Change Your Energy, Change Your Business, Change Your LIFE!

We have a dangerous energy crisis facing us!

The reason is that most of us have been conditioned to look at our own energy in the same way that we think about the weather. Our mental process is something like this:

“Gee, I hope the weather’s good for my golf game this Saturday... Hope it doesn’t rain during the family picnic...” We think of our energy the same way as if it’s up to anyone else but ourselves. “I hope I have enough energy to make it through this crazy week!”

But let me say again emphatically—energy is a choice!

And when we clearly understand that our energy is our choice, and how to build consistent energy by choice instead of chance, watch out! A life that embraces the choice of energy is a masterpiece in the making!

Perhaps no single decision will help you seize more WOOs than committing to live with extraordinary energy!

The first and simplest way to choose energy is to change the way you move . In fact, energy is created by the way that you move. Now, you might be thinking, “If I had more energy I’d move more!” But the choice comes when you reverse that logic—move more and you’ll have more energy. When you picture the most extraordinary leaders throughout history—Jesus, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King—the images of these giants are filled with vitality, alertness, and movement.

That’s exactly what we saw from Rudy Giuliani after September 11th. The extraordinary leadership exhibited by all of these individuals was activated by their nearly constant motion. They packed more into each day than most people do in a week.

Each of us has that same potential. Our present level of energy is merely a habit. Habits can be replaced with new and better ones.

There are four primary “movement centers” which we can consciously change and create a more energized way of living and establish new, empowering habits.

The first is your facial expression.

Consciously smiling more, with brighter, more open eyes activates the dozens of facial muscles. Right now, as you’re reading, please put a big smile on your face! I know that’s an unusual request, but I’m not kidding. As Forest Gump would say, “for no particular reason” just smile!

What do you notice in your spirit the instant you smile? How does a smile make you feel? Isn’t it amazing how the simple act of smiling doesn’t merely an activation of tiny facial muscles that lift the edges of your mouth? As soon as you smile it’s as if your entire being becomes lighter.

We are conditioned to smile only in response to some cause. This highly spiritual WOO practice encourages you to make smiling a proactive cause rather than a reactive effect. Several years ago, I had the privilege of attending a session for a group of cancer patients led by Dr. Norman Cousins, the author of Anatomy of an Illness. When he was thirty years old, Dr. Cousins was diagnosed with a leukemia-like disease with no known cure and an extremely high likelihood of death. There was no treatment or procedure for this terminal disease. But Cousins refused to accept this dire diagnosis. He knew himself to be a spiritual being residing in a physical body. Therefore, he reasoned that any cure would need to be spiritually focused. He decided to attack his disease with enormous doses of joy. For weeks he spent his days watching old black and white slapstick movies from Charlie Chaplin to Laurel and Hardy. His friends and family must have thought he had become delirious! But somehow Cousins understood intuitively the power his immune system seemed to gather whenever he was truly happy. He could feel it in every one of his sixty trillion cells. Dr. Cousins literally smiled and laughed himself to health!

When I saw him at this event he was in his seventies. In a room that easily could have been permeated with fear and despair, his sparkling eyes and ever-present smile simply overwhelmed all negativity. I marveled that Dr. Cousins’ facial lines had all formed in the upward curve of a smile. He didn’t need to say a word to lift every spirit there that night. His smile was more than enough!

Have you ever had one of those days where ‘for no particular reason you just feel like smiling? As you walk by people who normally would have been as invisible as air to you, you now connect and they automatically smile back in return. It’s as if you flick on a light within each person you meet through your radiant spirit. What you don’t see is that your smile sets off a chain reaction as each person who has been freshly ignited through your glow touches others. Your smile has set off a wave of positive energy that is as impossible to stop as the ripple effect created when you throw a stone into a pond.

When you smile, however, the ripple effect does not only move out away from you. The waves move just as irresistibly inward, into your soul and heart. The result is creativity, light, and an insatiable belief in possibility.

There are of course times when you will not wish to smile and even when it would be seen as inappropriate or insensitive. But it is truly a rare person who smiles too much! This spiritual WOO practice is about creating the discipline to smile, which if practiced consistently, will lead to the habit of smiling.

It is my belief that God wants us to smile.

The second movement center is your posture.

As a long-time runner, I have always been fascinated how by simply extending my spine upward and elevating my posture I can rejuvenate my energy and spirit when only seconds before I felt like a lead weight. Your light and elongated posture send a powerful message that you are a motivated, engaged, and spirited person to everyone around you, including yourself.

The third movement center is your breathing.

Anytime you have been in fear, doubt, worry, or stress, the key physical manifestation of those negative emotions is some constriction of your free and full breathing. In fact, by training yourself to breathe more fully when you begin to feel fearful or anxious, the emotion will move from fear to a sensation more akin to excitement.

Rich, full breathing helps you center and become more fully present.

For example, in martial arts the ability to remain fully centered in the face of attack and chaos is imperative. It is just as crucial in the pressure-packed arenas of business or pivotal moments with your family. Developing the habit of controlling your breathing vastly improves your patience, focus, and balance in the face of challenges. You’ll move much more naturally and easily into the window of opportunity.

The fourth movement center is the movement itself.

This is the essential leadership energy lesson that Rudy Giuliani demonstrated so vividly. Perhaps the best way to fully understand this key is through your own personal experience. Have you ever been working at your desk, perhaps at your computer, trying with all your cerebral might to figure out a problem, but you became stuck? What did you finally do? You stood up and went for a walk, stepped outside for some fresh air, or made your way over to a friend to chat for a moment. In other words, you moved your legs !

Finally, you came back to the problem that had you completely stumped, and—WHAM—the solution jumped out at you like a jack-in-the-box. This sudden enlightenment wasn’t by chance. The instant you moved your legs, you began pumping new biochemical messages to your brain. By the time you came back to your computer, you were able to see and think differently.

Every morning before breakfast, Mahatma Gandhi walked a minimum of four miles at a brisk pace. These walks usually started between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. During those walks, he may not have consciously tried to find solutions to the enormous problems facing him, but the vibrant movement itself enabled him to center, create, and find possibilities rather than limits. In countless parables and stories from the Bible, we see Jesus in the act of vital and purposeful movement. His movement energized everyone he touched and ignited even stronger faith and hope around him.

More than ever, it is important for leaders to get out and walk among their team members, to demonstrate energy and motion. By doing so you are fostering creativity, alertness, and vitality in those you lead as well as yourself.

Remember, just as Rudy Giuliani has shown America, your energy IS your ultimate example. It takes movement and energy to seize the WOO!