The Power Of Full Engagement Bargain The Way We're Working Isn't Working

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as of 2012-09-27 12:05 PM

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A Simon & Schuster eBook

Full Engagement

In an article I wrote a few years ago called Do It Now, I explained some time management techniques that allowed me to finish college more quickly than usual.What I probably didn't make clear in the article was that I didn't overwhelm myself like a workaholic to pull it off.I had a great deal of leisure time every week, including taking at least one full day off each week.I stole time for doing extra homework mainly from the inefficiencies of school itself, not from my personal time.Some classes require concentration for the entire duration, but at least 80% of them don't.How much cumulative time during a typical one-hour class are you fully engaged in listening, writing, or doing some kind of mental or physical activity?For me it was probably about 10-15 minutes per hour on average.The other 45 minutes would be spent waiting for the professor to show up, waiting for the teacher to finish the opening babble-talk, pointless administrative and announcement talk that could have been eliminated with a handout, hearing further examples and explanations for a concept I had already grasped, hearing students ask questions for which I already knew the answer, and lots of digressions into the professor's nostalgia for the 60s (or worse, the 70s).So during a one-hour lecture, I would put this wasted time to good use by doing schoolwork for other classes, whereas my other classmates would spend a lot of time looking bored and not be fully engaged most of the time.So one of my greatest discoveries was that I could reclaim this wasted time during classes themselves and put it to good use.Instead of sitting there bored, I kept myself working.And this worked so well that I actually did most of my homework during classes, so I didn't have to do much extra work outside of class.See any similarities to corporate meetings? What percentage of meeting time are you truly 100% engaged? My guess would be 15-20% on average, but the exact number doesn't matter.But let's generalize this a bit more.What percentage of your day are you fully 100% engaged in whatever it is you're doing? (I borrow the term "fully engaged" from the book The Power of Full Engagement.) Ask yourself, "Am I fully utilizing all my available personal resources right now?" Think of your brain and body together as a factory where your goal is to maximize output (you're free to define output however you wish).So you want to keep the machines running as efficiently as possible.If you have machines sitting idle that could be put to good use, you're operating below capacity.Now the goal isn't to push yourself until the veins are bursting out of your forehead.By all means enjoy your downtime.But if you're going to do some kind of work, then it seems logical to work at full capacity.When you work, really work.The work time will pass anyway whether you're working at 15% capacity or 95%.But you'll experience a huge increase in output if you can fully engage yourself.Children are a great model for seeing full engagement in action.When I watch my 4-year old daughter Emily, she's always fully 100% engaged in what she's doing.When she's playing, she's 100% playing.When she's eating, she's 100% playing.When she's napping, she's 100% playing..).Sometimes being fully engaged means focusing on one task or project and tuning out everything else.If you're giving a presentation at work, there's no room for multitasking.But if you're preparing a meal or driving to work or cleaning up your office, you can also be listening to audio books at the same time.If you work at full capacity for a while and get tired, then take a break -- a real 100% break.Literally shut your brain off for a while, such as by taking a nap or meditating, or just close your eyes at your desk and breathe deeply for 15 minutes.Many of the greatest achievers of all time were nappers, including Thomas Edison.Acknowledge that you're switching from fully working to fully taking a break.Don't remain stuck in that haze of not quite working and not quite resting, such as by doing web surfing for a while and then returning to work at 20% capacity.If you feel mentally tired and can't work anywhere near 100%, don't grind yourself into the ground.Stop for a while.Switch off your mental factory, do the required maintenance, and then get it back to 100%.Finding blocks of time where you aren't fully engaged and upgrading your usage of this time to fully engage yourself is a great way to squeeze more productivity out of your life without becoming overloaded.When you watch TV, are you fully engaged? Not even close.Even while watching TV, you could be cleaning up, exercising, or giving your significant other a foot massage.Now there's nothing wrong with just relaxing either, but often you'll find you do have the energy to be more fully engaged in tasks if you push yourself a bit.I have a home gym where I do weight training, and I need to rest briefly between sets.My muscles need these breaks, but my brain doesn't.So I often read articles from magazines or newsletters during these minutes.Or I'll listen to an audio book during the whole session.So I turn a sporadically engaged activity into a fully engaged one.Now you might think that taking all your 20% engaged periods of the day and upgrading them to near 100% will have the effect of exhausting you more quickly.But most likely you'll experience the opposite effect.When you fully engage yourself, you gain an obvious short-term boost in output, and this has the effect of boosting your energy and self-esteem as well.When you look back on your day and know you only worked at around 20% of capacity, you'll often feel lousy about it.You know you could have done better and just wasted a lot of time, and years of this behavior tend to be very draining and de-motivating.But when you fully engage yourself, you tend to feel really great about your performance.You'll still make mistakes, but they won't be due to lack of effort.When you go to bed, you'll be thinking, "Wow, I really did my best today.I couldn't have done it better.".Being fully engaged isn't just about doing.It's also about being.How often have you been off somewhere else mentally? Yesterday I went for a 2-hour walk through various casinos along the Las Vegas Strip (Treasure Island, the Mirage, Caesar's Palace, Bally's, and Paris).It was crowded due to the holiday weekend, and I saw a lot of people with vacuous expressions who clearly weren't fully engaged.People were sitting at the blackjack tables looking utterly bored.Yet occasionally I'd see someone having the time of their life, regardless of whether they were winning or losing.Now it could have been the free alcohol.But at the very least, these people were fully engaged in what they were doing.They were totally present and enjoying themselves.Those who weren't fully engaged were clearly wandering mentally.Thinking about work or other problems or just zoning out completely.Such a sad way to spend a vacation.Fully engage yourself in the present moment.When you work, get yourself completely into work mode.When you play, forget about work and enjoy yourself.Squeeze the maximum productivity out of your work, the maximum fun out of your play, the maximum connection out of your conversations.If you can't seem to focus, take 15 minutes to put your complete attention on thinking about whatever is distracting you, and then let it go.If you feel anxious, then give yourself some 100% dedicated worry time, during which you get all your worrying out of the way.Incidentally, this site is now averaging about 500-600 visitors per day with less than 1% coming from search engines (and 75% of those SE hits are just searches on my name).That's wonderful for a site that's only 8 weeks old.I'm seeing a lot of hits coming from various web mail servers, which implies people are learning about this site primarily by word of mouth, or possibly someone announced this site in an email newsletter.Either way, thanks for spreading the word!Have a fully engaged day! .).

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The Power of Influencer Marketing: Part 1

What Is It?Influencer Marketing is not a new game in the marketing world and the concept is pretty simple.You enlist an individual or group with influence and credibility and you associate them with your brand.The intent is to have their credibility rub off on your brand so that you gain credibility and, hopefully, a larger following of consumers.Examples of common types of Influencer Marketing might include Brand Ambassadors and Celebrity Endorsement.With that said, it's important to note the difference between credibility and fame.A common failing for brands attempting to engage in Influencer Marketing is recognizing this distinction and simply engaging a "celebrity spokesperson".In order to effectively engage with an "Influencer" for your brand, it's important to select an association that meets the following criteria.Relevant. They are considered by your consumer base to be authoritative and influential in the specific arena in which your brand is a player.Relative. They are able to communicate and engage with your consumer base in ways that is easy to relate to and considered genuine.Respected. They carry enough influence to generate both feeling and action on the part of your consumer base.Without a compelling call to action the association has too limited a benefit.What Can It Do?One of the obvious benefits of marketing through the use of Influencers is growing brand awareness.While this is helpful, this is certainly not unique to Influencer Marketing.The real strength lies in its ability to create a very personal and powerful association between your brand and a specific group of consumers.They are not just aware of your brand.They consider it relevant to who they are and what they believe in.In effect, Influencer Marketing can shift consumer perceptions and buying patterns through a very personal association that is unlike anything possible with mainstream media campaigns.Additional Benefits.To close, we'll note that there are additional benefits to Influencer Marketing that make it a very flexible tool that can be used for just about any company or brand regardless of size.Following are a few of the biggest ones.Scalability. With Influencers, it's not necessary to have a large national or international campaign.It is just as effective, if not more so, on a local or regional level.This allows for incredible focus on key pockets of influence.Affordability. Because it is scalable and investment levels are flexible, a program using Influencers like Brand Ambassadors can be an affordable option for just about anyone.The size of the campaign can be adjusted to virtually any size budget.Visibility. The ability of the competition to see your Influencer Marketing campaign is largely under your control.If you're a small brand, you can implement a grass-roots campaign that is nearly invisible to your larger competitors until you have momentum that is difficult to stop.That covers Part 1 of Influencer Marketing.We encourage you to keep an eye out for Parts 2-4 which will cover specific examples of successful Influencer Marketing campaigns and how they have proven successful against larger competitors.

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Changing Habits - How to Create Healthy Habits

Habits and how to create them.All right, let's learn about how to create habits that serve us in our lives and in our businesses.I did an interview recently with Tony Robbins, and one of the things that he said in the interview, and I'm paraphrasing, is that the quality of our habits and our rituals is the quality of our lives.Now what did Tony mean by this? He meant that if we don't have high quality habits and we don't make them into rituals, we don't focus on these things and create them consciously, that a bunch of other stuff will sneak into our life.We'll get distracted, our minds will get taken off on things, we'll worry about stuff, and we'll never get the important things done.On the other hand, if we habitualize all of the important things and actually create conscious rituals around them, then all the other stuff will take care of itself.In fact, the more high quality habits and rituals you create, the more it kind of squeezes out all of that other stuff that distracts you from your life.So the next question is how do you create habits? I saw an interesting piece of research recently that said that we only get a little bit of willpower in our lives and most of us just go through the same habitual things day-in, day-out, month-in, month-out, year after year.We kind of do the same thing, we think the same thoughts, and we have the same patterns with other people.In other words, we are creatures of habit, but most of us never learn how to change our habits with the little bit of willpower we do get.We don't usually focus it on changing our habits.And that's really the equation, that's the magic formula, is to take the willpower that we get and focus it on making a new habit.One of the things I learned from Tony Schwartz, the co-author of The Power of Full Engagement is that it's important to only create one new habit at a time.If we try to create more than one new habit, what happens is we get all stressed out and freaked out and we just fall into our old patterns and we never actually do it.So one new habit at a time, that's the rule, and what I've found works really well for me is to try to make the new habits earlier in the day.It's a lot easier to take a habit that you've all ready created and that's all ready running, and kind of move it a little bit later in the day than it is to create a new habit later in the day.So for example, if you want to focus your time in uninterrupted blocks, start by focusing the first hour of your day in an uninterrupted focused block, every single day where you're working on something important, make it a habit, make it a ritual.In our company, one of the things that we do is our teams start each day with a little ritual of a 10 or 15-minute call.Each team goes through what's going on in their world, what their problems are, what are the roadblocks and what are the updates.Everybody on the team reports in and it's a ritual, it's a habit, and it's very high value because what it does is it synchronizes everyone, let's everyone know what any news is for the day, what's coming, and also allows people to connect up with each other in one place.So they know that if I'm trying to reach that person, the longest I have to wait is until tomorrow morning, it's a very high value habit.Now we do it as many small groups, and it has yielded tremendous results.To get this thing started took a lot of work, actually to do all of these, each one took a lot of work because everyone's all ready in a routine and everyone says, "I don't know if I want to do it.I don't know if that has any value," and then after a month or six weeks of doing it, everyone can't imagine doing it any other way because it just becomes a routine, it becomes part of the deal.Now it would be a lot easier, by the way, if we wanted to keep doing that but do it later in the day.It would be a lot easier as a team to take that and move it to 4.00 p.M.Instead of in the morning than it would be to start it off at 4.00 p.M.Why? Because later in the day, more things come into your life, it's harder to get things done, harder to keep yourself focused, and you've burned up a lot of your willpower.So to start habits, start the habit immediately.My friend Wyatt Woodsmall says, "There's only two rules for creating a habit, start now and don't deviate.".So start right now, don't start in a week or two weeks, start right now, start today or start tomorrow, start tomorrow morning.Plan out the new habit that you want to create, put it into place, and start doing it immediately, and then don't deviate.Whatever you do, make sure you do the new habit every day, you have to do it every day for at least 30 days for it to catch, for it to become a part of the way things are, and for you to feel pulled into it.So there are a couple of techniques for creating new habits in your life.Put them into action now and notice the results that they help you achieve.

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Functioning at Your Best

All of us have a "prime time" in the day.It's that time when you feel good, focused and productive.For some, it's early morning, while for others it's later in the day or evening.The idea is to understand the time you function at your best and schedule your daily routine around your energy cycles.An energy cycle is how your body functions throughout the day.You need to take note of when you feel good, when you feel tired, or you are just chugging along going through the motions.Not really achieving anything but looking like you are working.Tracking your energy cycle comes from asking questions such as, are you an early bird or a night owl? Early birds get up and are ready to go as soon as they wake.Night owl's find they're slower to get up of a morning and get going but busy themselves with work of an evening.For others, it is in between these two scenarios.The time you feel you work better, is the time to schedule the work that requires the most concentration, focus, and creativity.Leave the less demanding work such as reading mail, emails, and phone calls until your energy has dropped.Energy Management not Time Management.Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in their book 'The Power of Full Engagement' wrote, "The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not.It's our most precious resource.The more we take responsibility for the energy we bring to the world, the more empowered and productive we become."."Energy, not time, is our most precious resource".Loehr and Schwartz.What we need to do is manage our energy so that we can manage our time better, be more productive, focused and reduce our stress.The quality of our energy is a reflection of our physical capacity.The four levels of energy are..Physical.Emotional.Mental.Spiritual.Physical energy - when your physical cycle is low, you may tire easily and be susceptible to illness.When your physical energy is high, you feel better and can accomplish more.Emotional energy - this affects our mental stability, sensitivity, moods and emotions.When it's low, we may be moody, bad tempered and irritable.When it's good, we're more likely to be cheerful, happy and sensuous.Mental [Intellectual] energy - this is our ability to learn, memorise and analyse; our logic is sharp, our decision making and concentration is at its best.When it's low, we may display poor judgement, find it hard to concentrate and have difficulty remembering things.When it's high, we solve problems quickly, have a good memory and think effectively.Spiritual energy - this doesn't mean spiritual in the 'religious' sense but in the connection to our values and to a purpose beyond our own self-interest.When it's low, we can have a lack of drive.Spiritual energy is sustained by balancing a commitment to others with sufficient self-care.If we're balanced in all of these areas, we have the capacity to function at our best.That's a fantastic way to be living life.When we're planning our week, we need to make sure we include "positive habits" to manage our energy in the four areas."Enthusiasm finds the opportunities.And energy makes the most of them".Henry S.Haskins.In future articles, we will provide more information on what you can do to look after your energy levels so that you can function at the best levels for you.

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The Power Of Full Engagement Cheap The Power Of Full Engagement

The Power Of Full Engagement See The Power of Full Engagement Details

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as of 2012-09-26 12:01 PM

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We live in digital time. Our pace is rushed, rapid-fire, and relentless. Facing crushing workloads, we try to cram as much as possible into every day. We're wired up, but we're melting down. Time management is no longer a viable solution. As bestselling authors Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in this groundbreaking book, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance.

The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to revolutionize the way you live your life. The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully both on and off the job.

At the heart of the program is the Corporate Athlete® Training System. It is grounded in twenty-five years of work with some of the world's greatest athletes to help them perform more effectively under brutal competitive pressures. Clients have included Jim Courier, Monica Seles, and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario in tennis; Mark O'Meara and Ernie Els in golf; Eric Lindros and Mike Richter in hockey; Nick Anderson and Grant Hill in basketball; and gold medalist Dan Jansen in speed skating.

During the past decade, dozens of Fortune 500 companies have paid thousands of dollars to learn the Corporate Athlete training system. So have FBI swat teams, critical care physicians and nurses, salesmen, and stay-at-home moms. The Power of Full Engagement lays out the key training principles and provides a powerful, step-by-step program that will help you to:

• Mobilize four key sources of energy

• Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal

• Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do

• Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals

Above all, this book provides a life-changing road map to becoming more fully engaged on and off the job, meaning physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned.

Running Low on Passion? Time to Refuel!

When was the last time you were really excited about something in your life?Where you walked around with a grin of big joy, pulsed with tons of energy, felt buoyant, lifted?Surely, each of us has experienced moments of passion.Great flows of pure enthusiasm, where time, responsibilities and worries are suspended.When nothing else matters but what or who you are immersed with at that moment.But, what about now?Are you there parts of your life in which you feel passion-less? Are you drifting? Or, feeling stuck?Is your energy waning?Do you get frustrated when you realize that some of the wants and dreams you have for your life go unfulfilled? Refueling Your Passion for Leadership and Life Many of my clients are in various stages of a passion "re-boot".Some are going through mild forms of "blahs", others feeling semi dis-engaged.Like sprucing up a tired, outdated family room with a fresh new coat of bright paint and sexy new pillows, my clients and I find ways to reconnect to the sources of energy that bring them brightness and meaning again.For me, when I'm feeling cranky and un-inspired, I know that I've allowed my "creativity tank" to get too low.So, I schedule "Creative Dates". Stroll art galleries or an outdoor art show, talk to artists, go dancing, create new programs with colleagues, write, write, write.Like a transfusion, my soul is restored with vibrant creative juice.When it comes to feeling low on passion, there is likely a common denominator..We've probably lost connection with our inner spirit.We've strayed from our heart's desires.We're so busy, we've crowded out our soul's voice.How sad.The Power of Full Engagement for Executives.When you think about it, we really are spiritual beings in physical bodies, yet we pay little or no attention to our spirit.We exercise at the gym and run, keeping our PHYSICAL self in shape.We spend at least 99% of our day working out (vastly over-working) our MENTAL self.And, it's safe to assume that in some ways, our EMOTIONAL self takes a ride around the block during the day, too.But, what about our SPIRITUAL SELF? The spirit that knows what you love, what you're passionate about? The spirit that knows precisely your greatest talents and gifts? The spirit that knows exactly your deepest purpose and what brings you most the most fulfillment?Top 10 Questions to Help You Renew Passion.If you are running low on passion in some part of your life, this month's Leadership Briefing gives you Top 10 Questions to help you refuel.One of the best anecdotes I know to reconnecting to your heart's desires is to schedule a "personal retreat"--- to get still for an hour, reflect and respond to questions like these.The power of inquiry is always telling--- it invariably opens the door to something you didn't realize about yourself or forgot about.Even though I've answered question #10 before, today my response surfaced an entirely new direction.Isn't that interesting? I hope you take time to remind yourself of what your spirit already knows.May you be illuminated by your inner wisdom and inspired to take action.1.What kinds of people, activities, interests give you the most energy?2.What are your UNIQUE TALENTS--- the strengths, gifts that are uniquely yours? (list all of your strengths, including personal, professional talents).3.What gives you the greatest joy, satisfaction and renewal in your life?4.What does your heart long for?5.If you only had the guts, you would..6.What would you be doing if you had all the time, money and energy you needed?7.Imagine that your local bookstore is reducing its inventory to one category of books.If it were up to you to choose the single remaining genre, which one would it be?8.If you could try three new and different jobs over the next year, what would they be?9.Imagine that you were meant to teach others three things in life.What would they be?10.If you were allowed to make one powerful, positive change in the world, large or small, what would it be? Take the Passion Quiz. Passion is the Key to Extraordinary Leadership Performance How about checking in on what motivates you in your work? This Triple P Quiz from my colleague David Batstone is a quick way to gauge what drives Your Purpose, Your Passion and Your Profit.Http.//www.Triplepquiz.Com.Acknowledgements. Passionate Self-Development Experts.I feel immense gratitude to the many teachers who have shared the power of deep inquiry.The questions above are inspired by..1.Exquisite Life Coach Cheryl Richardson who shares in this month's issue of Body Soul Magazine, http.//www.Bodyandsoulmag.Com, questions 7-10 above.2.Martha Beck, Life Coach and author of Finding Your Own North Star http.//www.Marthabeck.Com.3.Alan Cohen, spiritual teacher and prolific author.To this day, I still turn to my worn and torn copy of A Deep Breath of Life. Daily Inspiration for Heart-Centered Living.Http.//www.Alancohen.Com.

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