Life at full power. About the book "Life at full power"

I read this book a year and a half ago. Recommended to read to a bunch of people, and they recommended further.
The moment came and I had the need to read it again. Recall the main theses, correct the course that I took after the first reading, but which began to go astray.

This book should be read by those who have repeatedly wanted to quit everything, or think about it all the time. Who always does not have time to do everything, even despite attempts at time management. For those who experience a sense of disappointment from what he is doing now.

So, below I wrote out the main theses that hooked me in the book “Life at full power! Energy management is the key to high performance, health and happiness." Jim Loer and Tony Schwartz.

People have different resources. For example, one of them, non-renewable, is time. The management of this resource is described in a bunch of other time management books. The authors say that you can fit everything perfectly into the schedule, but if you have a problem with another resource, namely energy, then all these closed lists, pomodoros, etc. are of no use.

At one time, the authors were engaged in optimizing the resources of professional athletes and noticed that the requirements that are placed on ordinary people exceed the requirements for any athletes. Those 90% of their time they train for the 10% they give to competition. And they know something about energy management procedures: time, sleep, proper food, rest, etc. Ordinary people work hard 8/10/12 hours every day. And they don't have an "off-season" other than a couple of weeks off.

The authors distinguish 4 key types of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Each of the energies is the fuel for the next one. And you can not focus only on one energy and ignore others.

We can distinguish the following energy quadrants and the states by which they are characterized:

Low Negative: Depression, fatigue, burnout, hopelessness, defeat.
High negative: anger, fear, anxiety, defensiveness, resentment.
Low positive: relaxation, lack of concentration, peacefulness, calmness, serenity.
High positive: cheerfulness, confidence, challenge, joy, participation.

The following analogy can be traced several times in the book: marathon runners look tired, and sprinters look full of energy. This is all because the latter see the finish already from the start. And so you need to give all your best on the track, and forget about it outside the stadium.

Energy opportunities are reduced by both excessive and insufficient use of energy. There needs to be a balance between spending and saving. The situation is similar to the state of the muscles: with regular training, strength increases, with overstrain, a long recovery is needed, and if you do not train the muscles, they lose their “capacity”.
To increase the capacity, you need to train, and go beyond the usual limits of energy consumption. Surprisingly, stress is good and healthy. But there is an important "but". When we load the muscles, they are then ready for the load. Therefore, you can create reserves not only physical. strength. But you need to train at least to the point of fatigue, to the limit (go beyond the comfort zone, but not break it). The most important thing after stress is recovery.

To give an understandable example, there may be exhaustion, or there may be an excess of energy without insufficient use: so when a hand is broken, a cast is applied to it, and the muscles weaken, atrophy. Therefore, years of training are easily crossed out with just one week of break.

To get out of our comfort zone, we need a positive ritual that, unlike willpower and discipline, doesn't push ourselves into the behavior, but pulls, like brushing your teeth on autopilot, for example. If you are doing well in some business, then there is a practiced ritual.

define a goal
face the truth
act.

The problem on the first point is that at the current exorbitant speeds of life, we even have no time to meaningfully determine the true values. We spend time and energy on responding quickly to sudden crises and meeting the expectations of others, rather than choosing what is truly significant in our lives.

The second step is to determine how energy is currently being spent. Understand what the problems are now. Look at yourself from the side.

The third is to create a personal development plan based on creating positive energy rituals. Doing the unimportant instead of the important, flooding the mind with alcohol for a temporary solution, such as relieving stress from work, is not a solution.

Even the ancient Greek athletes were trained and forced to rest, that is, to alternate activity and rest. Following a period of activity, our body must replenish the basic biochemical sources of energy. This is called "compensation".
Therefore, if a company implements a culture of continuous work and expects employees to "volunteer" to work evenings and weekends, then it will only get exhausted people with low productivity. And the same companies and managers who push for the alternation of work and rest get both loyal and productive employees.

Both sleep and wakefulness have cycles. Therefore, after activity, hunger, sleep attacks, and it becomes difficult for us to concentrate. In response, you can mobilize through the production of stress hormones, but this is a short-term solution that is more suitable for situations of danger. The constant production of such hormones will lead to hyperactivity, aggressiveness, impatience, irritability, anger, self-centeredness and insensitivity to others. If you do not recover for a long time, a migraine, back pain, and gastrointestinal upset will appear. And in the worst case, you can grab a heart attack.
And when we can't keep ourselves in good shape, we use coffee and nicotine. And when we can not relax - alcohol and sleeping pills. If you try to artificially invigorate during the day and relax in the evening, then you are masking the linearity. Everything in life is cyclical. After the activity phase, there should be a rest phase.

In Japan, there is a term "karoshi" - death from excess work. About 10,000 people die from it every year. Think about these numbers.

Physical energy, which, as I mentioned above, is the fuel for igniting emotional talents and skills, depends on breathing and nutrition. Therefore, we need to consume slow carbohydrates, do not skip breakfast (yes, the authors in the book even touch on the issue of diet and healthy sleep!) We need to eat more often, but little by little. Drink 1.5-2 liters of water per day. Sleep 7-8 hours (at the same time, a lot of sleep, like a little, is bad).
According to some experiments, just 40 minutes of midday sleep increases productivity by 34%, and vigilance by 2 times. I want to try this approach personally (-: Anyway, the lunch break is not spent directly on lunch, and sleeping (at least sitting without thinking about anything) is better than sitting on all kinds of Internet resources.

The authors argue that any activity that captivates or gives self-confidence gives joy. It can be reading books, singing, gardening, dancing, photography, sports, museums, even being alone after a hard day at work.
And they call to give this occupation the status of "holy of holies", the highest priority. The enjoyment of this activity is not only a reward, but an important part of maintaining long-term effectiveness. Television is intellectual fast food. Gives rest, but does not nourish, and even leads to irritation and depression.

One should experience joy, challenge, adventure and opportunity. This is helped by self-confidence, self-control.

Michael Gelb, author of How to Think Like Leonaro da Vinci, asked the question, “Where were you when your best ideas came to you?” The most common answers are: in the bathroom, in bed, while walking in nature, while listening to music. Almost no one answered: "In the workplace."
Through exercise, the brain will be better supplied with oxygen. Why not take a walk during your lunch break to recharge your brain with oxygen for the afternoon? Well, or part of the way home to go on foot.

In addition to physical, emotional and mental energy, there is spiritual energy. She is responsible for motivation. It is the fuel for enthusiasm, perseverance, commitment.

In order to introduce changes into your life, to fill it with energy, you need to move from the top of the pyramid of energies, from the spiritual level. It is he who is responsible for the goal. The desire to achieve a goal can force you to focus attention, efforts and actions. After all, if there are no strong roots - strong convictions and deep values - we are easily subject to all sorts of fluctuations. Without a strong sense of purpose, we cannot hold our ground and react defensively.
That is why the goal should be positive, internal and aimed at others, not yourself.
Negative energy is defensive and based on a lack of something. It arises as a reaction to a threat (survival and security).
What's wrong with extrinsic motivation? It is based on the fact that we want to get more money, attention, approval, etc. than we currently have. They make up for the deficit, and do not give growth. Intrinsic motivation gives us what we ourselves enjoy.

The authors mention an experiment in which children were rewarded for something they liked themselves, and they didn't like it.
There are some great books on motivation. For example, Maxim Ilyakhov wrote about one of them in one of the issues of the Megaplan mailing list - "Drive" by Daniel Pink.

Quotes

The most precious resource is energy, not time. After a long day at work, we return home completely exhausted and perceive the family not as a source of joy and recovery, but as another problem.
Energy, not time, is the main currency of high performance.

We pride ourselves on multitasking, and our readiness to work from dawn to dusk is everywhere like a medal for bravery.

Feeling that there will never be enough time, we try to pack as many things as possible into each day.

Our life is ultimately judged not by the amount of time we have spent on this planet, but by the energy we have invested in that time.

Efficiency, health and happiness are based on the skillful management of energy.

To turn on the full power, we must be energetic physically, turned on emotionally, mentally focused and united in a common spirit to achieve goals. Working at full capacity begins with a desire to start early in the morning, an equal desire to return home in the evening, and a clear line between work and home.

In order to maintain the powerful rhythm of our lives, we must learn to expend and renew energy rhythmically.
The richest, happiest and most productive life is characterized by the ability to fully dedicate ourselves to the tasks before us, but at the same time periodically disconnect from them and recover.

Energy is simply the ability to do work. Our most fundamental biological need is to expend and store energy.

Restoring energy is more than just being out of work.

Sounds become music through pauses between notes, just as words are made from spaces between letters. Not allocating enough time for recovery, we replace our lives with not always useful and clearly defined activities.

We live in a world that celebrates work and activity, ignores rest and recovery, and tends to recognize that both are important for high performance.

In order to increase the capacity of the "batteries", we must subject ourselves to more stress - accompanied by adequate recovery.

The key “muscles” for achieving a positive emotional state are self-confidence, self-control, communication skills, and emanation. The small, supportive “muscles” are patience, openness, trust, and pleasure.

Any activity that brings a sense of joy, self-realization and self-affirmation is a source of emotional recovery.

Most often, we are given to understand that we will achieve greater productivity if we think about work as long and continuously as possible. We are not entitled to any compensation for breaks and in general any way of working, except for bowing our heads low for the maximum possible time.

The stronger the storm, the more we tend to turn to our habits—and the more important positive rituals become.
The most effective people are sure to have rituals that optimize their ability to move rhythmically from stress to recovery.
The rituals of the annual holidays give us an opportunity to remember important events. More broadly, rituals imbue key moments in our lives with meaning.
We have negative associations with rituals, but this is because we do not choose them ourselves, but they are imposed on us. When a ritual seems empty, it loses touch with our values.

When intentions are formulated in a negative form - "I will not be angry" - they deplete the reserves of will. Not-doing requires constant self-control.

Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz

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

Foreword

The cure for downshifting

Many have been waiting for this book for a long time. They waited, still unaware of its existence, name and 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 we waited. There were experts who convincingly, extensively 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 is the practitioners who trained leading American athletes, FBI special forces and top managers of companies from the Fortune 500 list.

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

The problem of energy management is one of the key ones in self-management. One of the members of 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 managing time, money and information, then there was a clear gap in the field of energy management. Which is finally starting to fill up.

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

Read, do everything and fill your Time with Energy!

Gleb Arkhangelsky, General Director of Time Management Company, founder 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 the digital age. We race at full speed, our rhythms are accelerating, our days are cut into bytes and bits. We prefer breadth to depth and quick reaction to thoughtful decisions. We glide across the surface, hitting 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're online, but we're offline.

Most of us just try to do the best we can. When demands exceed our capacity, we make decisions that help cut through the web of problems but devour our time. We sleep little, eat on the go, fuel ourselves with caffeine and soothe ourselves with alcohol and sleeping pills. Faced with relentless demands at work, we become irritable and easily distracted. After a long day at work, we return home completely exhausted and perceive the family not as a source of joy and recovery, but as another problem.

We have surrounded ourselves with diaries and to-do lists, PDAs and smartphones, instant messaging systems and reminders on computers. We believe this should help us manage our time better. We pride ourselves on multi-tasking, and our readiness to work from dawn to dusk is everywhere like a medal for bravery. The term "24/7" describes a world where the work never ends. We use the words "obsession", "crazy" 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 do everything planned.

Are you familiar with such situations?

You are at an important four-hour meeting where not a second is wasted. But the last two hours you spend the rest of your strength 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 your 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;

- Of course, you remember 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 thought has revolutionized our understanding of what drives high performance over time. She has led our clients to rethink how they manage their lives, both personally and professionally. Everything we do, from walking with our children to communicating with colleagues and making important decisions, requires energy. It seems obvious, but that's what we often forget about. Lacking the right quantity, quality, and focus of energy, we jeopardize every undertaking we undertake.

Each of our thoughts or emotions has energetic consequences - for better or for worse. Our life is ultimately judged not by the amount of time we have spent on this planet, but by the energy we have invested in that time. The main idea of this book is quite simple: efficiency, health and happiness are based on the skillful management of energy.

Of course, there are bad bosses, a toxic work environment, difficult relationships, and life crises. However, we can control our energy much more completely and deeper than we imagine. The number of hours in a day is constant, but the quantity and quality of the energy available to us depends on us. And this is our most valuable resource. The more responsibility we take for the energy that 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 relationship between them change and affect the quality of your own services?

Leaders are conductors of the energy of the organization - 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, and makes possible what we call the achievement of full power.

To turn on the full power, we must be physically energetic, emotionally turned on, mentally focused and united in a common spirit to achieve goals that lie beyond our selfish interests. Working at full capacity begins with a desire to start early in the morning, an equal desire to return home in the evening, and a clear line between work and home. It means the ability to fully immerse yourself in the fulfillment of your mission, whether it is solving a creative problem, managing a group of employees, spending time with loved ones, or having fun. Working at full capacity implies the need for a fundamental change in lifestyle.

According to a Gallup poll published in 2001, only 25% of employees in American companies work at full capacity. About 55% work half-heartedly. The remaining 20% are “actively opposed” to work, which means they are not only unhappy in their professional life, but they constantly share this feeling with colleagues. The damage from their presence at work is estimated at trillions of dollars. Even worse, the longer people work in an organization, the less energy they give to it. According to Gallup, after the first six months of operation, only 38% are fully operational. After three years, this figure drops to 22%. Look at your life from this point of view. How fully are you involved in the work? What about your colleagues?

Comparing the pressures experienced by professional athletes and ordinary office workers, Loher and Schwartz came to the paradoxical conclusion: “The demands on ordinary people doing office work far exceed those of any professional athletes with whom we have worked.” Why is this happening? It's just that the life of athletes is better organized. And this is understandable. After all, athletes are always in sight, their regime is subordinated to a single goal - to win the competition, bring points to the team, set a record. The main feature of sports training is just a hard rhythm, the alternation of concentration and relaxation, the consumption of only those foods that give energy in the right quantities. And of course, control over emotions.

What is the most important for performance? Energy! Changing the cycles of activity and relaxation is necessary in order to efficiently spend and replenish energy. Stress only depresses us when it lasts and is not resolved. Ideally, stress hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol spur you on, give you the joy of activity and the desire to create. But when we experience moderate stress for a long time, we lose efficiency. Thus, argue Loher and Schwartz, it is not stress itself that is harmful, but the inability to manage it. By subjecting ourselves to strong but short-term stress, by doing things that are beyond our capabilities, we train our “energy lungs”. It is better to concentrate fully on a particular task in order to quickly get it over with than to drag out the process by "pumping" yourself with something sweet or exciting (for example, a cigarette) in an attempt to alleviate anxiety due to deadlines and requirements.

To achieve true efficiency, the authors of "Life at full power" urge you to take sprinters as a model - to break your activity into a series of intervals. To do this, you need to rebuild life in literally all areas. For example, determine the schedule of meals, sleep, do breathing exercises (deep and rhythmic breathing affects the supply of oxygen and the work of all organs). Our emotions also participate in the cycle of energy. They, too, can be subordinated to a certain rhythm. “Achieving full emotional power requires what the Stoic philosophers called “the interdependence of the virtues.” They believed that none of the virtues can exist by itself. Directness without delicacy, for example, can result in callousness. The ultimate goal is the ability to easily and flexibly move from one feeling to the opposite.”

The authors attach particular importance to daily rituals. It can be, for example, ten seconds of deep breathing and listening to your favorite music, calling home, running up the stairs several floors. The main thing is that at this moment we can completely distract ourselves from work and replenish energy. The more precisely we follow these rituals, the faster we can recover.

It is worth noting that the book "Life at full capacity" is written in line with modern approaches to productivity, which actively borrow oriental traditions and techniques. Thus, the Japanese economic miracle became possible largely due to the clarity and rhythm of the work (or rather, life) of people, their high self-organization. Breath control and clear mind meditation, which are actively used by the same athletes, come from the arsenal of Indian yogis and spiritual practitioners. The main idea of the authors of "Life at Full Power" is also close to Eastern philosophy: external success is impossible without internal harmony and subordination of one's life to the natural rhythms of life.

Jim Lauer, Tony Schwartz

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

Foreword

The cure for downshifting

Read, do everything and fill your Time with Energy!

Gleb Arkhangelsky, General Director of Time Management Company, founder 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

Are you familiar with such situations?

You are at an important four-hour meeting where not a second is wasted. But the last two hours you spend the rest of your strength 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 your 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;

Life at full capacity analyzes 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, bestselling author, founder and CEO.

Schwartz began his career as a journalist in 1975 and worked for the American media for 25 years. He wrote a column for The New York Post, was an assistant editor for Newsweek, a reporter for The New York Times, and a staff writer for New York Magazine and Esquire. In 1988, co-authored with Donald Trump, he published The Art of the Deal, which became a worldwide 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, in collaboration with Jim Loehr, chairman of the board of directors of LGE, he published the book “One hundred percent! How to organize a working day and succeed in business ”(eng. The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy Not Time).

The book became a Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, topped the New York Times bestseller list for eight weeks, was translated into 28 languages, including Russian In 2003, Schwartz founded The Energy Project, 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 Lauer is Chairman and CEO of the Human Performance Institute and is widely recognized for his work in the field of the psychology of high performance. His training center clients include hundreds of world-class athletes, police and secret services, rescue teams and FBI special forces. Since 1993, his center has been a success applies in practice independently developed principles of training not only famous athletes, but also top managers. The authors of the book, Jim Lauer and Tony Schwartz, explain with reason how to do this and why it is important. In addition, they offer new approaches to managing our power and talk about various aspects that are essential for the formation of positive energy reserves.

Life at full power— 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 expended energy and recovered energy. Often our performance is not in the ability to work long and hard, but 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 shown in the illustration. The most effective are those whose energy runs between high positive energy (active work) and low positive energy (rest-recovery).

Physical Energy

Physical energy is one of the most important energies. It feeds all other forms of energy. Therefore, it is very important for people engaged in intellectual work to shift their attention to physical energy, performing any physical exercises.

Breathing, proper nutrition and sleep can also be attributed to physical energy.

emotional energy

Emotional energy can include 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 develop our personality and not stand still. It is worth noting here that our brain is very plastic and we can constantly improve its performance by giving it a mental load and learning something new.

spiritual energy

The authors understand spiritual energy not as a religious component, but as our values and goals. Spiritual energy makes us act, gives perseverance and perseverance. The main component of spiritual energy is our character, which must be cultivated in ourselves.

Training and practice

goal setting

Human development occurs from the bottom up - from the physical level to the spiritual. However, the 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 must be positive, the goal must 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 aspects. Self-study should become a permanent 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 in the period from 7 to 30 days.

It is necessary to leave the comfort zone and instill rituals gradually so as not to break too quickly. Do not take on too many obligations at once, promising to completely change your life from the new year or from Monday. Try to focus on one important change in a certain time period.

Rituals based on deep values are the best tools for energy management. They allow you to consolidate good habits, set new priorities, change your lifestyle and train the "muscles" of our energies.

Portal for the student. Self-training