The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal

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Summary: The book and the test are awesome!
Review: Just READING this book gave me more energy. The authors are right on the money when they describe the problems so many of us have in corporate america - how are we supposed to do more with less when we are exhausted, overworked, and basically have no life??? Rather than whine about it or wait for it to change, Dr. Loehr and Mr. Schwartz take us through the Corporate Athlete training program in which we see that we don't have to wait to be happier, healthier, and way more productive. We can make changes ourselves, and the strategies they provide are clear, concise, and simple. They lay their program out, and you don't even need self-discipline to make it work.
The book is practical and inspirational at the same time. AND they provide a link to their self-profile evaluation(www.....com) so I was able to start to change my energy management skills right away.

The book is great, the tests are awesome!

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Summary: One of the best business/self-help books of the year.
Review: THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT has the potential to change your life with one single insight: that managing ENERGY, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. While I have as many hours in a day as I had in my 20s, I have to admit that my energy and productivity levels had dropped over the years. This book explains how to increase your energy levels through tapping four primary sources of energy: physical (and includes strategies for "fueling the fire" through exercise, nutrition, and sleep), emotional ("transforming threat into challenge"), mental ("appropriate focus and realistic optimism"), and spiritual ("having a 'why' to live"). The training system this book espouses asks the reader to define their purpose, to face the truth about how they're managing their energy now, and to take action through positive rituals. Since learning and putting into practice some of the ideas in this book, I have managed to at least DOUBLE my energy level during the day as well as my effectiveness in accomplishing the things that are most important to me. You can't put a price tag on results like these -- but if you could, [the price] seems like a miraculous bargain to me.

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Summary: BUY THIS BOOK. IT'S A GIFT TO YOURSELF AND ANYONE YOU LOVE!
Review: The Power of Full Engagement, a clear, concise and wonderfully written book, is the best program I've ever come across that can really help you change. The book explains that if you want to change, you first have to face the truth of who you are and where you are in your life now, and then figure out who you'd like to be -- that is, what really matters to you. Using those two crucial pieces of information, it then helps you to build an action plan for change by showing how to replace negative habits with positive rituals. It's simply a fantastic program for change that also includes the amazing observation that built into any change process must be the understanding that stress is good -- crucial, in fact -- but only in the context of regular intermittent recovery. So simple and elegant and so brilliant. Each step is clearly explained, and the examples, sprinkled liberally throughout, make the book wonderfully readable and they beautifully illustrate how the program been successful for others. Buy this book! It will be a gift to yourself. Then buy more copies and give it to all your friends and family. They will thank you.

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Summary: Good book for managers and others who need to relax more.
Review: "The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal" is a good self-help book for business executives, managers, athletes, and others who feel overwhelmed by the demands of their jobs and who want to improve their effectiveness.

Loehr and Schwartz argue that life isn't a marathon, rather it's a series of sprints. To be successful, individuals need to balance recovery time with actual sprinting. A tired sprinter probably won't win the next race. And, most of us treat life like a constant race with no downtime.

Loehr, a performance psychologist, came upon these observations while he was studying professional tennis players to learn what separates the greatest players from the less successful players. Loehr discovered what separated the greatest players, such as Ivan Lendl, from the less successful players wasn't how they played tennis points. Rather, it was how they behaved between playing points.

The greatest players developed rituals to help calm and relax themselves in the short time between points.

When Loehr used EKG telemetry to monitor player heart rates, he discovered that: "In the sixteen to twenty seconds between points in a match, the heart rates of top competitors dropped as much as twenty beats per minute. By building highly efficient and focused recovery routines, these players had found a way to derive extraordinary energy renewal in a very short period of time."

The less successful players, on the other hand, didn't have rituals to help them recover between points. Their heart rates remained high between points, and they couldn't seem to calm their stress.

Similarly, Loehr and Schwartz say many managers and executives don't have rituals to help them relax and remain effective. The authors argue that rituals help us connect to our values and what we hold most dear. Rituals assure our effort is directed to serve our most important goals.

Loehr and Schwartz write: "We hold ourselves accountable for the ways that we manage our time, and for that matter our money. We must learn to hold ourselves at least equally accountable for how we manage our energy physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually."

To help managers balance production with recovery, Loehr and Schwartz developed The Complete Corporate Athlete Training System. (Loehr and Schwartz are partners in LGE Performance Systems, which works with executives and managers.)

Loehr and Schwartz tell us physical energy is crucial, even for those whose work is sedentary. If we don't take care of our health, everything else will become more difficult.

Loehr and Schwartz say the specificity of goals is important to success. We can't spend too much time thinking about our rituals or they'll become equivalent to New Year's resolutions that are quickly dropped. Rituals must be nearly automatic. For example, it's probably good to have fixed times for exercise.

In addition to the physical realm, Loehr and Schwartz argue we must similarly develop rituals to develop personally on emotional, mental, and spiritual levels.

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Summary: Energy is Power
Review: We only have a certain amount of time and energy every day to do the things that are most important to our happiness and productivity. Most books talk about effective time management but this book takes a different approach -- how do you manage your finite level of energy? If you can't seem to get everything done as you race from one task to the next then this book can show you how to stop wasting time by consistently managing your energy.

Check out Rat Race Relaxer: Your Potential & The Maze of Life by JoAnna Carey which also has practical tips for setting priorities, living a more fulfilling life and getting what you really want.

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Summary: You won't regret buying this.
Review: If you like to find real reason's for improving and growing your ability this is a great book to help with it. They base their ideas on values and on coaxing readers to solving their problems with real world solutions. The concept of building rituals into your daily life is very helpful and the tools and ideas are presented in a logical fashion with good examples from recent times. Hearing the examples of people involved in the attack on the World Trade Center was very influential.

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Summary: Don't waste your time or money
Review: According to the authors, the main idea behind achieving "full engagement" is to maximize your physical and mental recovery. The only thing this book provides are obvious suggestions for doing so. ("get enough sleep and exercise", Duh!) It is basically a book of case studies on how various professionals have implemented the "program". Don't waste your time or money; skim through it at the bookstore and do some internet research and you, too, can become "fully engaged".

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Summary: Energy Management is the Key!
Review: The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, 2003.

This book presents a compelling case that the way we manage our energy has far more impact on our ability to achieve superior performance than does how we manage our time. In years of work with outstanding athletes, first in tennis and golf and then expanding to other sports, the authors developed this theory. Loehr and Schwartz show that an athlete's peak performance followed by brief periods of recovery will enable them to endure long periods of exertion and outlast equally skilled competitors over years of participation. This knowledge has been expanded to the corporate world, in what is called the "Corporate Athlete© Training System."

The premise is that there are four unique types of energy we expend - physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. In each area we need to both stress ourselves in order to grow and follow those periods of stress with periods of recovery. The stress enables us to build "muscle" in each area. Not challenging ourselves will cause atropy, much the way a muscle will decline in strength if not used - think of the condition of a person's arm when they have a cast removed. The recovery time will allow us to recharge and be ready for the next period of exertion.

In applying this to a business environment, the authors suggest that our typical business mentality is to go to work and then work all day, surviving on bad food choices and then wondering why we end up with low energy, burnout and a build up of stress. To counter this, it is suggested that one should not work for more than 11/2 to 2 hours without taking a break. The break may be anything that gets your mind off of work for 15 minutes. It could be a walk, listening to music, going to a coffee shop, getting a shoe-shine, etc. Studies have shown that this kind of routine will increase a person's overall productivity and keep them performing well for many, many years. A person doing this will also arrive home in the evening with energy to spare for their family and hobbies, further nurturing their emotional, mental, and spiritual capacities.

The most compelling argument the authors present goes back to the sports analogy. Think of a major athlete and how long they actually are in a mode of peak performance. Then think of how much time they spend recovering - through massage, relaxing, etc. The game - peak performance period - is far surpassed by the amount of recovery time between games. Add to that that generally the athlete only performs for a season or two a year. This is in sharp contrast to how much demand we put on ourselves to perform at work, year in and year out, with short vacation breaks.

This book, through the information and the case studies it presents, illustrates how everyone can benefit from better managing their energy. The book also shows how relatively simple modifications in how one approaches work will have tremendous positive impact on their well-being. The examples given will give you ideas to reshape your own day.

© Copyright BJ Sanders, 2004. All Rights Reserved. Contact: [e-mail] Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute this article as long as it is reproduced in full with this copyright and contact information included.



Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz offer a lot of solid, common sense advice. The authors recommend going to bed and getting up at a consistent time - not exactly Ben Franklin's "early to bed, early to rise," but close. They recommend regular exercise. They say it's good to work and to rest, and each has its place. They say to examine yourself and try to see yourself as others see you. In other words, they recommend many time-honored techniques of physical, mental and spiritual growth,combined with prioritizing how you use your energy and how you recharge your batteries. This attitude makes the book unique. The principles may be ancient, but we find the vehicle distinctly contemporary, a combo of New Age jargon and workout-style performance charting, with (at last) a key to time management that makes sense and captures all areas of one's life. Some readers will find that thrilling, others will groan.

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Summary: Managing Energy with Rituals
Review: Excellent book. Reminds me of various theories and principles of learning and behavior that I agree with: Vygotsky's ZPD theory, Durkheim's theories about rituals and emotional energy, etc.

I was so fascinated with the notion of "emotional energy" and "ritual" myself that I wanted to do my dissertation on it. Unfortunately, the subject was considered to be too "vague" and I changed the topic.

Building new rituals of behavior is easier said than done, though. I know the concept elaborated in the book so well yet have found it difficult to practice on a consistent basis. Perhaps it'd be much easier when there's some sort of structure...