February 2007

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PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO LISTEN TO A NEW PODCAST WITH OMAR AND THE FOUNDER OF THE ENGAGING BRAND. ALSO WE'LL BE POSTING IN MARCH OMAR'S PIECES ON 'BEING A BETTER BOSS' THAT WERE FILMED FOR TV IN SINGAPORE.

LEADERS KNOW HOW TO RENEW THEIR ENERGY


Leaders know that energy, like passion, is natural. Part of what we seek to model as leaders is RADIATING ENERGY. Here are the best overall vitality tips I've come across. Use them to amplify your leadership energy and thereby your leadership effectiveness.

Leaders know that anything that can help them 'recreate', 'renew', 'rejuvenate', and 'recharge', allows them to add powerful new creative value to their organisation, their teams, and the transformational goals by which they are seeking to remake possibility.

1. Create your own customized 'rev up' CD's, or have them handy. Know the songs that pick you 'up' when you feel 'down'.
   
   
2. Find time every week ideally, or every fortnight maximum, to spend some real time in a natural setting. A leafy park, a swimming pool outside, a wooded area, a Zen garden, pots and plants, whatever.
   
   
3. Remember we ARE energy, 'solidity' is an illusion. We have to tap into what crackles all around us...and within us. Only then can we express it.
   
   
4. Create rituals that nourish you as we said in the last newsletter. Regular 'date nights' with your sweetheart. The Wednesday morning breakfast stop at DeliFrance, or on a park bench alone or with your son or daughter. The evening you select to enjoy a soak in the tub, turn off the phone, and watch a movie with freshly popped popcorn. The once a month 'mess clearing' at home. You get the idea! Build 2-3 exciting/renewing rituals THIS month!
   
   
5. Pick certain mornings for an exercise routine, however brief. Don't leave home without it! On those days you'll feel you've already WON.
   
   
6. Lots of water, 8 glasses a day, focus on this for at least 20 days each month.
   
   
7. Beware Energy Vampires. First, DONT BE ONE! How? Stop gossiping, stop judging, stop being negative. Engage people, challenge people, improve things...YES!
   
   If someone IS an energy vampire, schedule a 'radical conversation' to explore how that happens in your interactions and what would be more energizing and exciting to co-create instead.
   
   Avoid occasions that 'suck your energy' like the plague! Leaders have to help create occasions and contexts that are meaningful catalysts instead.
   
   
8. Find ways to incorporate 'play' every day! Play with a kid. Enjoy a joke. Rejoice in something that went well. Do an impromptu dance. Share a hug...deeply. Playfully tease and BE teased. Liberate elements of this in your workplace as well.
   
   
9. Breathe deeply, diaphragmatically 10 times, 3 times a day. Breathe in to 7 counts, hold for 28, breathe out to 14. This will 'vacuum clean' your insides and gift you with greater health and vitality. Deep breathing is central to virtually every health and religious practise in the world.
   
   
10. Pick a personal goal. Identify obstacles proactively. See what help or support you'll need from collaborators. Create some FOCUS time for tangibly moving this forward in partnership with these others, for getting this potential 'unstuck'. Celebrate all movement in that direction, all progress!
    
    
11. Identify the 'little road blocks' that can steal your focus or free time. While they are like mosquitoes, see if you can deal with a few QUICKLY each day. Quickly eradicate a few things as you get going, that could sap and distract you later. You also will get a bonus energy surge from getting rid of several PERMANENTLY each month.
    
    
12. Ask for and come through on more accountability and responsibility in an area where you feel you can help create more value and get greater recognition as a result!
    
    
13. Find a way to make a difference, even a small one, in some charity, cause, or opportunity you believe in.
    
    
14. Treat each encounter or personal exchange as an 'energy transfer'. Summon the energy so as to share it abundantly. Be contagious!
    
    
15. Take a Metabolic Typing Test. Find out what foods energize, nurture and nourish you.
    
    For everyone, reduce VASTLY the amount of processed foods. Eat more 'living' foods.
    
    Add fruit and vegetables to meals...they can add color to both plates and palates.
    
    Instead of chips and candy bars on most days, try nuts and raisins.
    
    Go for interesting combos. Yogurt and fruit for a snack. Gouda cheese and a tart apple is a remarkably 'unsung' taste combination.
    
    Enjoy eggs (doctors are over that mostly), eat salmon (great for Omega-3's), the meats that work for your metabolic type. Mix it up, aim for variety. Titillate your taste buds.
    
    Go more for fruit than fruit juice. The juice has HUGE amounts of sugar which can create an energy yo-yo effect, and there's a lot more of the vitamins IN the whole fruit, not just the juice.
    
    
16. Use meals as a genuine 'interlude', for peace, camaraderie, refueling, pausing, enjoyment and relish, not a quick shoveling exercise.
    
    
17. Go for new experiences. Research confirms that the less we ASK of our mind and body, the less we get in return.
    
    So:
    
    See new movies, even ones that seem slightly 'weird' for your taste.
    
    Try out the new play, or concert (experience different types of music).
    
    See a museum, read a fascinating book, try out a new dinner recipe, pick up a new skill, visit a new place, take an exciting hike, learn and use a new word, select a fresh pleasure to sample.
    
    Volunteer for a project at work that will stretch you in new ways, and diversify your own personal 'brand' accordingly as well.
    
    
18. Do things that 'bond' people together. Catch up with an old friend you've been out of touch with for years. Create a neighborhood 'get together'. Encourage your team to share a community project together. Help plan and add meaning as well as excitement to corporate celebrations.
    
    If really tired, take a more personally oriented 'Free' day before a 'Family day' so you can be fully THERE.
    
    
19. Get clearer and clearer about your talents and 'unique abilities'. Find ways to challenge them, stimulate them, express them. Work to earn the right to design your contribution role at work so that you increasingly get to do what you're best at more of the time.
    
    
20. Stay a 'little hungry' between breakfast and lunch. Eat a satisfying, energizing lunch, but one that leaves you 'able to eat more'. That's the right thermostat setting for having the energy you need for the afternoon..
    
    
21. Find ways to make exercise FUN. Build it into your 'Recharge Days' as well. Use it to help you get in TUNE with your body and how it can evolve and develop. Use this to prove you value yourself...in the best possible way.
    
    
22. Find out where your pent up anger and bitterness are. Make a choice to forgive that person. You can do it directly, or privately. But LET IT GO. Release that energy. Send a blessing to them out of compassion and understanding, not judgment. If you need help forgiving, get that help (books, tapes, counselling, courses, prayer).
    
    Holding onto hate is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies!
    
    We are not here to hold on to our pain but to be transformed by it and through it. The only way to COMPLETE that step of the transformation process is to MOVE ON.
    
    
23. When you need an energy break, take a walk. Explore a new neighborhood or revisit a favorite one. Take a round of the block. Take in the sights and sounds. Browse somewhere. If at home, walk down and up a few flights of stairs. Keep a mini-trampoline in the closet and take a few hops. Go to the grocery store if you must, but get some different STIMULUS...even 10-15 minutes will be a great recharge. Turn on those CD's and dance away. Go across the hall, to another department, and talk to someone you've never connected with.
    
    
24. Decide what's worth 'money stress' and what isn't. Let go of the surplus there and decide to make money your friend.
    
    If perpetually 'broke', get to where you create a six month 'peace of mind' fund. Thereafter pay yourself first, 20% of what you earn. Invest it for a future free of money worries.
    
    Then build your personal brand and let money show up around you naturally as you increasingly BECOME a contribution.
    
    
25. Build 'power plants' in your life once you've mastered #24. These are multiple investments if you work for someone, different business value propositions for your business if it's your own, better strategic alliances, improved marketing, necessary additional talent, improved sales focus, things that 'power' your aspirations and extend their reach.
    
    
26. It's not a race. Slow down to speed up. FOCUS, be aware, be immersed, enjoy adding value, let your imagination kick in, do the most critical things first (20/80), use leverage and productivity support wherever you can.
    
    
27. Help people who are 'Class Acts' appreciate themselves, encourage them by being their PR agent and helping them to WIN. Helping the right people to become 'heroes', is how we practically vote for and help create the culture we're going to live in.
    
    Seek to be a 'class act' yourself in the really important areas of your life and interaction.
    
    
28. Physiology matters. Move the way you want to feel. To breathe better, 'straighten up'. Look up and at the world. Move with resolution and animation...(okay maybe NOT on a moonlit stroll, or at sunset on the beach).
    
    
29. Don't just glare at the computer screen. Take 'visual breaks' too from time to time. Look AROUND, close your eyes and look WITHIN.
    
    
30. Do a review of all that's gone well every week. Particularly look for great examples of 'synchronicity' and 'serendipity' -- mini miracles in your life. As we celebrate them, and get more grateful for them, we become better at WELCOMING them and even ATTRACTING them.
    
    
31. Find multiple personal power sources. For me, walking 10k with my wife in gorgeous settings. Swimming at dusk. Quiet deep prayer. Dinner with my wife Leslie. Watching a play. Walking to a bookstore and wiling away the afternoon before catching a new movie. Puffing on my cigar with a great book and a hearty glass of wine. Know yours. An hour or two of these can be a mini-vacation whenever you need it most.
    
    
32. Mornings matter. Get up a little EARLIER than you have to. Try music rather than a jarring beep.
    
    Rehydrate. Do some gentle stretches. Take some deep breaths. Reconnect with those you love.
    
    Mentally and emotionally rehearse the day ahead. Read something inspirational.
    
    Enjoy breakfast! Go get 'em!
    
    
33. 'All of man's troubles come from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.' Blaise Pascal. Amen!
    
    Embrace a bit of silence, the 'spaces' between the noise -- just as the spaces between the notes make the music.
    
    Meditate. Pray. Find a quiet place to walk...or ponder. When at red lights, driving alone, just take a mental 'break' (as you 'brake' the car) and be still.
    
    Take time to be 'available', to 'listen within', to your own heart, your inner voice, your subconscious.
    
    
34. Pay attention to when your energy is at its BEST. Choose the highest return, biggest ROI activities for that period.
    
    If your energy 'crashes', take an meditation break, walk around, shift to a different type of activity, have an energizing food, check out your health and energy habits.
    
    When your energy surges, GO FOR IT! See how MUCH you can achieve, enjoy and savour.
    
    
35. Do an 'energy audit'. Assign percentages of energy to the various activities, relationships and commitments in your life. Next to each one, write 'positive', 'neutral', 'negative'. Add up the totals to get a snapshot of how much of your energy is being invested POSITIVELY.
    
    Decide which of these sources of energy really matter. Do MORE of those. Perhaps transform some that are 'high in importance' but currently 'low on positivity'. Look also at what you would like to ADD to your energy investment and what you will have to get rid off in order to achieve the substitution.
    
    
36. Positively AFFIRM what you want to achieve as if it is already in the process of being actualized. State it in the present tense.
    
    "I am rejoicing in adding superior value and enjoying meaningful success which I leverage joyfully and meaningfully."
    
    "Exercise is a vibrant regular part of my life and I increasingly radiates health and well-being."
    
    "I am investing the love, energy, compassion and imagination to contribute to the happiness of my family and all the wonderful relationships that matter most to me (specifying here)."
    
    See, hear and FEEL these. Magnetize your mind/body/heart/spirit with these numerous times each day until you are almost 'gushing' with the reality of what you're affirming.
    
    
37. Decide to WIN, defined as succeeding at becoming increasingly better and living your dreams and goals. Knowing that our entire life-time will be our performance period encourages and liberates us. Then you can only 'win' (in the sense of making increasing progress fired by ever greater learnings from both success and failure).
    
    
38. Know how to 'shut off' and when to be fully 'turned on'. Let others know where you are too, so you don't sap their energy...or yours through guilt. Educate others in the need for 'time outs' so that time ON is OPTIMISED and MAXIMISED.
    
    
39. Given your commitments (and assuming you will continue to fulfill the valuable and important ones), how would you live today if it WAS the last day you had? Live every day that way!
    
    
40. We are created anew every moment. Little things add up to the big things. Rudy Guiliani in New York focused on preventing small crimes as a first stage when he was Mayor. When you start stopping smaller criminals in a visible and forceful way, one of the ancillary benefits is a reduction in bigger crimes. Add basil instead of cilantro to a burrito, you get a BIG change in taste. The difference between rain, slush and snow, is only a few degrees. Service is about 'the little things'. Small daily conversations forge life-long relationships. The 15 minutes of aerobic work-out daily adds years to our lives. The green tea instead of coffee in the afternoon increases energy over time and helps to immunize against cancer too. The laugh you shared strengthens the immune system.
    
    The small things ARE the big things, and we are made, remade and invented anew constantly by these 'small choices' we make each day.
    
    
41. Create and prepare a special meal together. Take the time to REALLY celebrate your way through it. Give thanks, count your blessings, sleep with a prayer of love in your heart.
    
    
42. Incorporate some stretching exercises throughout the week. Try Yoga, or Pilates, or Tai Chi. The energy flow and improved balance are extraordinary.
    
    
43. Find your purpose. Live your purpose. Let your BEST self shine as you engage with your purpose and dedicate yourself to sharing your value by moving towards your version of mastery. Khalil Gibran says, 'work is love made visible'.
    
    
44. When you eat dessert, ENJOY it, every lip-smacking bite. This is true 'literally' as well as 'metaphorically'. Neither man nor woman lives on broccoli alone. The idea is not to eat the dessert mindlessly when it isn't anything special or doesn't taste particularly good. Save it for when it's WONDERFUL. Then be 'full of wonder' and glory in it.
    
    So too with other 'dessert', life's 'icings on the cake', treats of all kind. Too much and we get gorged and dull and numbed. Done selectively, we're replenished, ecstatic and aware of how fun it can be to be ALIVE.
    
    
45. Whenever you're in a new town or place...WALK AROUND. Get a 'sense' of the place, let it work on you, transform you a bit, leave an imprint. See how it can awaken you to greater flexibility and adaptability and even help you see the 'normal' in a newly expanded way.
    
    
46. PRESENT. A 'gift'. Being HERE NOW. Experience the power of being where you are, experiencing what you are.
    
    For example, when making love, giving a speech, serving a customer, don't be planning dinner, or tomorrow's presentation. Help the occasion 'tingle' with almost incandescent responsiveness, alertness and creative sensitivity.
    
    Not a bad suggestion for ALL of life!
    
    
47. Get 'high' providing exquisite service. Get your kicks out of 'wowing' someone, anticipating a need, seeing their eyes light up with surprise and satisfaction, anticipating their hopes. You'll never be bored. Your attentiveness and innovation will then ALWAYS leave you eagerly attentive.
    
    
48. Sip chilled water every 30 minutes. Why chilled? The colder water requires caloric expenditure to 'warm up' and gets your system 'revved up'.
    
    The 30 minutes is because otherwise your kidneys don't function well, waste accumulates, your liver gets called in as a 'back-up', which diverts it from metabolizing stored 'goodies' into energy.
    
    
49. Get a FULL night's sleep, at least 20 days a month to have great overall energy. Experiment to find your best sleep allotment, usually between 6-8 hours a night.
    
    
50. When you travel, include an 'energy kit'. For me it's a few CD's, a few books I'm eager to read or revisit, the eye shades I like best for the plane, a pair of shorts for long flights, my yukata for the hotel room, a small alarm clock I trust and lets me therefore sleep in peace, a few photographs of loved ones, etc.
    
    Of course if you're fortunate to travel with a full-bodied energy kit, which for me is my wife Leslie, remember to really ENJOY that and never take that person's companionship for granted. WALLOW in it!
    
    
51. When 'stuck' in a car, in an airport lounge, wherever, occasionally experience it as 'welcome quiet time' or a 'monastery break', rather than hating it, railing against it, or getting frustrated and childish.
    
    
52. Handle as many things EARLY as you can, so your confidence in yourself (and resultantly your positive energy) GROWS!
    
    
53. Decide to discern how much of your time goes into moaning about the past and feeling 'victimized' and how much goes into transforming your challenges through commitment and creativity. Actualize and empower your future rather than perpetuating your past.
    
    
54. Let people APPRECIATE you. RECEIVE the great energy that is often trying to reach you. Let people appreciate you...deeper, still more, you can take it! How GOOD can you allow yourself to feel? The more you do, the more expansive you become, the more open your abilities and being, become.
    
    
55. Tap into what lies beyond our barriers, into the power of imagination and possibility. When we BELIEVE, we open the pipe-line of inspiration. When we COMMIT, through our intention we open a pathway of possibility. When we ACT, we trigger the creative energy, the 'grace' we need to succeed.
    
    
56. What lessons has life been trying to teach us? Are there certain recurring patterns that keep showing up? How can we signal that we are paying attention, that we are LEARNING that lesson? This will free up new energy, and we can move on to better, more enlivening and exciting lessons.
    
    
57. When we have memories of past failures, what was life trying to teach us there? Extract the lesson, start to apply it, and you will transform the experience itself. 'We are not our past, we are the resources we bring forward from our past.'
    
    
58. When tough emotions hit us, don't deny them. Experience them, learn from them, see what 'action step' they are pointing to, let them FLOW through us. On the other side, we'll find the seedling of new hope and new life.
    
    
59. Find the SMELLS you find most invigorating. Get them in teas, potpourris, bath oils, incense, flowers, the perfume or cologne associated in your mind with a beloved. Have some of these waft through your home, especially in meditative, relaxing or particularly gentle 'recharge' moments.
    
    
60. Occasionally do what you wish you could. Ask yourself 'What do I 'wish' I could do in this situation?' Then find the bravery to do so. Can't find it? Do it anyway, even with trembling and trepidation. The bravery will catch up with you. It almost always does.
    
    In life, listen to your gut, seek your bliss. They will tell us the path we need to walk, the 'potential' our deepest wishes want to pave for us. These are the Rosetta Stones, these are the alchemist's secret, this is how wishes genuinely come TRUE.
    
    
61. This month, find a place of clutter (even a corner) and de-clutter it. Take one toxic relationship and opt out of it. Pick one destructive habit and find a better way to satisfy the real hunger (positive intent) behind it.
    
    
62. Never 'hit' someone with something major the moment they walk in the door at night. Let a person 'unwind' just a little bit. Let them get settled. Allow at least a 15-20 minute transition.
    
    If you notice you're angry and snapping, just do a 'process time out' and share what you've noticed about your state with the others. Apologize. Take a walk, have a bath, close your eyes for a bit, dance with your partner, go to the balcony and get a whiff of the evening breeze, whatever. Then return, rebuild, move on.
    
    
63. Make vacations 'energy infusions' and 'stress sabbaticals' and plan whatever will make them so as strategically as you would a financial or business plan or a company trip or a product launch. If for you, your best vacations are 'unplanned', plan that too! I.e.. how to not be interrupted, how to handle in advance what needs to be handled, the level of connectivity that works best for you, etc.
    
    
64. Have a variety of different relationships -- people who 'charge you up' in different ways. So, for example, those that help: stimulate you, excite you, soothe you, guide you, calm you, accept you, and a variety of other gifts and 'energy exchanges' we can share with each other.
    
    
65. Choose to be a source of stability and integrity in the world. In a world buffeted by change and upheaval, we increasingly need people who take a stand, retain a moral core, radiate credibility, and be there when we truly need them. As a leader, we have to become an oasis of reliability and trustworthiness in the world. This voluntary and almost loving sense of duty has to become the modern-day equivalent of the Samurai's code.
    
    
66. Compile your own energy tips as you come across things that positively ignite you. Make 'vitality' the report card for a balanced, fulfilled, congruent, purposeful and healthy life.
    
    
67. Be open to guidance. It is terribly energy-debilitating to always 'seem together', to always pretend 'to have all the answers'. Humility is energy, it is creating space for others, for inspiration, for guidance and fresh learning from wherever it may choose to come, for geysers of energy we never even knew existed.
    
    
68. Choose joy rather than martyrdom, accomplishment rather than stress, let go of the soap-operaic drama we 'invent' to feel worthy and valuable. Nobody is measuring how much you go through. Energy is about finding the potency to LIVE with as much abundance and as little blockage as possible. Don't narrate a story that obliges you towards self-sabotage. Tell a story of exciting adventure and inviting possibility. Live a tale of contribution and passionate engagement, not futility and victimhood.
    
    
69. Choose your energy 'investments' therefore. Accordingly, you choose your life.

Omar Khan,
Senior Partner, Sensei International
Phone: 1 (212) 295 2191, Fax: 1 (212) 295 2121
e mail: omar@sensei-international.com

Omar Khan is a globally acknowledged leadership development innovator and success coach. He is a sought after change catalyst and a pioneer in transformational learning. He is the author of the acclaimed book SYNERGY as well as the newly released and much awaited, TIMELESS LEADERSHIP.

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