D.Murali

Chennai: Check if one or more of the following phrases come close to describing you: low energy and enthusiasm, decline in listening skills, weakened immune system, impulsive and short-term decision-making, inadequate emotional control, narrowed focus and reduced flexibility, lack of organisational savvy and political awareness, work stress leading to family stress, and development of addictions.

If yes, what you may badly require is ‘Executive Stamina’ by Marty and Joshua Seldman (www.wiley.com). The book is about focusing your time and effort on ‘the highest payoff activities and success factors, and eliminating nonessential tasks,’ and also finding ‘your career sweet spot, which increases your effectiveness, resiliency, and satisfaction while simultaneously reducing your stress.’

Much like the ‘boiled frog,’ most people do not notice slow deterioration or change and so fail to take timely corrective action, the authors rue. “If you put a frog into boiling water, supposedly it has the reflexes and leg strength to immediately jump out,” they explain. “However, if you put a frog in warm water over a low flame and increase the temperature very slowly, the frog may remain in the water. By the time it starts to feel uncomfortable, it has lost strength in its legs and cannot escape, hence becoming a boiled frog.”

The book offers many ready takeaways for successful management of time and energy, the two ‘very precious commodities in your life.’ The Seldmans suggest practical ways (such as the ‘minimums’ and the ‘shifts/drifts tracking’ systems) for time management.

As for energy, their advice is that you must increase, preserve and renew energy. To increase your energy, you need to develop greater endurance and resiliency and improve your sleep and overall immune system by ‘raising your fitness level, eating the right foods at the right time, and developing a personal stress management programme.’

The authors counsel that preserving energy is possible by protecting yourself from activities and, sometimes, people who drain your energy. “Poorly run and/or unnecessary meetings, interruptions, ‘toxic’ people, and even your own thinking and emotional patterns are a few of the things that can trigger a loss of energy. It is more important than ever to have tools to handle such situations.”

To explain energy renewal, the authors narrate an anecdote, as follows: “A reporter taking his first meeting with Mahatma Gandhi in the midst of the campaign to depose the British from rule over India was surprised to see the great leader so relaxed, youthful, and energetic. He remarked, ‘I have heard that you have worked 15 hours a day, every day, for years, without a vacation.’ Gandhi replied, ‘I am always on vacation.’”

Gandhiji’s life was a convergence of his higher values, what he was effective at, and what he enjoyed, the Seldmans observe. “He also walked, prayed, and meditated regularly.”

They reassure that you too can achieve such a convergence, “by finding the ‘sweet spot’ of your competence, your enjoyment, and your values.”

Right read when you feel down and out.

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