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Summary: Wow, Great Book!
Review: A new approach to improving effectiveness at work and at home. As a hard working single mother and Executive, I needed to manage time better, or so I thought. This book helps to define the difference between time and energy. Following the advice in this book has made me less tired and more producitve. Less time wasted, more work done. Get this book. I also recommend "The Child Whisperer" - not about the same topic, but if you have kids or work with them, the techniques in "The Child Whisperer" will help you to be more effective and efficient in those relationships. Buy both books for a balanced approach.
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Summary: Authors seem to think they know more than they do.
Review: I found this book a waste of money. It's full of half truths asserted as fact. For example, the authors quote the old study that found that it matters what time of day you eat most of your food - morning or night. They don't quote the followup studies that find that after a few weeks the human body adapts and the differences no longer hold.Also I didn't like the emphasis on the "corporate" athlete. If all you want to do is adapt to a fast paced, stressful life, this book might help. But if you want to create a life more on your own terms, this isn't your best guide.
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Summary: What I've been looking for
Review: This book is easy to understand. The prose keeps me interested, while the ideas deal with the questions I face everyday. Specifically, a new paradigm through which to view my strivings and a constructive method to focus my energy.
It's easy to see why it belongs on Business Week's best seller list.
If either a satisfied reader base is important to you, or you're looking for decades of experience training hardcases packaged comprehensively in a book, or you're tired of ineffective routines read this book!
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Summary: It Grasps Me Even Just by Reading the Excerpt!
Review: I was totally intrigued and engaged by this self-help book, just by reading the excerpt of the book provided by Amazon. There is no doubt that I will buy the book, sit down, and read it! This book really has an impact on me, at least initially, before I read the entire book. The impact is just as big as Covey's 7 Habits. The book has a new focus--Energy, not Time to drive people to excel physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. Actually, this book has a similar uderpinning like 7 Habits, except the two books took different routes, styles, metaphors or analogies to present the materials. Throughout the years, I have read a number of personal development books. I have been positively addicted to this type of performance enhancing books. More or less, I have been overdosed with positive messages, and try to practice what I have learned from all these "positive dosages". I must say that not all new books on personal development these days deserved to be read or bought, including Covey's new books in recent years. Most of them are either unmeaningful line extensions of some so-called motivational gurus' work. Some are just cliche--repeating old ideas or content on personal development. Read this book. You will find a lot of new insights, and will benefit from it in this worldwide economic downtime. Trust the authors! I read some of their previous books. Not one of them has disappointed me...........
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Summary: Be healthy, productive and enjoy life.
Review: Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, senior partners at LGE Performance Systems, are renown for helping well-known professional athletes achieve the highest level of success in their fields. In adapting their methods for business professionals, the authors found a greater challenge than in working with professional athletes. Athletes spend most of their "work" time practicing for a relatively short period of "performance"; business people have almost no practice time and their workdays consist primarily of "performance". Additionally, most athletes have an off-season where they aren't performing. The authors' Corporate Athlete Training program is rooted in these facts, and THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT is their training program in book format. In working with athletes at the highest level of performance, Loehr and Schwarz found that among the top people in a given sport who were matched in terms of talent and training, some performed more consistently than others. They found that the consistently high performers had unconscious rest/rejuvenation rituals that supported their high levels of performance. Core elements of the training program also include the concepts of balancing and building key areas of life - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. The authors provide tools to assist individuals in identifying key areas where they are lacking balance and/or not building in some of these areas. The key thrust of the book is two fold - identifying the changes that should be made and then ensuring that the changes endure. The changes to be made include working fewer total hours, getting more sleep, eating healthily (eating many small meals, not a few large ones), exercising (building a combination of strength and endurance, but focusing on strength), taking work breaks (every 90-120 minutes), incorporating a brief mid-day nap if possible, delegating, and doing the most important things first. By having higher energy levels and better thought processes, more effective work is accomplished. Loehr and Schwartz weave the story of one of their clients throughout the book - Roger B., a recently promoted sales manager who is in a downward spiral and grudgingly comes to their program at his boss' insistence. A number of other success stories are told in briefer form as the book unfolds. The authors stress the proper balance of work and recovery - challenging the system to do better without wearing it out or putting it in a chronic fatigue state, while allowing it to build & grow, much like an athlete must train to build strength and endurance without overtraining. By using rituals - " a behavior that becomes automatic over time - fueled by some deeply held value", we conserve our energy. Changes in personal behavior often fail because there is too much energy that has to be put into the new behavior. By making the new behavior a ritual, that energy is not needed on an on-going basis and can be directed elsewhere. Additionally, the authors point out it takes 30 to 60 days for a new behavior to be cemented and occassional back-sliding is to be expected. The exercises in the book allow you to create and work a very personalized plan. In developing, supporting, and applying your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual "muscles", you become "fully engaged." This enables you not only to produce high-quality work, but also increase your rates of effective output, thus eliminating the need to work excessive hours and neglect other parts of your life. This is a book to be read, studied and used.
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Summary: Microsoft lovin' PC users
Review: It's a pity that the publishers think potential readers of the digital version of this book are Microsoft lovin' PC users. I'd love to buy this book, but I want a digital book that I can read on my Mac. Why on earth didn't they publish it using cross-platform Adobe Acrobat? Three stars so as not to upset the ratings too much!
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Summary: Giving it your all.
Review: I am a CEO of a successful company. Many years ago I took to heart Budha's words "We become what we think." I became a student of creative thinking, and have committed myself and my organization to optimal thinking. This has led me to an awareness of the energy level of my organization. Energy is a basic aspect of existence that is not well understood in relation to corporate performance. This book discusses individual and organizational energy, and provides a meaningful link to corporate performance. I recommend it.
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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: This book will provide the missing 4%
Review: If you are someone with extremely strong will power but still fail to 'impose' your will on yourself, or if you are someone with big ideas in your head but no action to show for it, then this book will give you an answer and a method. This book is worth reading 4 times and belongs on your second shelf (where all the good books are.)
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Summary: Maximum Managment Baby!
Review: I'll keep this brief, as I am now practicing what I have learned. Jim and Tony have really told it like it needed to be told! Indeed, how can one expect to achieve personal renewal without energy? I have truly been transformed by this reading experience, and can now shoot bolts of electricity from my fingertips. That's energy baby!
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