Reyactive

It's amazing how easily our mindset can go from energized to nullified sometimes. This is when discipline has to kick in.

One step, then another, and another. Before long you can get up and running again, but it's a lot harder than it would have been if you were able to just transfer your energy into being productive instead of being disciplined THEN productive.

The more I study the intricacies of human energy, the more I'm amazed at the varieties in source, potency, durability, amplitude, character, and applicability of our different kinds of energies to whatever tasks we have at hand from routine tasks to fight-or-flight survival tasks, and everything in between.

Call it chakras, call it energies, call it biochemistry, call it neurochemistry, call it divine energy, call it whatever you resonate with best, we all have multiple kinds of energy we can draw on to accomplish our goals, and some are more effective at different times than others, and if your body is injured, ill, or in diminished capacity for any reason including exhaustion, malnutrition, insufficient exercise, chronic issues like pain or disability, whatever, your body will often leak or burn through those energies at considerably faster rates as a direct consequence or corollary.

To be productive to any material degree then, if your body is in some form of diminished capacity, you must master massively more efficient ways to spend and store your energies, which is one of the reasons the body is designed to rest more when it's healing or overheating from extreme use.

This is crucial both in your business and personal relationships. Wasting energy on arguments or trauma triggers is like taking your energy for the day and pouring gasoline on it while holding a lit matchbook in the same hand. It's only ever difficult, dangerous, and painful, and never produces a satisfying or satisfactory outcome.

Focus on the positive and on the things you can actually control. Everything and everyone else is outside of your purview. Support them where you can, but you can't help them if you're out of commission when they need you because you spent your energy arguing something with someone that in the end didn't change anything or move anything forward.

Releasing that negative energy and focusing on the positive energy is the fastest way you can get back to moving forward.

I never said it was easy, just that it's statistically the best strategy. What you do with it is up to you.

Last week I taught a really interesting practical 3 day course on Project Management with a really cool student. Monday through Wednesday I gave my full attention to knocking that class out like a heavy weight champion, then I spent several hours a day on top of that knocking things off the list in getting my other projects ready for launching. I managed three days of extraordinary productivity like I haven't been able to do for several years.

Of course when you test your limits, there's always a price to pay, and the last 4 days I have been very clearly doing exactly that, paying in pain and brain dead energy. Fortunately the fog started to lift later yesterday for a bit and it's lifting a bit so far today, though the pain is still quite acute, so clearly I still have more 'payments due' for my 'excesses and exuberance' last week, but it is improving daily.

And I choose to keep looking at the positives out of each of these kinds of incidents.

A few months ago I couldn't have pushed like that for a single day, let alone three days straight. So I have a correspondingly high recuperation journey in response, so what? It's still dramatic progress, and something wonderful, something hopeful, and optimistic. Something to celebrate; breaking limits, moving chains.

I'm ok with outcomes I've earned, because I've EARNED them; I've actually accomplished something, usually something ridiculously challenging and otherwise unthinkable.

That's a characteristic that has always been tied inextricably to my life, my character, my way of living; to do the unthinkable, the improbable, the unbelievably challenging, taking and making the against-all-odds shot.

Nothing I did last week would have even been a challenge for me 8 years ago. Now the pain I go through daily that literally knocks me out almost daily means stuff like this is the equivalent of the Legends of Hercules. And maybe, just maybe, I'm going to be able to move the needle just a few steps more. Then a little more.

Before long maybe I can be half that productive but do it every day instead of three days on and 4-7 days off.

Maybe I can go from barely 5% productive to closer to 20-40% productive.

Maybe I can leverage tech stacks and compound MY efforts with leading edge tech that can give me the power to multiply my productivity so my 20% is more like three people's 100%.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm really going places. And when I do, who exactly am I going to take with me?

Worth thinking about, isn't it?

Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho,
It's off to work I go,
With BHAG goals & funny memes,
And ideas like you've never seen,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho,
Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho!