Haas.

[7] Csikszentmihalyi, M., & LeFevre, J. (1989). Optimal experience in work and leisure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 56(5), 815.

[8] Loehr, J., Loehr, J. E., & Schwartz, T. (2005). The power of full engagement: Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. Simon and Schuster.