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

I am not an expert on the subject. Therefore, I submit this review for your respective analysis. The invaluable research completed by Loehr and Schwartz is remarkable! Regarding other reviews submitted for this book, I found them to be unremarkably shallow and maliciously hollow. An outrageously incredible coach will help build new skills, nourish changes, and reach goals for the corporate athlete; and remain with that person over an extended length of time to build consistency. Admittedly, there are other aspects to the 'overall state of the human psyche' such as having great parents, great spouse; perhaps a mentor, a sponsor, a guide and other supportive elements. Loehr and Schwartz have discovered that properly distributing positive energy is more important than managing time expended on a daily basis. The top-down performance pyramid model addresses the body, the emotions, the mind, and the spirit to reach the Ideal Performance State. In my humble opinion, to attain this level of consistency over the span of two or more decades for an executive is impossible. The research could be realistically applied for a world-class athlete since he or she has a much shorter time (and attention) span and the coach is still around. However, I will contradict myself now and submit that maybe, just maybe, it is possible. Here is my reasoning. Recently, I met a new group of world-class athletes who are challenging traditional rules. This new breed does not comprehend the word "NO" and the positive energy, reflected in diet, exercise, and mental agility is not only healthy but contagious. A few weeks ago, I also had the pleasure of meeting a 24-yr. Chinese-born executive who received her business training and experience in Germany. She is fluent in six languages. She owns three manufacturing plants in China, and she is the most aggressive human machine I have ever met. After rigorous negotiations and discussions, she is a powerful and wealthy woman on all levels. I noticed that she took periods to oscillate (rebuild her energy) after stressful negotiations. She closed her eyes, relaxed her muscles and meditated. Later, she told me that she imagined the experience of skydiving, or pretended that she was the heroine in a popular American movie, or she was focused on her next business 'conquest' (her word), planning every detail. During her normal workday, every 2 hours, I noticed that she would stop at whatever she was doing and take fifteen minute stretches, similar to the breaks taken by tennis players staring at their tennis rackets between volleys. Precise, disciplined and focused. Wow! I quickly noticed the similarities while reading this book, demonstrated by this remarkable woman. Spiritually, she had a keen sense of awareness and purpose. She found many different ways to tap into her positive energy. Is this 21st Century "shock-corporate/jock" material or what? This is a spectacular book for managing our "inner stage under the most difficult circumstances, and to emerge from stressful periods stronger, healthier, and eager for the next challenge." [ADDITION TO REVIEW 12JAN06] Upon additional, admittedly amateur research, I believe this book is the beginning of a powerful movement about how people can manage energy and expand life. Please review the Abs Diet by David Zinczenko (sold by Amazon). Exercise your lifestyle with challenging "sprints," then learn to oscillate (relax).

I recently re-read this book and was curious to know to what extent (if any) it has lost any of its relevance during the years since it was first published, in 2003. My conclusion? If anything, it is even more relevant now than it was before. However, that said, I still presume to suggest to those who are thinking about reading that they ignore the title and focus on the methodology that Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz introduce and then explain. Of course, full engagement has power. However, I cannot think of even one company among those annually ranked by Fortune to be the most highly admired, the best to work for, etc. that has full engagement. In fact, the results of recent research by the Gallup Organization and Towers Perrin clearly indicate that, on average, about 25-30% of employees are actively and productively engaged, about 35-40% are passively engaged (doing as little as necessary to stay employed), and about the same percentage are actively disengaged, with many of them hostile and having a toxic effect within their workplace. Obviously, the challenge for business leaders in all organizations (whatever their size and nature my be) is to increase the percentage of those workers who are actively and productively engaged. What do Loehr and Schwartz suggest? All of their insights and recommendations are based on a vast amount of real-world experience with all manner of organizations. What they offer in this volume is the Full Engagement Training System®, a comprehensive and cohesive program that enables us to manage energy efficiently. The methodology is based on four separate but interdependent principles: 1. Full engagement requires drawing on separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. "All four dynamics are critical, none is sufficient by itself and each profoundly influences the others [for better or worse]. To perform at our best, we must skillfully manage each of these interconnected dimensions of energy." 2. Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with underuse, we must balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal. "We rarely consider how much energy we are spending because we take it for granted that the energy available to us is limitless. In fact, increased demand progressively depletes our energy reserves - especially in the absence of any effort to reverse the progressive loss of capacity that occurs with age." 3. To build capacity, we must push beyond our normal limits, training in the same systematic way that elite athletes do. "Stress is not the enemy in our lives. Paradoxically, it is the key to growth. In order to build strength in a muscle we must systematically stress it, expending energy beyond normal levels. Doing so literally causes microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. At the end of a training session, functional capacity is diminished. But give the muscle twenty-four to forty-eight hours to recover and it grows stronger and better able to handle the next stimulus." 4. Positive energy rituals - highly specific routines for managing energy - are the key to full engagement and sustained high performance. "Change is difficult. We are creatures of habit. Most of what we do is automatic and nonconscious. What we did yesterday is what we are likely to do today...A positive ritual is a behavior that becomes automatic over time - fueled by some deeply held value." As indicated earlier, Loehr and Schwartz have devised what they call the Full Engagement Training System® and one of several key points they make is that both supervisors and those for whom they are directly responsible are active in this program, one that involves a shared journey of observation, revelation, and increased understanding. Another is that there are continuous role reversals for both "students" and "teachers" during frequent knowledge exchanges. Still another key point is that one of the most important drivers is the human need to find meaning, "among the most powerful and enduring themes in every culture since the origin of recorded history." And still another is that those who are purpose-driven must also constantly nurture and regularly renew their "most precious resource," energy, and expend it only in the service of what matters most. Forget about having a workforce with full engagement and concentrate on increasing the number of workers who are fully engaged. Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz can provide invaluable assistance to those who are now planning or who are only recently embarked on efforts to achieve that worthy objective.

Below are key excerpts from the book that I found particularly insightful: 1- "We live in a world that celebrates work and activity, ignores renewal and recovery, and fails to recognize that both are necessary for sustained high performance." 2- "-Our most fundamental need as human beings is to spend and recover energy. We call this oscillation. -The opposite of oscillation is linearity: too much energy expenditure without recovery or too much recovery without sufficient energy expenditure. - Balancing stress and recovery is critical to high performance both individually and organizationally. -We must sustain healthy oscillatory rhythms at all four levels of what we term the "performance pyramid": physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. -We build emotional, mental and spiritual capacity in precisely the same way that we build physical capacity. We must systematically expose ourselves to stress beyond our normal limits, followed by adequate recovery. -Expanding capacity requires a willingness to endure short-term discomfort in the service of long-term reward." 3- "-Physical energy is the fundamental source of fuel in life. -Physical energy is derived from the interaction between oxygen and glucose. -The two most important regulators of physical energy are breathing and eating. -Eating five to six low-calorie, highly nutritious meals a day ensures a steady resupply of glucose and essential nutrients. -Drinking sixty-four ounces of water daily is a key factor in the effective management of physical energy. -Most human beings require seven to eight hours of sleep per night to function optimally. -Going to bed early and waking up early help to optimize performance. -Interval training is more effective than steady-state exercise in building physical capacity and in teaching people how to recover more efficiently. -To sustain full engagement, we must take a recovery break every every 90 to 120 minutes. " 4- "-In order to perform at our best, we must access pleasant and positive emotions: the experience of enjoyment, challenge, adventure and opportunity. -The key muscles fueling positive emotional energy are selfconfidence, self-control, interpersonal effectiveness and empathy. -Negative emotions serve survival but they are very costly and energy inefficient in the context of performance. -The ability to summon positive emotions during periods of intense stress lies at the heart of effective leadership. -Access to the emotional muscles that serve performance depends on creating a balance between exercising them regularly and intermittently seeking recovery. -Any activity that is enjoyable, fulfilling and affirming serves as a source of emotional renewal and recovery. -Emotional muscles such as patience, empathy and confidence can be strengthened in the same way that we strengthen a bicep or a tricep: pushing past our current limits followed by recovery." 5- "-Mental capacity is what we use to organize our lives and focus our attention. -The mental energy that best serves full engagement is realistic optimism—seeing the world as it is, but always working positively towards a desired outcome or solution. -The key supportive mental muscles include mental preparation, visualization, positive self-talk, effective time management and creativity. -Changing channels mentally permits different parts of the brain to be activated and facilitates creativity. -Physical exercise stimulates cognitive capacity. -Maximum mental capacity is derived from a balance between expending and recovering mental energy. -when we lack the mental muscles we need to perform at our best, we must systematically build capacity by pushing past our comfort zone and then recovering. -Continuing to challenge the brain serves as a protection against age-related mental decline." 6- "The more preoccupied we are with our own fears and concerns, the less energy we have available to take positive action." 7- "-spiritual energy provides the force for action in all dimensions of our lives. It fuels passion, perseverance and commitment. -spiritual energy is derived from a connection to deeply held values and a purpose beyond our self-interest. -Character-the courage and conviction to live by our deepest values—is the key muscle that serves spiritual energy. -The key supportive spiritual muscles are passion, commitment. integrity and honesty. -spiritual energy expenditure and energy renewal are deeply interconnected. -Spiritual energy is sustained by balancing a commitment to a purpose beyond ourselves with adequate self-care. -Spiritual work can be demanding and renewing at the same time. -Expanding spiritual capacity involves pushing past our comfort zone in precisely the same way that expanding physical capacity does. -The energy of the human spirit can override even severe limitations of physical energy." 8- "The search for meaning is among the most powerful and enduring themes in every culture since the origin of recorded history. -The "hero's journey" is grounded in mobilizing, nurturing and regularly renewing our most precious resource—energy—in the service of what matters most. -when we lack a strong sense of purpose we are easily buffeted by life's inevitable storms. -Purpose becomes a more powerful and enduring source of energy when its source moves from negative to positive, external to internal and self to others. - A negative source of purpose is defensive and deficit-based. -Intrinsic motivation grows out of the desire to engage in an activity because we value it for the inherent satisfaction it provides. -Values fuel the energy on which purpose is built. They hold us to a different standard for managing our energy. -A virtue is a value in action. -A vision statement, grounded in values that are meaningful and compelling, creates a blueprint for how to invest our energy." 9-"-Facing the truth frees up energy and is the second stage, after defining purpose, in becoming more fully engaged. -Avoiding the truth consumes great effort and energy. -At the most basic level, we deceive ourselves in order to protect our self-esteem. -Some truths are too unbearable to be absorbed all at once. Emotions such as grief are best metabolized in waves. -Truth without compassion is cruelty—to others and to our selves. -What we fail to acknowledge about ourselves we often continue to act out unconsciously. -A common form of self-deception is assuming that our view represents the truth, when it is really just a lens through which we choose to view the world. -Facing the truth requires that we retain an ongoing openness to the possibility that we may not be seeing ourselves—or others— accurately. -» It is both a danger and a delusion when we become too identified with any singular view of ourselves. We are all a blend of light and shadow, virtues and vices. -Accepting our limitations reduces our defensiveness and increases the amount of positive energy available to us." 10- "Our dual challenge is to hold fast to our rituals when the pressures in our lives threaten to throw us off track, and to periodically revisit and change them so that they remain fresh." 11- "-Rituals serve as tools through which we effectively manage energy in the service of whatever mission we are on. -Rituals create a means by which to translate our values and priorities into action in all dimensions of our life. -All great performers rely on positive rituals to manage their energy and regulate their behavior. -The limitations of conscious will and discipline are rooted in t^he fact that every demand on our self-control draws on the same limited resource. -We can offset our limited will and discipline by building rituals that become automatic as quickly as possible, fueled by our deepest values. -The most important role of rituals is to insure effective balance between energy expenditure and energy renewal in the service of full engagement. -The more exacting the challenge and the greater the pressure. the more rigorous our rituals need to be. -Precision and specificity are critical dimensions of building rituals during the thirty- to sixty-day acquisition period. -Trying not to do something rapidly depletes our limited stores of will and discipline. -» To make lasting change, we must build serial rituals, focusing on one significant change at a time."

“Every one of our thoughts, emotions and behaviors has an energy consequence, for better or for worse. The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time that we have. The premise of this book—and of the training we do each year with thousands of clients—is simple enough: Performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy.” “If nothing succeeds like success, it is equally true that nothing fails like excess. Because change requires moving beyond our comfort zone, it is best initiated in small and manageable increments.” ~ Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz from The Power of Full Engagement The Power of Full Engagement is a *great* book. I read it on my Kindle and I basically highlighted half the book. It’s so densely packed with Big Ideas we can apply to our lives that, if you’re feelin’ low on energy or if you’re the kinda person who likes to play full out and is always looking for ways to optimize, this book is on the “must buy” list. :) Grounded in the research and consulting they’ve done with the world’s greatest athletes, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz provide a set of Ideas and tools to help “Corporate Athletes” function at optimal levels of performance. At the heart of their wisdom is the fact that: “Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.” Here are some of the Big Ideas: 1. Full Engagement: - The 4 Principles. 2. Sprinters - vs Marathoners. 3. The Pulse of Life - Honor it. 4. Points - & The time between ‘em. 5. Drink Plenty of Water! - And other tips. :) (More goodness--including PhilosophersNotes on 250+ books at http://www.brianjohnson.me)

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.

The Power of Full Engagement I love innovative books, when you're reading a book a day like I am, it's hard to be impressed with ideas that you've read in 4-5 other books, this book is the exception. I realize that most of us have a focus on managing our time, schedules, meetings, and not what the author Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz suggest which is manage your energy. There are so many examples that answered literally every question and objection I had regarding managing time vs energy. He links that full engagement as a person takes successful energy management. He shows how there are 4 dimensions of energy: body, emotion, mind and spirit. (no new age information here!) He focuses on performance and precision and gives many exercises and a solid system to follow. I will also say this is a great dinner conversation book, I have had many conversations about the ideas in this book and it's absolutely entrepreneur reading material, mom material and the rest that have a will for full engagement with their life, life's work and relationships around them.

This book introduces a totally new concept for most of us. While we have always viewed time as being a very valuable resource, I think we have overlooked the concept of energy as a resource we can manage. The authors put forth the arugment that what we really need to manage is our energy, more so than our time. They further state that there are natural cycles of expending and recovering energy. We are all very good at expending energy, but very few have any specific techniques for recovery. Like anything else in life, if we are going do it effectively, we need to create habits and aid in the recovery of energy. The authors call it rituals. We need to work riturals into our daily routines so we automatically take breaks that aid in the recovery of energy. While we all think of physical energy, there are other areas of our lives where we need to manage the energy: the emotional, mental and spiritual. As I said the concept is new for most of us, but it has actually been around for some time. Leonardo da Vinci said, "The greatest geniuses sometimes accomplish more when they work less. It is a very good plan every now and then to go way and have a little relaxation. ... When you come back to the work your judgment will be surer, since to remain constantly at work will cause you to lose the power of judgment." There is also a significant discussion about intrinsic purpose. "Nowhere are the limits of an external source of purpose so clear as with money. While money serves as a primary source of motivation and an ongoing preoccuptaion for many of us, researchers have found almost no corelation between income levels and happiness. ... Between 1957 and 1990, per person income in the US doubled. Not only did people's reported levels of happiness fail to increase at all during the same period, but the rates of depression grew nearly tenfold. The incidence of divorce, suicide, alcoholism and drug abuse also rose dramatically." They further write, "The point is that we feel more passion for and derive more pleasure from doing what we freely choose and most enjoy." The book is well written, with plenty of examples. I highly recommend it.

The most important messages in this book / audio CD are those about using positive rituals to break bad habits and develop positive ones and about increasing our energy and physical / emotional endurance by using a stress - recovery method. In contrast to many self help books that tell us what to do and not to do to organize our lives better and succeed, this book titled the Power of Full Engagement introduces among others the concept of changing behavior for good through the power of positive rituals. There are lots of good ideas in many self help books but we usually are dissapointed after a few attempts to apply them and give up concluding that the advice in the self help books don't work. Many people make new year's resolutions every year, the most common are to quit smoking, lose weight and to start exercise. Most people try hard in vain during the first few days of the new year, fail to change their behaviors and give up until the next new year's eve when they make new year's resolutions again which will most probably have the same fate. The reason according to the authors is that will power and self control are inefficient ways to eliminate unwanted negative behavior and to develop new positive habits. Because trying to change behavior through concious self control and will power requires energy that is quickly depleted. Habits on the other hand, whether good or bad require no thinking, they are automatic and therefore require no concious effort nor energy. The way to develop good habits is through positive rituals, not by fighting old behavior. Let us say a person wants to start exercising, that is a new habit for him. If he / she makes an excessively ambitious program it is very unlikely that he will be able to apply it. Alternatively he can make a ritual to start lightly and increase it incrementally. A positive ritual has four characteristics : 1 ) it is done at a specific time and place ( eg : on Wednesdays at 19 :00 in a gym 2 ) it is connected to the person's deep values about life 3 ) it is introduced gradually and increased incrementally.4 ) performance against plans must be checked regularly. If the person tries to give up smoking, start a diet, start exrecise, contact old friends, and many other goals at the same time he is likely to be overwhelmed and crash, the fate of most new year resolutionists. By contrast the method of introducing gradual and incremental positive rituals makes possible the development of good habits or to quit bad habits that we tried but gave up on in the past. I have already made such a positive rituals plan since the beginning of 2009 and so far by mid February it seems to work fine. The other important point of increasing one's endurance and energy by stressing ourselves beyond our comfort zone ( without forcing too much ) and then allowing rest for recovery is a concept developed originally in sports. The authors in fact say they have applied this with success on many famous sports people and believe that the same principle applies to emotions and the mind. One major reason why many people are depleted by daily chores is that they do not recharge their batteries by allowing rest ( recovery ) during their hectic days and nights. Like an athlete who strengthens his / her muscles by stressing them first and then lets them rest for 48 hours during when the muscles recover and get stronger we can do the same thing mentally and spiritually. The authors give a lot of interesting vignettes for this but I think the method to apply stress and recovery emotionally and spiritually should have been explained more clearly. An action plan would have been helpful, it is lacking. Instead the reader is supposed to derive what to do from the many vignettes. This is quite difficult and risks misunderstanding by the readers because a step by step action plan is not given. The advice to eat well, sleep well, exercise, make a mission statement, find a purpose in life etc. are not new and are based to a large extent on the books " Man's Search for a meaning " by Victor Frankl and " The 7 habits of highly effective people " by Stephen Covey. In fact the author of the present book quotes them several times. Those are also excellent books that must be read, they explain those concepts much better than this book. The authors say they increased the performance of many famous tennis players through the stress - recovery principle. As a tennis player myself I wonder what is there for these consultants to do with professional tennis players ? Explaining the stress - recovery method takes just a few minutes so what is there to work on for many weeks ?