The People Builder

Do you have total clarity around the emotions that you're feeling in the moment and why or are you confused and not sure why you're feeling that way? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation about going beyond COVID-19 by going a little bit more in depth around the topic of Emotional Intelligence.

Right now, there are a lot of emotions that people are experiencing and they're experiencing those emotions in an uncertain environment. As we talked about last week, the way that the brain works without emotions is that it can trap our thinking down in the emotional brain, the limbic brain, and it can stop us from making good decisions up in the prefrontal cortex, in the logical brain.

When we're experiencing emotions and we're not sure which emotions we're experiencing, let alone why we're experiencing them, it can create a feeling of overwhelm. So, what I want to do today and continuing on next week is I want to go into this topic of Emotional Intelligence.

Just recently, I was blessed to be named the Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year, and I get to travel the world and work with people around developing their Emotional Intelligence. The reason why I'm so excited about that topic is for most of my life, I didn't even know what Emotional Intelligence was, let alone have the skills, the competencies that come in that area.

As I developed in my own life, in my own career, I saw the need to develop these skills. And right here, right now, being able to identify what's going on in the moment, take those thoughts captive, bring it back to logic so that we can make great decisions and remove ourselves and move forward from fear and anxiety into faith and certainty. I'm going to teach you about emotional self-awareness.

Here's some of the problems that we experience on a daily basis. The first thing is that we have blind spots. Have you ever been in a car and all of a sudden a motorbike or another vehicle just whooshed past you and you thought, "Where did that come from?" It came out of your blind spot. You weren't able to see it. And when that happens with emotions, it can give us that same fright and that same feeling of, "What's going on?”

And not knowing what's going on in the emotion in the moment is like navigating in the dark. It creates challenges of collision and conflict. It's all about not seeing the signs. It's not seeing the cues and emotions are signals to let us know that something's going on. By the way, emotions last for only a small period of time. What we make of that emotion, what we make it mean, what we do from that emotion is what carries it on and whether it creates resourceful or unresourceful behaviour, but it doesn't have to be that way.

When we develop our Emotional Intelligence, we see the signs and we understand them and we can make adjustments and it gives us a start point to know where to go. It's like having a roadmap to follow. It's like having our nav in our car and maps on our phone that says, "Go up here." "Turn left." "Go here." "Do that." So, it takes the emotional and puts it into the logical and allows us to navigate with confidence, whether it's through a pandemic or any part of our life. To do that, we need to develop our self-awareness competencies.

Now, self-awareness is the first quadrant of Emotional Intelligence and indeed the work I do is around Social and Emotional Intelligence. So, we've got self-awareness, we've got self-management, and then we've got social awareness and relationship management. So today, I just want to introduce us to the topic of self-awareness. Let's just talk about some key ideas and key principles around self-awareness before we get into how to build it.

So, the first thing to understand is the diagnosis is critical. Many years ago now, about seven, eight years ago now, I lost this thumb to a melanoma cancer. Before they could come up with that diagnosis, I had to get them to have a look and to go through a process and do a biopsy and all those things. And then I got to the realisation that if they didn't remove the cancer and sought out lymph nodes, those sort of things, I was going to die.

So, diagnosis was critical before they could bring the solution and it's the same with our emotions. We've got to be able to in the moment go, "Hey, what's going on right now in my emotions?"

The second thing to understand is it's good for you and it's good for others. Being emotionally aware, knowing our blind spots, being able to navigate our emotions in a healthy way is a little bit like the spoonful of Cod liver oil that my mum gave me as a child. Apparently, this stuff was great for gut health and I had to take this and let me tell you, it didn't taste really good.

And sometimes, the self-awareness feels like that. We know it's going to do us good, but it might not taste good because we’re going to have to realise things about ourselves that might be a little bit uncomfortable because it goes against the normal.

The third key thing is that we need to look for strengths. We need to look at, "Well, what am I already good at?" What is it that I can identify in my emotions and that I'm able to navigate through instead of just looking at it as an exercise of going, "Oh, let's find out what's wrong with me"? Because there's nothing wrong with you. Emotions are a good thing. Learning to navigate them is a skill, something that can be learned.

The fourth thing is we need to ask others for help sometimes. We need to be able to get other people's opinions because if you've ever heard of the Johari window, there's things that we know about ourselves and there's things that others know about us. And sometimes we don't know what they know. We don't see what they see or we choose not to see it. So, we get people involved in helping us with that.

And the fifth principle in anything that I teach and in particular in this area is awareness by itself is of no value. We need to press the start button, we need to use that information and we need to use whatever that signal is telling us to move forward in a logical, resourceful way. So when we teach and we work in the area of Social + Emotional Intelligence and in the self-awareness quadrant, we deal with three competencies: emotional self-awareness, accurate self-assessment and personal power. And those three competencies form a foundation of Emotional Intelligence.

So over the next few weeks, what I'm going to do is I'm going to step you through and give you some tips on how to build each of those competencies. And if you're serious about this and you want to be able to regulate your emotions in a healthy way, make sure you come on the journey.

My team and I are working really hard right now in this COVID-19 period to create something that is of great value to the marketplace. And what I do hasn't changed, but how I do it has. And I'm developing an Emotional Intelligence online master class series right now and the first part of that will be a complete course around developing the competencies of self-awareness.

So if that's something that you're interested in, make sure that you follow the journey and we'll tell you when that's ready. But right now, I just want to keep adding value and keep giving you these tips and I'd love to see your questions. I'd love to see you come back and tell me your insights, what was most valuable to you.

And I will take us on a logical sequential journey over the next few weeks and together we will get control of our emotional responses and we will be able to navigate beyond COVID-19. Going from feelings of fear to feelings of faith, going from uncertainty to clarity, and being able to in the moment recognise the emotion we're going through, allow that to happen and then regulate our response.

Well, that's it from me for this week. Join me again next week when we will go into the first competency, and that is emotional self-awareness where I will teach you how to know in the moment, how to recognise in the moment which emotion you're going through so that you can then regulate the correct emotion. I'll see you then.

Do you find yourself feeling on top of things emotionally during this time of COVID-19 or do you find it difficult to regulate your emotional responses?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19. One of the things that I'm finding in myself and in others, the many people I speak to is that there are two places that we can operate from. We talked about this last week.

For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com

Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:

https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/finding-creative-solutions-in-the-logical-brain

Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au  

Are you a glass half full or a glass half empty person? Do you tend to look at the brighter side of life or do you talk yourself into the worst case scenario?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19 by controlling our emotions by developing our emotional intelligence.

We are emotional beings. We respond to things emotionally. We filter what's going on through our emotional brain. We talked about that last week where our brain has the limbic system and the logical brain and the neocortex. In particular, we talked about the prefrontal cortex, the executive command center in our brain where we make good, healthy, creative decisions and regulate our emotions. We talked about how lighting up and bringing focus to that area of the brain will help us to find creative solutions for whatever it is that we need to navigate during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.

So today, I want to give you another strategy that you can implement in whatever it is that you're wanting to navigate on that will help you to make better decisions and to come through and go beyond COVID-19.

Now, this is something that I do a lot of work in helping people to be more resilient and resilience is one of the 10 competencies in the self-management area of emotional intelligence. So, this process will able you to create more accurate thinking regarding something that's going on for you and that's going to develop your personal resilience. In particular, the area that I'm really wanting to help with here is our mental resilience because we are in a situation, an environment right now, where I'm seeing lots of people who, because they're locked away and they're in a different environment or whatever it is, they're separated socially from their friends, their loved ones. It's really, really important that we get on top of this and we protect our mind.

Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to give us some more tips and strategies to be able to do that. I also want to give you the opportunity to keep the conversation going with me. If you do need to connect and I can answer a question for you, then please do so. Asking for help is a strength and we need to be there for each other right now and I want to be there for you.

So, I've got a scenario going on. Let's say for example, that you're someone like me who's in business and because of the pandemic, lots of things are changing. Clients are operating out of fear instead of operating out of faith. So, they're making decisions that create a different scenario to my revenue, to the work that I'm doing. I'm not able to travel, I'm not able to do things the way I normally do them. So, that creates uncertainty and when unchecked can very quickly drop down into fear and anxiety and emotions that are going to keep me stuck and not allow me to move forward.

So, what I want to talk to us about today is putting everything in its right perspective. Now to do this, we need to be able to firstly avoid and limit the amount of consuming that we're doing that is negative. You can go on any social media, turn on any news program right now, and you can give yourself an unhealthy dose of negative as much as you can consume. And when you are consuming that, if you take whatever story that is and in your emotional memory, it links to something that you have doubt about, something that's strongly rooted in your emotions, then you can very quickly put yourself in that story and go, "Hey, that's going to happen to me".

So, what I want us to do is learn to put things in the right perspective. So, let me take you through a process that you can use.

So, the first thing is to ask yourself the question: What is the worst thing that can happen? So, take my scenario of clients leaving and looking for alternative ways of investing their money right now because of whatever they're allowing themselves to believe. So, here's the worst thing that could happen. The worst thing that could happen is that I go out of business. That's the worst thing that could happen. Now, we're going to be really careful here and it's vitally important that we look at things that we know to be true. The rest is guesswork.

The second thing that I want us to understand what that question is that it is a "what" question. "What is the worst thing that can happen?" So, it's asking our logical brain to come up with an answer rather than why is this happening, which we'll get down into the emotional brain.

So step one, question one: What is the worst thing that can happen? The next question we want to ask or what we want to do next is assess the probability of the worst case. How likely is that to happen? So, assessing and probability is once again a logical process. So for assessing that probability from our logical brain because we're lighting up that part of our brain, we're going to realise that it's not all that likely that it's going to happen, that I'm going to totally go out of business because I will look at it and go, "Well, Hey, Grant. You've got that going on. This is still continuing. You've pivoted here. You're doing a lot more online courses for people. You are working with companies and you have been for the last three or four weeks and you're doing calls on Zoom and all these things." So when I look at it logically, I can come up out of the emotion and go, "You know what? It's not 100% likely or it's not even 50% likely that's going to happen." So once again, I'm working on a logical process.

Then, and this is so vitally important, the next thing, part of the process is to ask another "what" question, and that is: What is one thing I can do to help stop the worst thing from happening? Now, there's two parts to that. Firstly, we're asking a "what" question. So, we're asking a logical question. The second thing is we're looking at one thing. One of the challenges when we are in a situation that we feel less than in control of than we would like to be is a thing called overwhelm. When we've got all these things going on in our brain and in our thoughts and in our self-talk, what we're doing here is not only are we coming up into the logical brain, we are focusing and narrowing in on one thing. So, we're removing the overwhelm. So, what's one thing that you can do to stop the worst thing from happening?

So me, in going through that process myself, I enabled myself to come up with one thing that I can do. The first thing was to make sure that I make contact with my clients. So, what's one thing that you can do now? What we want to do now is look at the other side of the equation. Flip the coin and go alternatively, and on top of that, what is the best thing that can happen? So, this is where we're allowing ourselves to be future thinking and once again, asking a "what" question. So, we're up in the logical brain.

What's the best thing that could happen? The best thing that could happen is that we ride this out and the world gets back to its new normal. In fact, by what I've created going through this process, by what you've shifted and pivoted to do, going through this process is actually more beneficial to what it is that you're doing in the world and to your business or whatever it is for you moving forward beyond COVID-19. Then we do the similar process again that we did on the other side of the equation and we go, "What's one thing that I can do to make the best thing happen?"

So once again, we're focusing in on one thing. This time though, we're on a different part of the equation. We're on the positive side.

Then once again, we can ask another "what" question, what is the most likely thing that will happen? What we will come up with in most cases when we are in the logical brain is somewhere between worst case and best case scenario. The reason we've been able to get there is that we've stayed in our logical brain and we've narrowed the focus. We've removed that overwhelm, we've shut off the noise, and that's allowed us to go from a consumer of all that to a creator of our next step.

So, the last question that we want to ask ourselves once we've gone through that process: What can I do to handle that most likely thing that's going to happen? So now, we're in solution mode. We're in creation mode still. We're in logical brain and go, "What's my next step?" What's something that I can do today that's going to move me towards being able to handle that situation?

So, it's all about putting it in perspective. It's all about being able to look at things, experience the emotion, but bring it back up into the logical brain, and that's called emotional intelligence. And I love the fact that I get to do this all around the world with people. Right now, I'm doing a lot of that online. So if you need some help with that, please reach out and I can help you to become more emotionally intelligent.

Well, that's it from me for another week. I really hope that this practical strategy will allow you to be more creative in your thinking, remove that overwhelm, and see your way through whatever it is that you're navigating right now. Next week, I want to continue the conversation by helping us to develop even more resilient mindsets. I'll see you then.

In this unprecedented time of uncertainty, are you a consumer of everything that's going on or are you a creator?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to start a conversation with you around your response to COVID-19.

For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com

Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:

https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/beyond-covid-19

Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au  

Do you find yourself feeling on top of things emotionally during this time of COVID-19 or do you find it difficult to regulate your emotional responses? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around going beyond COVID-19. One of the things that I'm finding in myself and in others, the many people I speak to is that there are two places that we can operate from. We talked about this last week.

The first place we can operate from is a position of fear where we're concerned and worried and anxious about what might happen in that unknown space, that place where we're not getting the certainty that we need. And then on the other hand, there's operating from a position of faith, faith in yourself, faith in the doctors, faith in the people leading you, faith in what it is that is true and logical and actually happening and faith in the fact that you will come out the other side, and in most cases, a lot better off in certain areas than you were before you went in. And these are two totally different places that we can come from.

Now within this as well, that creates a different kind of emotion, whether we're operating out of fear or whether we're operating out of faith. And learning how to regulate those emotional responses is the key to being able to stay on top, solution-focused, and go from being a consumer of all things that are creating anxiety and fear to a creator of what's going to take you through and beyond COVID-19.

Now, let me introduce you to my little friend here. It's called our brain and it's not actually my brain. Mine is there and it's working, but I want to give you a little bit of neuroscience 101 just to help us to understand how the brain works and how we can then adjust, tweak, change, what it is that we're currently doing to empower us to be more in control. So if we have a look at the brain and we pull it apart and we have one of the hemispheres of the brain, this is the left hemisphere and it is very similar and indeed identical and a lot of makeup to what's on the other side on the right.

And if we have a look at this here and I just get a little pointer to help me and we go into the bottom of the brain here, that's the brain stem and that connects to the spinal cord and messages are sent to and from the brain and that's connected to the nervous system and we don't need to go too deep into there right now. And then as we go deep into the center of the brain, right in the deep center of the brain is what's known as the limbic brain, and this is where a lot of the information around fear and aggression and anxiety comes from.

Now, I just want to keep this at a very basic level so it's easier for me to explain and for you to understand. And then the white section here is the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres of the brain together and allows information to pass, neuropathways to pass between both hemispheres of the brain.

And then on the outside of the brain, we got the neocortex and the neocortex is a thin layer of grey matter on the outside of the brain. And that in particular, when we're talking about the front of the brain, the prefrontal cortex is where a lot of the logical, creative decision-making happens and emotional regulation. Now, the brain is very powerful in the way that it operates and we can learn how to use the brain to either help us or hinder us. And a lot of times in our reaction to what's going on around us, we can use it and it hinders us.

So, what I want to do very quickly is just teach you a simple process for you to be able to come up out of the emotion of a situation and get back into the logical brain, get back into the part of the brain where you're going to be able to make a logical decision.

Now, our brain works in conjunction with our heart and our gut. There's information that passes backwards and forwards and some of it is very visceral and a lot of it's very emotional charged and in our brain, in the limbic system, we've got the hippocampus where our longterm and memory's stored and a lot of those memories, if they are stored there or placed there or experienced in a very emotionally charged way, they are deep, ingrained memories. And also in the limbic brain, we've got the amygdala and there's two of them, one on each hemisphere of the brain, and it's a little thermostat that's there to let us know when there's a danger.

So, what happens is all the data comes into the brain, all the sensory data comes into the brain via the thalamus and that's in the limbic brain. And what it does, it distributes that information to the limbic brain, the emotional brain, and to the cortex, the logical brain at the same time.

Now, the amygdala, it's job is to do a threat assessment. And in doing that threat assessment, if it determines based on an emotional memory on a past experience that there's something that we need to be concerned about, then what it does, it goes, "Warning. Warning. Danger, Will Robinson." And it actually cuts off all the slow logical thinking going to the neocortex. So, what ends up happening is we end up having an emotional reaction to what's going on rather than having a logical solution, a logical response. And that's just a little bit of neuroscience 101 to help you to understand.

So, how do we use that during this COVID-19 situation? So, here is a couple of little tips. So firstly, as I said, what we want to do is we want to recognise when we are going into the emotion of it, we're going down into that limbic brain and we want to be able to recognise that so that we can then shift it and get back to the prefrontal cortex and make a logical decision. And over the next few weeks, I'm going to introduce some other strategies to help you with this. But today, I just want us to get a grounding and an understanding around that.

So, here's the thing in our brain, if we can get our brain to light up for the neuropathways to work in a certain part of our brain, that's where the energy flows and that's where the focus will be. So, a little tip that's helped me and I help my clients work with is to be very clear on the language that we use. So, what does that mean? Now, you've all heard about count to 10. Just count to 10 and relax and you'll be able to give yourself that space and come up with a solution in that instead of reacting.

So, let's talk about the science behind that in relation to what I've just talked about. So, a situation happens and we need to give ourselves that space so we don't react in a negative, unhealthy way, whether it be for us and or for those around us. Counting not only gives us the space, counting is a logical process. So, the part of the brain that is operated in counting is the neocortex. So, we're setting up the brain to operate and light up in that area.

The second thing that we can do is make sure that in these situations we ask ourselves "what" questions rather than asking ourselves "why" questions. Why is this happening? Why do I have to stay at home? Why are my clients leaving me? Why? Why? Whatever those whys are, you can see, and I did it on purpose, you can see I actually went down into the emotion of that. So if we're asking ourselves "why" questions, then we are going to be lighting up the limbic brain, the emotional brain.

So, let's ask ourselves "what" questions and allow that to light up the logical part of our brain. And then the neocortex in particular, the prefrontal cortex, the executive command center of the brain can actually come up with a solution to whatever the challenge is for you. This is all called emotional intelligence, and I do a lot of work all around the world helping people to become more emotionally intelligent. That simple process that I just took you through there, when I take people through that, and I know it's happening for you right now, it lights up and they go, "Oh, okay, that's why it happens."

So, whenever you're feeling like you're going down into the emotion of it and you're not able to bring yourself to get a solution and you start to experience even stronger and stronger emotions as you go down into it, what you can do is check yourself and go, "Let's get back up into the logical brain." And as I said, over the next few weeks, I'm going to give you some more processes that will help you to do that. So, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week when together, we navigate this pandemic and we go beyond COVID-19 by becoming more emotionally intelligent. I'll see you then.

Do you feel fully charged when you get home, ready to give of yourself into the things that you want to do and who you want to be outside your work, your career, or are you tired and lack energy by lunchtime?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to finish our conversation around productivity by talking to you about the third area that we can manage and that's our energy.

For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com

Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:

https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/energy-management

Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au 

In this unprecedented time of uncertainty, are you a consumer of everything that's going on or are you a creator? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to start a conversation with you around your response to COVID-19. There's no doubt right around the world, we are all facing this pandemic in our own way. There are things that have happened in my life, in my business, in my family, which weren't there a few weeks ago, a month or so ago.

So as we've come out of talking about productivity and talking about our priority management, our environment management and our energy management, we're all finding that those three things have changed quite a bit. Things that we took for granted before are now priority. Our environment is one of lockdown of borders and boundaries and change. And our energy is being consumed, particularly our mental energy by fear, by frustration, by uncertainty.

So, what I want to do is I want to start having a chat over the next few weeks and be here to answer questions and for us to move from a mindset of fear to a mindset of faith, to move from being a consumer to being a creator. Now, I have no doubt in my mind, in my heart that we will get through this, that COVID-19, the Coronavirus is something that we are navigating and we will come out the other end and there'll be a lot of changes and there'll be a new normal and there'll be a lot of things that we used to do a certain way that we've found a new way to do.

So whilst on not in any way going to lessen what's happened and what continues to happen in people's lives and indeed the loss of life all around the world, what I'm going to do is help you to do what I've needed to do and that is to focus on what I can control and what I can control is what I allowed to go in and what I allowed to believe and what I allow myself to think about, to self-talk about, to dialogue with others about, and that's what I'm going to focus on. So, I haven't been given a spirit of fear. I've been given a spirit of faith, the spirit of a sound mind and so have you.

Using what I know around positive psychology, around neuroscience, and particularly in this instance around emotional intelligence, what I want to do over the next few weeks is help you to navigate being able to come out of the emotional brain and bring it back up into the logical brain so that instead of making fearful decisions, we're making faith-filled decisions.

So, what I'd love you to do is get involved in the conversation. I'd love you to throw some comments. I'd love you to send them in, if you like, to [email protected], some questions, follow me on Instagram @grantrherbert, follow me in Facebook, wherever it is that we connect and ask your questions 'cause I want to make sure that I do what I do as a leader in this field around the world to help you to navigate to the other side of COVID-19.

Last night, I worked with a client in India, a hundred of their top leaders, and we're all connected using a Zoom call. I normally get on an aeroplane and fly over there and work with them. However, that's not available right now. So, I had to pivot to doing that in a different way and was it unusual? Yes, for them in particular. They're interacting with me and they've got to turn their cameras on. And people aren't used to working from home and they're not used to using things like Zoom.

So, they're not understanding that we could see everything that you're doing and all those things that are happening. So, it's a transition period. But what I helped them to do is I help them to understand that it's time to pivot. It's time to not only focus on survival, but to focus on the growth that will come on the other side of COVID-19.

So, step one is to take control on our thinking, to take control on what we allow our self-talk, our inner dialogue to rehearse and to be able to take those thoughts captive, which are fear-based, and to be able to bring up the thoughts of, "Hey, we're going to get through this because these are the things in my life that I've already gotten through." You've got your own story and I've got mine and there are many things that I've navigated in my life. Things that were life-threatening that I've come out this side of and that I've flourished from and I've grown from, and I know you've got the same things.

So, what we want to do is we want to be able to exercise that voice, that voice, that wants to help us to understand that we can, that voice of personal power that says, "Hey, you've got everything within you and around you for you to get through this. You can do this.", rather than that small voice that wants to hold you back, that's fearful, that's worried, that catastrophises and looks at the worst case scenario.

Now, I'm not in any way thinking that anyone's perfect at this and that's not the goal. I mean, I still have doubts. I still have things that crop up, but what am I able to do by exercising the strategies I'm going to work with you on over the next few weeks is I'm able to take that captive quickly. I'm able to flip from being down in the emotion, get back up into the logic and find and create a solution moving forward.

See, every single one of us need to create a new normal. Every single one of us need to create things, whether it's in our business, whether you're still at school, whether it's in your family life, whatever it is, you need to create a new way of doing things. Like for most of us working from home, being on lockdown, whatever it is that's going to teach us new skills.

Stay with me over the coming weeks. I'll do what I can to encourage you, to give you strategies, to give you the benefit of my experience and working with thousands of people all around the world just like you. So, make sure that you subscribe. If you haven't done that yet, go to my website, grantherbert.com and there's an opportunity to join the conversation.

So every week, we will send to you a copy of my video, whatever it is for you, and you can come on this journey with me. I just want to be a part of your support team. I want to just be there to be your big voice when you need some encouragement, when you need some support and some accountability.

Well, that's it from for this week. Join me again next week where we will continue this conversation and I will help you to develop new strategies so that you can go from operating out of fear to operating out of faith, where you can go from being a consumer to being a creator. I look forward to taking you on the journey. I'll see you then.

Do you feel fully charged when you get home, ready to give of yourself into the things that you want to do and who you want to be outside your work, your career, or are you tired and lack energy by lunchtime? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to finish our conversation around productivity by talking to you about the third area that we can manage and that's our energy.

So, we've already talked about priority management, we've talked about our environment management and those two things working well will also help us to manage our energy. Energy is something that we need to maintain. We need to keep ourselves at a state where we're actually able to perform. If we're tired, if we're feeling emotionally drained, physically drained, spiritually drained, whatever it is for you, then we're obviously not going to be able to give our best self.

So whilst there are three things that I said that we can manage, I believe that energy is the one that trumps the other two. Because when we're at a high level of energy, when we feel good in ourselves energetically, we're able to make sure that we stay focused on our priorities and we keep our environment in a way that it needs to be. So, protecting our energy is extremely important.

So, what I want to do is just give you a few things that you can change, that you can do differently, perhaps right now, that will help you to keep that energy level where it needs to be during the day and so that you've got some energy when you get home. I know before I used to do these things, I would get home and I was spent, I'd given everything that I had, the tank was empty and now I want to be a husband and be a father. My highest priorities, I've got nothing left to give. And I know that that hindered me being able to give the best version of myself to my family. And it wasn't until I realised this that I made the change.

So, figure right there before you change any of these things. Because by the way, you're doing okay as you are right now, things aren't as bad as we sometimes feel. However, to go to that next level, there needs to be either a big enough reward or enough pain to get off the nail and do something about it.

So, how do we protect our energy? Number one is that we need to make ourself our number one priority. I talked about this before and I'm not talking about from a selfish point of view where I go, "Ha! Who cares about anyone else? It's just all about me." No, what I'm talking about is flipping our mindset around that and going, "Hey, for me to be the leader, for me to be who I need to be for others, I need to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually and mentally have enough energy to do that, to sustain that. That's one of the reasons why I'm a sustainable performance coach and not a high performance coach alone. It's all about how do I sustain that.

So by putting self care in place, it enables a longer working day or a more productive working day full of energy whereby I can get more done and go home on time where I can get more done and go home early, whatever it is for you. So, making yourself the number one priority is the first thing. There's some great books out there like for example, Leaders Eat Last. I know from my own experience in my military career and my own upbringing that I actually subscribed to that as well.

That as a leader, "No, let's feed everyone else first" and that this is not what we're talking about here. So we're not talking about put me first at the detriment of others, we're saying get myself in the best position to serve others. So, it's a balance of serving others with self taken care of, fit your mask before assisting other clients. So, that's the first one.

The second thing is, and it's a part of that, is sleep. Sleep is a big one. The next one is nutrition. The next one is hydration. All these things that are part of self-care. It's about protecting what we allow to go in here. It's about protecting who we come in contact with. There are people who give us energy and there are people that suck our energy. Now, they said all these things that we can do to help us to be who we need to be so that we can do what we need to do. We can keep that energy up.

Another one for me is exercise every morning. My priority is movement, motivation and meditation. So, getting the body moving keeps energy and that's not just in the morning. A lot of times today in our world of global mobility of working virtually all these things, we sit a lot and apparently sitting is the new smoking. It's not good for us. So we need to be able to keep our energy up by changing our environment and moving.

A great mentor of mine, Taki Moore taught me this hack, this tip called 50/10 sprints. And I know he gave attribution to where he got it from. I can't remember that right now, but he's the one that I learned it from. And what that's about is being focused in an activity for 50 minutes, which is about the time that the brain can stay focused on that activity with no distractions, no open doors, nothing like that.

And then to do a 10 and in that 10, it's all about moving. It's all about hydrating. It's all about doing something different. And that could be checking in on one of your team or it could be answering some phone messages, but change the environment, move, hydrate, go to the bathroom, whatever you need to do. So, 50/10 sprint. That's just one thing that I helped the clients understand that I work with can get more energy into their day.

Another one is to look at your week and let's say you work a five day week. Well, instead of it being a five day week, let's look at it being 10 half-days and then making sure that in the middle of the day we have a break, we eat, we go for a walk, whatever it is, so that we've got as much energy in the afternoon as we had in the morning.

Another thing that we can do is to make sure that we get what we need to get done are the biggest priorities first in the morning. We also need to make sure that if there's stuff that we need to do that's creative, do that in the morning when we've got the most energy. So, there's just a few things that we can do and when I work with clients with this, there are days and days of activities that we do to help to keep that energy up. I just wanted to get you today to realise that your energy affects your productivity.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we jump in and we look at more things around us and who we are that are going to help us to perform and be who it is we need to be in every area of our life. I'll see you then.

Do you get done what you need to get done every day in an environment that's conducive to getting a lot done or is everything everywhere and it holds you back?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around productivity by talking to you about the second thing that we can control and that's our environment.

For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com

Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:

https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/environment-management

Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au 

Do you continually get the things done that you want to get done or do you feel like you're always operating out of what other people want you to do?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to have a conversation with you around your priorities.

For FREE resources and coaching from one of the leading personal development experts in the world, visit: https://www.grantherbert.com

Get the FULL TRANSCRIPT here:

https://www.grantherbert.com/blog/priority-management

Become A Coach and grow your influence, income, and impact here: https://www.peoplebuildersinstitute.com.au