Braver Leadership: Mental Fitness for Age of AI

The world is awash with productivity literature imploring us to find ways we can cut down on the unnecessary activities in our work life, squeeze every ounce out of every second of every day and essentially wanting us to behave a little like machines.

We’re not machines. Even if we were we recognise that the most precious machines in our lives tend not to function without being given regular care and attention. Eventually they too break.

It’s easy and tempting sometimes for us to go without proper sleep, to eat poorly, to skip exercise all to meet a critical project deadline. We promise that we’ll somehow make it up to ourselves but this is rarely true even if it was actually possible.

In today’s article / podcast we’re looking at the concept of micro-breaks, rather than working ourselves to the point of burnout and then trying to restore engine health, how we can built vital ten minutes micro-breaks into our day and really see and use them as a means to improve productivity.

We're geared to see downtime as wasteful, but as you'll hear in this podcast, research backs up the power of the microbreak in our workplace performance.   To read more this in blog format head over to www.theenergyleader.com where you can also reach me directly.

When Covid struck, like millions around the world I switched to a life of working from home. I’d already been working from home a fair bit but for many it was a rapid adjustment which forced big changes on personal energy levels. On the upside – no commute and few regrets there. But it also meant a big change in making personal contact and connections and a lot more screen time.

You’d think that removing our commute time would mean we’d feel more energised and refreshed from getting back all that time, yet evidence shows people are feeling the fatigue of screen time.

As leaders our teams and our organisations depend on us maintaining strong energy levels throughout the day. As the working day ends, those we hold dear, including ourselves rely on there being sufficient energy left over from work to be great parents, friends, partners and to look after ourselves.

Video conferencing tools - and of course when I mention Zoom there are lots of others out there, have saved us a commute but using them is having an impact on consuming brain power and ultimately that means productivity - and it's all happening under our noses without realising it.   Time to take control.

In this week’s article we’re looking at why are we still feeling zoomed out at the end of the day and what simple steps can we take to improve our energy levels.

When was the last time you made a decision?  You may not realise it but you’re making decisions all the time. There are the “fully aware big ones” that you may agonise over or talk through with people before picking a path.  But almost every hour we’re awake there are micro-decisions and most of the time we’re not even aware we’re making them. Yet the consequences of these micro-decisions are what affects our energy. If you find yourself feeling a little exhausted part way through the working day, it’s quite likely this is down to the micro-decisions you’ve been making.

The miracle power of micro-decisions can have a decisive impact on your productivity and energy levels throughout the day. Let's look at how in this week's podcast

Did you know 25% of those who make a new year resolution will have given up by the time the first week of January is out?  Or that the average person makes the same resolution ten times in a row without success.  We're told it's all about will-power but it turns out will-power is an extremely unreliable partner when it comes to making things happen.  Listen up in this episode where we look at an experiment with chocolate cookies and radishes as the clue to helping us understand how we can make change happen for ourselves.

Most of us recognise there's a world of difference between running a 5k parkrun and running a marathon.   We're also likely to accept there's a different recovery time and if we don't build in that time to recover, there's likely to be stress and load on our ligaments and eventually an injury that will stop us running altogether.   It's a reminder that as humans we are not machines and when we overload, we will wear down until something breaks.   Just like our ligaments, the brain is not a machine that goes on forever.  Yet how we organise our day can force the brain to do a series of gentle jogs or back-to-back marathons.  In this episode we look at how we can organise our day to build better brain stamina.

At school most of us at some point will have been told to be more focussed and be less distracted.   So why is it that we find distractions so difficult to control?   These days we are surrounded by distractions and we welcome them into our lives often through technology we buy.   Sometimes those distractions can seriously knock us off course and use a lot of our energy to recover, sometime distractions are a necessary condition of creativity where extreme focus allows us to miss the things that matter.   In this episode of the Energy Leader podcast we look at what neuroscience has to say about the downsides and upsides of distractions and how we can make them work for us.

Have you ever noticed how some days you finish up feeling lethargic and it's been one challenge after another and dread the next morning repeating it all again, yet other days you're filled with enthusiasm and energy and can't wait for tomorrow to come?   Our lives are filled with things that zap our energy yet around us are also things that make us go zip.   Having our own sense of energy equation is all about controlling the balance so we avoid burnout.   The template I refer to in this podcast you can find on this post in my linked in feed.  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/zip-zap-energy-equation-ian-browne-coaching/?trackingId=tw2c%2F0N2bFR9vbwEpPWt2w%3D%3D

Look at the bookshelf for productivity books and there are thousands, each imploring us to make every moment count, to drive more action into the available time. Often the drive to productivity tries to emulate being a machine rather than a human being with a pulse.  Often as we strive for greater productivity we seek to eliminate "unnecessary downtime" which often also then translates into skipping physical exercise, diet, family time, relationships and other things that are important to our existence, less important to others.

In this short episode I'll introduce you to the Energy Leadership Model - since we can't invent time or add more hours into the day, attempting to "manage time" will only get us so far.   Instead, the energy leadership model offers us an opportunity to master energy, something we can absolutely create more of, actually infinite supply if we so choose.

I'd love it if you'd subscribe to the show, add your thoughts on how you master energy and check out www.theenergyleader.com for a transcript of the podcast and for this episode, the Energy Leadership Model itself.

Welcome to the Energy Leader podcast the place where we master our energy levels and beat burnout. One of the things we’ve become used to is toughing things out when life gets hectic at work. Working hard can be deeply motivating and satisfying but overworking can be dangerous. In this episode I’ll be taking a look at how over-work creeps up on us and leads us towards burnout and then one simple truth that everyone needs to recognise.  Welcome to episode 2 which is all about how we pay the price of overwork.

If you'd like to check out the report I refer to in this podcast, here is the link https://www.npr.org/2021/05/17/997462169/thousands-of-people-are-dying-from-working-long-hours-a-new-who-study-finds?t=1636359144733

I’d love it if you’d subscribe to the show, add some comments and let's learn together.  Check out more resources at www.theenergyleader.com. 

From the moment we wake to the time we eventually fall asleep we face a daunting list of things that need to be done. From the first electronic chimes of the alarm telling us to get up to the first blue flickering of our phones we face a torrent of information, messages, notifications, emails all demanding our attention and our energy. Our minds start to swirl in a soup of decisions, things we need to remember to do, the things we never got to yesterday but should have and finally when we collapse exhausted at the end of the day we are left thinking and feeling:

- I didn’t get anything like as much done as I’d hoped

- I lived today mostly focussed on what others want from me and not what I needed

- Tomorrow I will likely live this all again

In this first episode of the Energy Leader Podcast we take a look at the prevalence of burnout and the price that we're paying when it happens.  I'll invite you to join me on a journey to mastering your personal energy levels, beating burnout and becoming an Energy Leader both for yourself and for others that are important in your life.   You can find a written transcript of the podcast and lots of other helpful resources at www.theenergyleader.com