Post: #1

http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Loehr-Tony-Sch...engagement

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

by Jim Loehr, Tony Schwartz

The Gist In A Few Words: To maintain high-level productivity and performance in business (or any pursuit), one must train capacity and systematically incorporate recovery into one's life.

Review/Notes:

I got acquainted with the author of the book, Tony Schwarz, through Eben Pagan's (excellent) course on business, Get Altitude.

Here's a 6 minute clip of Tony Schwarz speaking at the Get Altitude conference, which summarizes some of the key points of the book:





We've all been in that state where we're fully engaged with what we're doing mentally, physically, spiritually. A state of 'flow' if you will.

The thesis of this book is that in order to access this state of full engagement reliably in work and other important areas of life, we have to fully disengage on a systematic basis.

Schwarz calls this engagement-disengagement cycle oscillation.

Schwarz et al initially did work with high level athletes; specifically, professional tennis players. They found that the difference in performance between almost-pros and bona fide pros was in the way that that they 'recovered' between points. Then they began to apply what they learned working with athletes to the business world.

Schwarz fills the book with fascinating stories and case studies of burnt out businessmen who came to their firm for consulting. He details how his strategies helped these folks reinvigorate their business/personal/physical/spiritual lives by building recovery rituals into their daily routines.

Some Positive Changes I've Made

I work from my laptop and it's easy to stay constantly engaged. Email, Facebook, Skype calls, checking stats, etc. I got so burned out with this crap that I flew down to the South of Thailand and unplugged my computer for a week.

I could not relax for the first few days. I kept worrying about pissed off client emails waiting for me when I returned. Or missed business opportunities and leads that had taken their business elsewhere. Nothing of the sort happened.

Somehow I managed to disconnect and when I came back to work I was utterly vigorous.

Now I also work for an hour or 90 minutes and then do something for 30 minutes or an hour to completely switch channels. Do a workout, write, meditate, play some guitar, bang a regular, etc.

So I basically work 2-4 of these intervals a day and I feel sharp on each one. Whereas before they all sort of melted together and I just felled spaced out and fuzzy. Now I feel fully engaged because it was preceded by full disengagement.

I also now use my time on the subway or in a taxi to close my eyes and meditate. Basically, any time I have a free moment, I train recovery. It was hard at first because I always tend to stay hyper aware of my surroundings and people's faces and things like that. But now I find that disengaging allows me to "awake" from that state with a greater capacity to engage in my surroundings.

As Schwarz writes, we should approach things as sprinters, not marathon runners. Look at the muscular bodies of sprinters and the wizened, emaciated bodies of cross-country runners. Parallels to other parts of life abound.

http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Loehr-Tony-Sch...engagement

p.s. Here's a YouTube playlist with an abridged montage-style overview of Eben Pagan's Get Altitude course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxQkXhs2F...54E1B922A8

Post: #2

Good post thanks for sharing!