November 18, 2020 • 50 mins
You can spend hours doing something with no return. Maybe you were with your family for three hours, but all you could think about was tomorrow’s presentation at work. Or at yesterday’s meeting, where you were too tired to listen. You weren’t fully engaged. In this episode of What Monkeys Do, Jim Loehr talks about investing your energy – not time – in a meaningful way.
And how do you do that? If you ask Jim, purpose is the ultimate driver. If you find the right purpose, you are well off. Of course, it’s easier said than done. Jim Loehr is a world-renowned performance psychologist and has worked with hundreds of World Class performers. He will help us become fully engaged.
JIM TALKS ABOUT
- How to find the right purpose for your energy
- How to build character by investing your energy meaningfully
- The balance of moral and performance – how you achieve is more important than what you achieve
- And finally, why you should find your old journal again and start writing
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Morten Andersen (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
In What Monkeys Do, we explorewhat it takes to make a change
and make it stick. And today wewill talk about managing energy
(00:27):
to build character. When I gotmy first job in investment
banking, I started with areference that if you wanted to
make it big, you had to cutcorners, you had to cheat, you
had to lie. And I got thatreference from many different
places. And remember, this isactually some years ago. So the
movie Wall Street told how greedwas good. And the main
character, Gordon Gekko, he didall of those things. He cheated
(00:51):
and he lied, or Michael Milken,he was the guy who practically
invented high yield bonds. Andwhen he was working for Drexel
Burnham, he was probably themost successful investment
bankers in the 80s. And as itturned out, he cheated. And he
lied. The beautiful book byMichael Lewis called Liars'
Poker, also described how theWall Street really worked. So I
(01:12):
guess I had a lot of referencesfor if you wanted to make it
big, you had to cheat and lie.
But the funny thing was thatduring the next 10 years, as I
worked in exactly thatenvironment, I experienced
something completely different.
So instead of the Gordon Gekkos,and the Michael Milkins, I saw
that the people who consistentlydid the best and was promoted to
(01:33):
the most executive positions,they were actually good guys.
And actually, they were betterthan that they had a high level
of integrity, high level ofhonesty, something that I was
surprised about. So in today'sepisode, we'll look at what is
character? How can you build it?
And why does it matter if youwant to have a successful career
or great relationships withpeople around you? My guest
(01:56):
today is world renownedperformance psychologist, he's
the author of 17 books. He'sworked with hundreds of World
Class performers in sports andbusiness, many of them you would
actually know. He's the cofounder of the Johnson and
Johnson Human PerformanceInstitute. They deliver a
science based energy managementtrainings, he's written an
(02:17):
excellent book called Leadingwith Character. Welcome to your
Jim Loehr.
Jim Loehr (02:24):
Thank you, Morten.
It's great to be with you. AndI'm excited to have our
conversation.
Morten Andersen (02:29):
Yes, yes. So am I. And this conversation is
about character, and what ischaracter? And how can you build
it, but I actually want to startsomewhere else. And I want to
start and talk with you aboutenergy, because actually,
throughout many of your books,you've talked about how
important it is that you manageyour energy well. And also, in
your latest book, you're talkingabout that, you need to take
(02:49):
care of your fundamentals beforeyou can successfully build
character. So I just want to askyou, when you talk about energy,
what do you what do you mean?
What are you talking about? Andhow can you effectively manage
that,
Jim Loehr (03:01):
you know, energy, I've come to understand, is
life. When you give energy tosomething you give life to it,
if you put energy into yourbicep, if you put energy into
the dynamic of kindness,anything, you invest your energy
and you spawn life, it is thestimulus for all growth is
(03:23):
actually the investment ofenergy. And when you invest a
lot of energy beyond what isnormal, it spawns even greater
growth. And then you youactually grow when you're in a
recovery mode when you areactually not investing. And so
in life, to be a great investor,you understand that from your
experience on in Wall Street andall the stuff you did in the
(03:45):
brokerage world. To be a greatinvestor, you have to have a
great account, you have to havea very large account from which
to make withdrawals. Hmm, therewas this notion at the time,
that time really was thecritical factor in a person's
life. Yes. And we had all kindsof work with athletes and
executives and special forces inthe military. And we had an
(04:09):
academy and tennis there at theInstitute. And we began to
realize it wasn't the amount oftime that people were spending,
it's something that made thedifference. It was the energy
that they brought and investedwith the time they had aligned
with what the goal was thecritical variable, you can spend
hours doing something, and youmay have no return or even a
(04:33):
negative return. But if youalign your energy with the
desired goal, and whatever timeyou have, that becomes a gift.
That's the greatest gift we haveto give to the world. I call
that full engagement and it'syour full invest energy right
here right now in what you aredoing. Hmm. So we became not
(04:56):
really enamored with this notionof investing. time wisely, but
it really is investing energywith great precision. And we use
this across the whole spectrumof physical, emotional, mental,
and even spiritual characterlearning. And it's held true
across all domains. So for me,the most critical part of who
(05:17):
Jim Loehr is, is where is heputting his energy? Yes. And how
does that align with what hereally says matters to him.
That's whether or not I'm reallyliving a life that's authentic.
And it's not my time, I canspend hours doing something that
I really am not there. I'm notthere with my family. But I was
(05:38):
there for four hours, as opposedto maybe being there for 15
minutes, but I'm 100% there. Andwhen you give people your
energy, that's what they wantfrom you, hmm. You take life out
of your body and give it investit to them. And that's how you
show you care about something.
That's how you show you careabout another person. Yes,
people want our energymore thanthey want our time.
Morten Andersen (06:00):
And how did people take that because I
remember when I, when I sold theHarvard Business Review article,
first time, the headline was,you know, you don't have to
manage your time you manage yourenergy, and that was, I had
optimized my time. I mean, I wasfully into the time management
systems in the 80s. I was reallytrying to optimize my time and
you, you said, No, no, don't dothat. Focus on the energy
instead, how did people takethat in general,
Jim Loehr (06:22):
I got all kinds of pushback. I spent time with
Stephen Covey, and his son,Stephen, Mr. Covey, and they had
no response. So I said, Here'syour formula. Do you really feel
this is right, I said, whatyou're saying is to be a
successful person, you have toknow what you really care about.
You have to know your values.
And then you have to devote timeto that. And the more time you
(06:42):
devote to it, the more alignedYour life is with that, and that
will produce great success. AndI said, Well, think about this.
What if you're spinning yourtime and you have no energy?
Yes, I said, the criticalelement, time has no valence has
no power, you're just showing upto have something extraordinary
happen. You have to bringextraordinary energy to the time
(07:04):
you have, yes. And so that blewa hole right in the time
management system. And they werereally quite concerned about it.
But it was a paradigm for methat didn't work. It didn't work
in sport didn't work in anyindustry. It's still one of
those things that people kind ofstruggle with, but it is energy.
Yes. And we lose energy. We haveno, we're life is gone. And so
(07:24):
we want to mobilize as muchenergy as we can in the time
we're here. And then reallyimportantly, invested wisely, in
what truly matters to you.
Morten Andersen (07:37):
And I think another thing that turned things
upside down for me a little bitwas that when you say energy,
most of the time, I'm thinkingabout physical energy. I'm
thinking about, am I awake? Do Ihave the physical energy to be
alert in here, but you're reallytalking about different types of
energy, you're talking aboutemotional energy and mental
energy and character andspiritual energy. So that energy
(08:00):
is not just Are you in goodshape, it's actually much more
than that.
Jim Loehr (08:04):
So that's a great point, Morten, and it was
another big insight for us thatenergy is the same in the
universe, air energy is energy.
And all the things we've learnedabout energy in the universe
applies to human energy, there'sno difference, hmm, energy in
the body is created in the unionof oxygen and glucose,
basically, in the middle condryof the cells. But all energy in
the universe has quantity hasquality, it has focus and has
(08:27):
intensity, and so does humanenergy. So the quantity of
energy comes from this union ofoxygen and glucose at the
cellular level, the quality ofenergy comes from our emotions.
And the highest quality energycomes from our positive
emotions, when we're lookingahead and OPT opportunistic way
to make things happen. mentalenergy is how we focus our
(08:49):
energy. And the spiritual energyor the energy of purpose and
character really gives thisdynamic of intensity. It's like
what you care about. So when Igive the greatest quantity, the
best quality energy, the highestfocus, and the greatest
intensity, that is the power Ihave as a human being, hmm. And
(09:11):
if I bring that to anotherperson, if I bring it to an
event, if I bring it to ameeting, people can feel my
energy, we all have an energyand really signature. And it
really will be your energy. It'snot how long you live, that
people will remember, somebodymight remember you live to be
112. But what really will be theimpact you have is the energy
(09:32):
the time you had What did you dowith your energy? What did you
truly impact? What was theresult of this amazing legacy of
energy that you had? Where didit go? And that's where we like
to do this energy audit, whowere what is getting her energy
and who and what is not and whoshould be getting based on your
values. Where should your energybe invested?
Morten Andersen (09:56):
Yes. So there are four types of energy. You
have the physical energy whichcan be high or low, you have
your emotional energy, which canbe positive or negative, you
have your mental energy whichcan be focused or not focused,
you have your spiritual energy,which can be meaningful or non
meaningful, I suppose. And theway you manage that is actually
more important of how you spendyour time. And I think your
(10:18):
example would have, you can bewith your family, but you can
actually not be present, you canphysically be there, but not be
present is something I guess wecan all relate to. Yeah,
Jim Loehr (10:28):
unfortunately, people don't like to hear that, because
it makes them veryuncomfortable, because they gave
themselves a very high mark ontheir scorecard as a mother or
father. But when we put a cameraon you, you were there, but you
were not your energy was notaligned with what your deepest
values that you didn't show youcared, you weren't really tuned
in to what they were saying, youwere you were angry, frustrated,
(10:49):
you're watching TV or on yourBlackBerry, or whatever, you're
on your iPhone. And so you werethere. But like you say, they
got no benefit from it, eventhough you had four hours of
time with him.
Morten Andersen (11:00):
Yes, that was really the essence of the
Powerful Engagement, obviously,also some previous work on that.
And now you published a new bookcalled Leading with Character,
and this is your 17th book. Andit is a fantastic book, you've
written about some of the thingsin other books as well, The Only
Way to Win for example, why didyou feel you had to write this?
What did you not write in theothers that you had to write in
(11:22):
here?
Jim Loehr (11:23):
So for me, this is an evolutionary journey, every time
I write a book, I don't want towrite about something that is
already out there. And I justkind of rehash it and refresh
it, I want to write a book thatactually takes us to something
new, a completely newunderstanding, or a new take on
something new scientificunderstandings. So every book
I've written, it was like acrescendo somewhere in my
(11:46):
thinking, when I put all thistogether, and at the time,
almost always I am viewed asoutside the box, because I'm
jumping ahead of where everybodyelse is. And I was not trained
in psychology to know anythingabout character. It's It's
surprising to me is it probablyis to you or anybody else, how
(12:06):
the heck did you end up there,as a person, I first of all was
in the clinical world. And thenI moved into working in the
arena of high performance, youknow, the Human Performance
Institute, were involved ingetting people to do things
they've never done before tobring bring them to the pinnacle
of what they're capable of. Howdo you get to character from
there? Hmm. So the only way towhen I really began to show some
(12:31):
of the insights that we hadabout the notion of purpose, and
how important that wasn't aperson's life, but the more we
delved into it, and we startedlooking at longitudinal data we
had the institute started in1992. We sold it to Johnson and
Johnson in 2008. And I stayed onfor another six years helping
(12:52):
with the transition, I spent agreat deal of time at the
institute exploring differentconcepts. And one of the most
powerful concepts that we had atthe Institute was something that
I refer to as best self. And itwas a little different than it
had been articulated in theliterature. This was not some
(13:14):
fantasy about how you would liketo be or this would be the best
you could be, and all that kindof stuff. I really wanted people
to articulate who they were whenthey were most proud of
themselves, when they were thevery best that they could be.
And they look back on and said,that's really the best I have to
offer the world. And so we wouldask them at the Institute, we
(13:35):
did this hundreds and hundreds,probably thousands of times I
asked them to put down the sixwords that best describe who
they were at their best. Andthen we asked them a very
similar question. If you couldonly put six words on your
tombstone, at the end of yourlife. What words would you like
to have inscribed on thattombstone? that best describes
(13:59):
who you really were when youwere here? They would make you
feel the best about your lifeand that you justified this gift
of life in the best possibleway? Yes. What struck everybody
in the audience the first timeand every time we did it, we got
the same was that people rarelytalked about winning or fame or
money or accomplishments ortrophies or titles, what they
(14:21):
talked about, almost always wastheir connection to other
people. Mm hmm. So they wouldtalk they would list things like
kindness or when they're whenthey're we thought of in terms
of compassionate or loving, or agreat caring and devoted husband
or mother or humility orintegrity or honesty, but they
(14:45):
define pretty much at thehighest level of value, the
connection they had to otherpeople. Yes. And we began to
realize that there's a scorecardthat we all have, that's deep
inside have us it, no one hasreally ever articulated clearly.
But it's the ultimate scorecardthat actually defines who we are
(15:08):
at our best and how we want tobe remembered when we're when
we're gone. Hmm. And that is ourtreatment of others. And that is
the moral space. So I definecharacter in two ways. One is a
performance character, which areall those things that enable you
to become an extraordinaryperformer, focused, disciplined,
decisive, ambitious, you know,all the things that all these
(15:32):
character strengths that enableyou to perform in an
extraordinarily high level, butthey in no way cross the moral
boundary, you can be anextraordinary as you were
talking in your introduction,you can be an extraordinary
performer and have, you can doit by scamming, you can do it by
cheating, you can cut shortcuts,you can do all kinds of things
(15:52):
to get to the top. But there'sanother category that is your
treatment of others. That'smoral and ethical character. And
what we learned was in terms ofpriority and sustainability,
it's really not, you know, howlong can you stay at that
mountain at the top of themountain, if you're not a person
of great moral and ethicalcharacter, you're going to find
(16:14):
it's going to be a short trip.
And we know today that, youknow, the corporate world spends
100 and $12 billion a yearreplacing CEOs who have fallen
from grace. And for the firsttime in history, they're falling
from grace, not for performanceissues, as much as they're
falling from grace, this wasreported in the Harvard Business
Review, for moral and ethicallapses, it's a very costly
(16:37):
thing. And it's costly to theirfamilies, to the community to
all of us. And it's across thespectrum. So the issue was
really the most important partof who we are, whether we really
understand it fully from theinside. And that's what I wanted
to do with this book is helppeople understand that scorecard
because that's the one thatmatters when it's all said and
(16:59):
done.
Morten Andersen (17:01):
So you're saying that there are really two
things in order to be at yourbest and one is, obviously you
need to perform at your highest?
And second is to have a moralcompass, or, you know, basically
to have a strong character. isone more important than the
other? Or does one come beforeanother? Or are they independent
from each other?
Jim Loehr (17:20):
Well, I call moral and ethical skills and strength,
your your moral and ethicalcharacter is the highest level
of health that you can have,hmm. And you can be a person of
high moral character and not bea high achiever. I mean, I think
of my mom, she didn't do, shewasn't, but she was an
extraordinary woman, ofunbelievable character, but she
(17:42):
didn't have any accolades. Shedidn't go to college, she didn't
graduate from college, there wasno real achievements that you
could point to other than she'san extraordinary woman. And then
you have the other side, you canbe an extraordinary achiever,
and have all kinds of holes inthe moral and ethical side. So
for me, the one is mostimportant, and the one one is
(18:03):
what you achieve, what enablesyou to achieve and the other
was, how did you achieve it, andhow is far more important than
what that was a hugedistinction. And I tried to
bring that out. So we need tounderstand that there is a
difference. And if we're goingto teach our kids anything, if
we're going to have any standardfor ourselves, we need to start
at the top, because that's theone that's really going to make
(18:26):
a difference in the longevityand the legacy that we leave
behind.
Morten Andersen (18:30):
Perfect.
So I've read quite a few of yourbooks now. And what strikes me
is that you are an optimist whenit comes to believing that we
can make a personal change. Andalso in this book, you're
(18:50):
optimistic that we can actuallychange or we can build our
character muscle, so to speak.
But on the other hand, you alsorefer to studies which show that
we are still deeply dependent onauthorities. You mentioned the
Milgram studies, for instance,endless numbers of corporate
scandals the Michael Milken, tothe end run to the Volkswagen,
etc. So what makes you sooptimistic that we can change
(19:15):
and that we can build ourcharacter muscle?
Jim Loehr (19:21):
It's such an interesting exploration into
what I call one's moralmachinery. First thing we
learned is that every one of usis broken morally and ethically
in some way, somewhere inpieces. Hmm. And we really don't
know where our moral and ethicalkind of standard for
(19:44):
extraordinary behavior in thatsense comes from. Hmm, and the
more work we've done in the inthe book identify some 25 ways
that our moral and ethicalbehavior can become hijacked our
our source code for determiningwhat's right and wrong, and
they're everywhere. So we have avery flawed morality system. And
(20:05):
what I was interested in doingwas, first of all, raise
awareness of how flawed oursystem is, how often we make 10
to 12, moral and ethicaldecisions every single day. And
some of the very small and someof them are huge, just how you
treat the valet attendant whobrought your car late, or, you
know, how do you deal with thisfriend who's betrayed your
(20:26):
confidence and told some thingsthat were really not to be told
publicly, and on and on, thesethings are happening every day,
and how you treat your childrenwhen they do something they
shouldn't? And what should beyour best response from your
highest and best moral self?
What is so interesting in all ofthis is that our machinery, all
of us have to go to work. Iwanted to know whether or not
(20:47):
it's fixable. Mm hmm. So webegan to do work. And we did all
kinds of things to see is itpossible to fix the holes in
that system? And we learned inpsychology we've known and you
know, this morning that thesingle best predictor of success
in life is drive. How badly doyou want it? It's persistence,
its dedication. And it's whatAngela Duckworth calls grit,
(21:10):
staying with this whole thing.
So we wanted to dig deeper intothat and to try to understand,
where does that come from? Andcould we rally that grit and
that energy investmentconsistency to actually fix the
holes in this very vulnerablemoral machinery that we're all
(21:32):
carrying around that wasinherited, it wasn't something
that we were conscious of, evenin its creation, we had very
little to do with it. Andsuddenly, we're here and we're
making critical decisions aboutwhat's true north morally and
ethically on a system that'sterribly flawed. So we really
went in and tried to see whatwas the king pan that would
(21:54):
release energy to really winthat battle. And that's where we
got into this notion of purpose,purpose is the single most
important dimension of who weare as human beings. It's the
why behind everything we do, ifwe get the purpose, right, I
mean, you'll you'll do anything?
Yes, if I get the purpose,right, you'll give your life
very, very quickly in theservice of something that's
(22:17):
important. Yes, if you rally theright purpose, you will fix your
character. And behavior ischangeable. If you have a
purpose strong enough, and youare willing to rally the
energies long enough, you canmake massive course corrections.
And we had people that changetheir lives almost 180 as a
result of these interventions,and that's what to me is the
(22:40):
most exciting, number one, wecan change. And it is something
within everyone's reach, so longas we can get the right purpose
for doing so. And that purposeis what I call a self
transcending purpose has verylittle to do with you, and has
everything to do with others.
And then the other one is thatyou understand that it's hard
(23:02):
work, and we have to do a lot ofheavy lifting. And that heavy
lifting is with repeated energyinvestments, just like if you
want a big bicep, you're gonnahave to do a lot of heavy
lifting to get that bicep,
Morten Andersen (23:14):
because then that way, you, you make a
parallel to building physicalenergy. So if I want to have a
higher level of physical energy,I know what to do go to bed
early to eat well, it is toexercise on a regular basis to
breathe deep, and so on. Sothere are some behaviors that I
can do on a daily basis thatwill build my sort of speak
(23:36):
physical muscle, and I guess,the same with emotional energy,
emotional muscle, if I want tohave a positive versus a
negative energy in terms of, ofemotional energy, I also know
what to do on a daily basis,daily basis. And I guess that's
exactly what you're doing withcharacter in this book is that
you actually say, it all comesdown to behavior. And there are
(24:00):
25 decisions or behaviors thatyou can do on a daily basis that
will strengthen your muscle andbuild energy in the character
space.
Jim Loehr (24:11):
It's exactly right.
So let's say that you yourgratitude muscle, as you really
reflect on who you really are,is just really quite weak. It
really isn't about you, you wantto have more gratefulness to all
the people that enabled you tohave this extraordinary life and
all the opportunities thatyou've had, but you rarely show
it. And this is coming throughin many ways, maybe two as you
(24:31):
reflect on it. So you rally thisenergy, this sense of purpose
around improving this part ofyour character. And every day.
Maybe you start today with avery simple in your log in your
journal, a gratitude list andyou make a list every day for
four or five minutes of all thethings that you are truly
(24:52):
grateful for that have happenedin your life and you start that
list and every day you try tothink of a few things That
you've never thought of before.
And that muscle digs deeper. Andyou're investing energy in it by
writing about it, thinking aboutit, maybe even talking about it.
And so that muscle grows and itbecomes much more accessible to
(25:12):
you. And eventually, this willstart manifesting itself in how
you interact with everyone. Andevery day, you now kind of
exemplify how important this isin your life, by the way you
speak the way you act and thegratitude that you have for the
world that you're in.
Morten Andersen (25:29):
Yes.
Jim Loehr (25:30):
And this is true with kindness. It's true with
truthfulness, it's true withhumility, and all of the most
important character strengths wehave, we can build them. And one
of the most powerful ways we'velearned is through journaling.
So amazing. I mean, that was Inever really I mean, as a coach
(25:51):
in various sports, we everyonehas a training log, but I never
realized how importantjournaling is to building the
brand you want building thecapacity you want, emotionally,
mentally, and most importantly,in terms of the character space.
Morten Andersen (26:06):
So you're very optimistic in terms of making a
change. And in order to make achange, or build character, you
need to break it down intohabits, or you need to break it
down into behavior that youchange and journaling is a an
effective way to external or tobuild that muscle, so to speak
in your reflection, and thenmakes it more likely that you
(26:27):
will do it in behaviorafterwards, I suppose.
Jim Loehr (26:30):
Yes, we have to keep making adjustments. There's what
I call automatic adaptation toour world. And then there is
this intentional adaptation.
Oftentimes, our automaticadaptation is not in the best
interest of our families,ourselves. We're eating a lot.
We're adapting, we're having icecream every night for we go to
sleep at night, we ended updoing things we don't even know
(26:52):
how we got there,
Morten Andersen (26:54):
I can recognize a lot of that actually.
Jim Loehr (26:57):
They just start showing up. We're constantly
evolving as a result of ourenvironment and the political
environment that we're in nowhere in the United States, the
hatred, the anger, thefrustration, the violence. So
but then there's another moreintentional, who do you really
want to be? How do you want tolead in this special moment? And
what what are the habits thatyou would like to eventually own
(27:20):
in your own life. And so again,the first thing that we have to
do is, we have to identify whatit is we want to change, we have
to break it down into very kindof almost micro steps. And we
have to have a purpose to driveit. And we have to repeat that
over and over again. And there.
It needs to be tied to someritualistic, whether it's
getting up 10 minutes earlierand have a set an alarm in the
(27:41):
morning and do your journalingfor 10 minutes, which is what
the book recommends. Yes, over150 days, and people go 150
days. 10 minutes. Yeah, that's25 hours spread over multiple
months. But the results of thiscan be so catastrophic, Lee
wonderful. I mean, it's hard.
(28:02):
It's difficult, but it reallycan result in some real seismic
changes in the direction youwant to go. Who do you want to
be before you check out? Yes.
And so I'm a real optimist whenit comes to change. And I wasn't
in the beginning, I was, youknow, I was all in my training
and behavioral psychology andeverything. Cognitive behavioral
therapy, and all the stuff thatI was went through in my
(28:25):
training and in a therapeuticcontext. And this came, there
was nothing there that reallyled me to the importance of
purpose. This came from ourliving lab. And we began to
realize I, you know, we'd havepeople tell their stories, write
their stories about who theyreally are and who they want to
be. And they'd write up an oldstory in a new story. Yes, when
they finally resulted in change,and those that work, it was
(28:48):
really obvious that it was apurpose. And it was a
transcendent purpose. It was apurpose that really had nothing
to do with them. So a father whowants to be more engaged with
his son or daughter, in theevening, when he comes home and
not a dead person walking, hegoes in and he starts working
out at five in the morning, hmm,not for himself because he
doesn't care. But if it meanshe's going to be more engaged
(29:11):
with his son or daughter, andprovide them with a better
picture of health and be aroundthem longer. It's a spiritual
act. It's an act of characterevery time he or she goes in and
works out. That was thedifference. And I will tell you,
the journal helped to try tocement that. And every time he
reflected or she reflected onit, put it in the journal kept
(29:33):
track of it, and eventuallybecomes a habit and now they do
it for the rest of their lives.
Now they have their childrendoing it, and they really feel
good about that change. Changeis possible, but it's hard.
Morten Andersen (29:45):
So it's interesting because if we if I
just think about you and StephenCovey, and so you differed in
terms of should you focus ontime or should you focus on
energy, but where you did agreewas that it all starts with
purpose. It all starts with withfinding your why so to speak,
and obviously that has been, youknow, I know Nietzsche wrote
(30:06):
about that 150 years ago interms of how important reservoir
can endure anyhow. Exactly. Sowe've known that for a while.
And still, as you say, it'sreally not rooted deeply in
psychology. But it is somethingthat I think we know more and
more about that you need toeverything you need to do is
connected to your why to yourmeaning to your purpose,
Jim Loehr (30:27):
I'll just say that Mark Twain made a statement once
that I never, never want to stopthinking about and that is that
is that the two most importantdays in your life, or the day
you were born? And the day youfound out why, so that you if
you have no real purpose foryour life, life is an absolute
nightmare. Yes, if you have nopurpose in your day, if you have
(30:50):
nothing that really makes sense.
So we are Victor Frankel's book,Man's Search for Meaning. It's a
wonderful, one of my favoritebooks of all time. And he really
articulates the power ofpurpose, even in a concentration
camp to stay alive. He wanted totell the story, not for himself,
but to let other people knowabout the horrors and the
heroism that occurred in thosecamps. And that's what kept him
(31:12):
alive. That's what enabled himto do what was impossible to do,
yes, and we are capable of doingthings that are unimaginably out
of the norm, if we have apurpose that really, really is
enduring. And that's what wetried to really come to terms
with at the Institute, and isthe core of what leading with
character is all about.
Morten Andersen (31:34):
And I wonder if you could, because most of us
are not CEO of great companies,we more like your mom, we're
more like having a group ofpeople around us, you know, that
we care deeply about that wewant to do our best in the
environment that we work in. Andwe have regular jobs. From my
own point of view, when I hearabout meaning, purpose, legacy
and things like that, Isometimes feel that that is for
(31:56):
people who are in differentpositions than myself. Can you
maybe give a little bit ofresponse to how can ordinary
people like myself think ofpurpose and place in life?
Jim Loehr (32:09):
It's a great, great question and comment, Morton and
I think what you raise here iscritical that even though we're
dealing with these high endpeople, what we're learning
applies to absolutely everyhuman being, we have to bring it
down to the end. We're all justnormal human beings. And if we
figure out what and what enablespeople to do extraordinary
(32:31):
things, we we begin to realizethis not just applies to the
superstars, but it applies toevery one of us and my help us
to unlock more of our ownpotential. To be good, yes, to
be kinder to be more aligned inour lives and with our energy
and what we care about. And sothis notion of we all have this
existential crisis, we're alwaysasking, Why the heck am I here?
(32:53):
What am I supposed to do withlife? And I won this lottery of
life. Yes. And I had no no handin that whatsoever. I just
showed up. And now what am Isupposed to do with this and
your whole life, you're tryingto figure out with this
incredible, I call itevolutionary masterpiece, where
we now recognize we are able tobe fully conscious of the fact
(33:13):
that one day we're going to die.
So what is this all about?
Morten Andersen (33:17):
Yes,
Jim Loehr (33:18):
just a couple of truths here. One is you were
born, it's an indisputable fact.
It's an indisputable fact thatyou're going to die. And between
your birth and your death issome kind of impact.
Morten Andersen (33:31):
Yes.
Jim Loehr (33:32):
And for every person, you're going to leave a trace.
And that's what character is thetrace that you leave behind, and
not so much for you. But thosearound you. And every single
day, you have an impact onsomething or someone in your
sphere of influence. And we allwant to leave this life with an
impact that's really positive.
And what we learn the ultimateimpact is how you treat others.
(33:55):
And yes, it's so interesting. Ibegan to realize in the previous
book, the only way to win thatthere was an emptiness in a lot
of people who achieve greatthings. There's just this
longing for more is this allthere is I've, I've achieved
I've won two gold medals, theOlympic gold medals I've I have
more money than I can ever spendand all my kids and their kids
(34:16):
and I still feel empty. Yes. Andthey're only as good as their
last performance and they'realways vulnerable to feeling
like a failure. And when we dugdeeper, we found out the
scorecard that mattered was notthe money, not the fame. All
those are nice scorecards. Butthe scorecard that in this is
this hidden scorecard. Andthey're always trying to fill it
(34:36):
and you can't fill it withextrinsic rewards, no. And
extrinsic accomplishments. Thescorecard that ultimately
matters is the impact you've hadon others, your children, your
your spouses, your partners,anyone that you care about your
colleagues at work your friends,what was the sum total of your
impact on their lives. Andthat's the scorecard you hold
(34:59):
yourself accountable for it, ifit's not a good score, you try
to fill it with other things,and you cannot fill it.
Morten Andersen (35:07):
Yes.
So What Monkeys Do is a podcastabout change. And you have
throughout your books andthroughout the Institute, of
course helped many people changeand improve. And because you've
(35:28):
worked with so many people,you've seen, many people
succeed. And also some peoplefail and therefore have a lot of
experience now. And you know,what actually makes the
difference between the peoplewho does make a change, and
those who will probably don't.
And one of the things youmentioned is grit, or drive or
perseverance or something likethat, that's really important in
order to work daily on the fourlevels of energy. But now you've
(35:52):
written this, I would also callvery practical book, there is
actually two books and one ofthe books is a journal, where
you go and you write yourpersonal credo, and you spend,
as you say, 150 days, 10 minuteseach day, I'm five days in six
days in and, and it takes alittle bit more than 10 minutes,
some of the days, but it'sactually an incredibly useful
(36:14):
exercise. And I look forward togoing through all hundred and 50
days, but can you just tell alittle bit about, okay, so I
hear what you're saying, thereare four levels of energy. And
if we want to really feel and bethe success that we want to be
in our own life in the situationwherein we need to manage all
four levels. And actually thefourth level, which is that of
(36:35):
character, spiritual characteris really, really important,
maybe even the most importantone. And I want to build that,
what exactly should I do on adaily basis? Can you maybe help
with that,
Jim Loehr (36:47):
this hundred and 50 day journey that you are on the
sixth day, is actually leadingyou to a certain place. And what
you're doing every day is you'reinvesting energy through your
hand. And it's causing yourbrain to, to think and to
reflect this reflective anddeeply, sometimes disturbing
(37:09):
reflection, where you begin torealize that I am not the person
that I really want to be. I'vegot some vulnerabilities here
that need to be addressed. And Iknow what my aspirations are,
this is kind of who I want tobe. This is what life means to
me. So there are lots ofquestions about how you define
mission success of your life.
What is your ultimate mission inlife, the mission against what
(37:31):
you must determine, in your ownsense of it, that you succeeded
or your life will fail? Ifthere's an ultimate mission that
you must? What is that, huh, sothat you begin to understand
where your energy should beinvested, the most important
part of you as a person is yourenergy. And as long as you have
life, you have energy, as longas you have energy you have
(37:53):
life. And the one thing we dohave the ability to do is to
direct our energy in a directionthat we choose, we have the
ability to do that. If you wantto direct it more toward
fitness, toward emotionalpositivity toward more focus,
you can get involved in yoga,you can get involved in
meditation. If you want todevelop more of a sense of
(38:13):
kindness or a greater sense ofpurpose in life, every day,
you're more alive with what youreally want to accomplish with
your energy. All we have to dois direct energy in those in
those directions, we have to bebetter investors, precise
investors, you get back what youinvest in with your energy, you
remember, it's almost like ifyou want to have something
(38:37):
happen in the form of change,what is really required is an
understanding of the power ofyour energy. Hmm, your energy
repeatedly invested in aspecific way over time, makes
change. So if you want to havethe greatest impatience muscle
on Earth, there are so manyopportunities, you can have the
biggest impatient muscle that'sever been created. You could be
(39:01):
historic when you die, becausethere's so many opportunities to
feed that muscle. If you feedthe muscle of cynicism, sarcasm,
if you feed the muscle of anger,frustration, where you see
yourself as a victim victimhoodgoes will grow and become the
dominant theme in your lifeuntil you die. Hmm. And this is
(39:23):
what's happening to peoplebecause they don't realize if
you want something to die, don'tgo there with your energy. Take
your energy elsewhere, you can'tcut it out neurologically. With
all the research onneurophysiology and
neuroplasticity. We know youcan't really go out and just cut
it out. What you can do isdirect your energy away from it
(39:44):
and you don't give it life Itwill die from lack of attention
it from lack of energy. So haveyour energy flow toward what you
want in life. And if you wantmore positivity, we just have to
Just start looking at thepositive side of things, what I
call realistically positive. Soit's very encouraging to me to
(40:05):
think that as long as we haveenergy we can fight. Yes. And as
long as we have a purpose, and asense of where to put our
energy, we can go after itbecause we have energy, because
we're still alive. And as you gofurther in life, the energy
stores tend to wane a littlebit, unless you stay very fit
and eat right and do all theright things. But you can make
(40:27):
incredible changes in your lifein the lives of others, even in
the twilight of your, of yourlife and of your career. But
it's your energy that's gonnamake the difference. And energy
is aligned with time iscompletely synchronized with
what you want, is the secret tolife is the secret to change.
And I'm a change optimist,because I've seen it over
(40:49):
thousands, hundreds ofthousands, we had over 400,000
people go through our programs,I was tracking this like a
madman over extended periods oftime, because I wanted to know,
I didn't want to create fluff,I'm not interested in fluff. I'm
interested in actually having afoot in science a foot and the
practical world and see where wecan actually come together and
(41:12):
make something that's actuallyworthwhile in people's lives.
Morten Andersen (41:18):
So if people want to make a change, they have
to move energy to watch thatwhat they want to achieve.
nobody really wants to achievecynicism. But you, if you want
to have more positive energyoptimism in your life, you have
to move energy towards that. Andbecause we make decisions on two
different levels, one isautomatic, and one is
(41:40):
intentional. And if we don'tfocus, our intentional energy,
so to speak on what we want togo towards, we will most likely
make poor decisions. And that'swhy journaling is an important
tool as opposed because thatwill direct our intentional
attention to what's what we wantto spend our energy on. Is that
(42:01):
right?
Jim Loehr (42:02):
You're 100% correct, we can't change what we're
unaware of. And if you'reunaware of where your energy is
flowing, if you really don't actwith intentionality, the energy
may go towards cynicism, towardanger towards impatience that
just naturally goes there.
Because it's so available to youto go the other way, you have to
say, wait a minute, I see thisis where I'm giving life to that
dynamic. And I'm not happy withthat, I'm going to go a
(42:26):
different way. So you rally,you're willing discipline and
you rally the sense of I canmove my energy in whatever
direction I want. As long as I'malive, as long as I'm conscious,
I have the ability to push myenergy in a direction that
actually can make a differenceto me. And if you do it
repeatedly, adaptation willoccur. Yes, the body will go, at
some level, it goes, You know, Idon't know what's going on out
(42:50):
there. But we're still we'reputting a lot of energy into
this being positive and beingtruthful, and being authentic
and being kind. And so maybethis is important, let's keep it
going. And so, over time, thisbecomes habituated. And you'll
begin to, you'd begin to do thisautomatically. And then you put
your awareness on something elsethat you want to improve upon.
(43:11):
But awareness is the windowthrough which all change must
occur. Unless it's changed. It'skind of some kind of an
indoctrination that's going on.
But it's not self initiated,changes change from the outside,
I'm really trying to push changefrom the inside. And making sure
that any kind of indoctrinationthat's going on on the outside,
(43:32):
is actually you're very aware ofit, and you're really either
excited about it, or you'regoing to resist it. And there
are a lot of things we have toresist society, multi all the
media's out there, everything isgoing on even the political
forces, an attempt to steal whatI call your brain, your brain,
(43:54):
all the real estate between yourears. And so I've spent a lot of
time trying to understand how dowe prevent that real estate from
being stolen. And awareness isthe key and making sure that you
are in control of your energy.
Because every time you allow anenergy impulse to go into the
brain, it creates life in somedynamic way. And eventually,
that becomes a pathway forenergy to flow. And now it's a
(44:17):
habit. And that habit becomeswho you really are.
Morten Andersen (44:22):
At the end of each interview, I sort of have
do's and don'ts. And if I'm alistener, and I'm inspired to go
and work on my character, whatthree specific advice would you
give that listener? Would yougive me to go and do that?
Jim Loehr (44:36):
I would have you start by thinking about Who are
you? When you're most proud ofyourself? I would have you and I
would have you write those sixwords down. And then I would
have you think about at the endof your life on your tombstone,
what six words you would like tohave on that tombstone that
actually reflected who you were,and the reality of your life
when you were here. That wouldbe step one. Mm hmm. And then
(44:59):
step two I would really try tounderstand for you what life I
really spend a lot of qualitytime to understand what is the
purpose of your life?
Ultimately, Hmm, what must youaccomplish with your life to
feel like you, you reallydeserve this gift of life? And
what are your values? What doyou care most about and what
what's worth chasing? and reallyunderstanding that there is
(45:21):
something that you're going tobe defining as a successful
life. I want to know what thatis. And I'd like for you to
spend time, that's step two,coming to terms with your most
elevated, most important purposein life, which will likely be
trans, transcend you, it'llprobably not about you. And then
thirdly, I'd like for you tobegin to hold yourself
(45:42):
accountable for where you'reputting your energy, and to make
a commitment to reallyunderstanding that the ultimate
value that we see in our livesis how we treat others Hmm. And
to honestly look at, where areyour deficiencies and where
would you like to get stronger,where you're more deeply engaged
(46:03):
with people as opposed to kindof half being there, where you
show and really deep compassionfor others or, you know, moral
courage, integrity, honesty,truthfulness, Authenticity,
every month that you live, everyday that you live, you can move
the ball forward, as long as youunderstand that your energy
that's going to make thedifference. And eventually those
(46:25):
will become so we start out withreally understanding the
scorecard that matters, then wemake sure we've got the purpose,
right. And then we startaligning our energy with those
things. And part of that is, isa journal, to hold ourselves
accountable every single day,for what's going on in our life.
And be tough on yourself andmake sure that you're making the
(46:47):
investments, it's hard work,you're not, you're going to get
back what you invest in, forbetter, for worse, hold yourself
accountable, and make sure thoseare good investments every
single day.
Morten Andersen (46:59):
Fantastic, I will let you know in hundred and
45 days how things are going.
And I'll try to make thatinvestment and see how it works
out. I'm incredibly excitedabout it. And I'm also really
excited about this conversation,I want to thank you for taking
the time to have thisconversation with me and for our
listeners so they can get tounderstand how they can, how we
can build our character. Sothanks a lot for your book.
(47:22):
Thanks a lot for this interview.
I appreciate that.
Jim Loehr (47:25):
Martin, you're more than welcome. Thanks for having
me. And ultimately, the end ofyour 150 days is to build your
own personal credo that actuallybecomes the source code for how
you make moral and ethicaldecisions going forward. And
that's ultimately it is the,it's the most important document
that you'll carry with you forthe rest of your eyes,
(47:46):
identifying truenorth, morallyand ethically for you for the
rest of your life. And it'salways in, it's always in chain,
it's some kind of change motion,it's always adapting. And you're
always trying to make it alittle better and refine it. But
that's ultimately the goal ofthis is for you to develop not a
not some kind of document thatyou you're not even sure where
(48:08):
it came from, you know, you justkind of fall back on that
because that's all you've got.
Now you actually have anintentional document, it is the
best articulation of how youwant to make your moral ethical
decisions going forward. Andthat will give you a much better
peace of mind in terms of andfulfillment for whatever time
you have left. And thanks. Ilook forward to that.
Morten Andersen (48:36):
What a great conversation with Jim, it's hard
to overstate how big aninfluence he has been on
personal performance, read hisbooks, see his TED Talks, it's
all very inspiring. I took threethings away from the interview.
One, the biggest decision we canmake is how we spend our energy.
Jim talks about four levels ofenergy, physical energy, which
(49:00):
can be high or low emotionalenergy, which can be positive or
negative. mental energy whichcan be focused or unfocused and
spiritual energy which can giveyou meaning or not. Where you
spend your energy willultimately decide what type of
person you will become. Tojournaling is the most effective
(49:20):
tool for making a change. Mostof our decisions we make about
how to spend our energy isautomatic. And they're not
always the best. If we want tochange that, we must raise our
awareness. And journaling is sopowerful to do that 10 minutes
each day for 150 days. And youcan make a real change. It is
(49:40):
hard, but it will pay off. Andthree purpose is the ultimate
driver. Jim talked about howimportant is to find your
purpose and make that yourguiding star for all your
changes and for all yourdecisions about where to spend
your energy. You must usepurpose so find out who you are,
(50:00):
what your values are and makeyour purpose from there. If you
like the interview and you wantto hear more, please press the
subscribe button. Also if youdid like the interview, I will
appreciate if you will give it afive star feedback. It helps a
lot for our reach. Until nexttime, take care
Hello, and welcome to What Monkeys Do. My
name is Morten Kamp Andersen.
And this is a podcast about whatit takes to make a change and
make it stick.
In What Monkeys Do, we explorewhat it takes to make a change
and make it stick. And today wewill talk about managing energy
(00:27):
to build character. When I gotmy first job in investment
banking, I started with areference that if you wanted to
make it big, you had to cutcorners, you had to cheat, you
had to lie. And I got thatreference from many different
places. And remember, this isactually some years ago. So the
movie Wall Street told how greedwas good. And the main
character, Gordon Gekko, he didall of those things. He cheated
(00:51):
and he lied, or Michael Milken,he was the guy who practically
invented high yield bonds. Andwhen he was working for Drexel
Burnham, he was probably themost successful investment
bankers in the 80s. And as itturned out, he cheated. And he
lied. The beautiful book byMichael Lewis called Liars'
Poker, also described how theWall Street really worked. So I
(01:12):
guess I had a lot of referencesfor if you wanted to make it
big, you had to cheat and lie.
But the funny thing was thatduring the next 10 years, as I
worked in exactly thatenvironment, I experienced
something completely different.
So instead of the Gordon Gekkos,and the Michael Milkins, I saw
that the people who consistentlydid the best and was promoted to
(01:33):
the most executive positions,they were actually good guys.
And actually, they were betterthan that they had a high level
of integrity, high level ofhonesty, something that I was
surprised about. So in today'sepisode, we'll look at what is
character? How can you build it?
And why does it matter if youwant to have a successful career
or great relationships withpeople around you? My guest
(01:56):
today is world renownedperformance psychologist, he's
the author of 17 books. He'sworked with hundreds of World
Class performers in sports andbusiness, many of them you would
actually know. He's the cofounder of the Johnson and
Johnson Human PerformanceInstitute. They deliver a
science based energy managementtrainings, he's written an
(02:17):
excellent book called Leadingwith Character. Welcome to your
Jim Loehr.
Jim Loehr (02:24):
Thank you, Morten.
It's great to be with you. AndI'm excited to have our
conversation.
Morten Andersen (02:29):
Yes, yes. So am I. And this conversation is
about character, and what ischaracter? And how can you build
it, but I actually want to startsomewhere else. And I want to
start and talk with you aboutenergy, because actually,
throughout many of your books,you've talked about how
important it is that you manageyour energy well. And also, in
your latest book, you're talkingabout that, you need to take
(02:49):
care of your fundamentals beforeyou can successfully build
character. So I just want to askyou, when you talk about energy,
what do you what do you mean?
What are you talking about? Andhow can you effectively manage
that,
Jim Loehr (03:01):
you know, energy, I've come to understand, is
life. When you give energy tosomething you give life to it,
if you put energy into yourbicep, if you put energy into
the dynamic of kindness,anything, you invest your energy
and you spawn life, it is thestimulus for all growth is
(03:23):
actually the investment ofenergy. And when you invest a
lot of energy beyond what isnormal, it spawns even greater
growth. And then you youactually grow when you're in a
recovery mode when you areactually not investing. And so
in life, to be a great investor,you understand that from your
experience on in Wall Street andall the stuff you did in the
(03:45):
brokerage world. To be a greatinvestor, you have to have a
great account, you have to havea very large account from which
to make withdrawals. Hmm, therewas this notion at the time,
that time really was thecritical factor in a person's
life. Yes. And we had all kindsof work with athletes and
executives and special forces inthe military. And we had an
(04:09):
academy and tennis there at theInstitute. And we began to
realize it wasn't the amount oftime that people were spending,
it's something that made thedifference. It was the energy
that they brought and investedwith the time they had aligned
with what the goal was thecritical variable, you can spend
hours doing something, and youmay have no return or even a
(04:33):
negative return. But if youalign your energy with the
desired goal, and whatever timeyou have, that becomes a gift.
That's the greatest gift we haveto give to the world. I call
that full engagement and it'syour full invest energy right
here right now in what you aredoing. Hmm. So we became not
(04:56):
really enamored with this notionof investing. time wisely, but
it really is investing energywith great precision. And we use
this across the whole spectrumof physical, emotional, mental,
and even spiritual characterlearning. And it's held true
across all domains. So for me,the most critical part of who
(05:17):
Jim Loehr is, is where is heputting his energy? Yes. And how
does that align with what hereally says matters to him.
That's whether or not I'm reallyliving a life that's authentic.
And it's not my time, I canspend hours doing something that
I really am not there. I'm notthere with my family. But I was
(05:38):
there for four hours, as opposedto maybe being there for 15
minutes, but I'm 100% there. Andwhen you give people your
energy, that's what they wantfrom you, hmm. You take life out
of your body and give it investit to them. And that's how you
show you care about something.
That's how you show you careabout another person. Yes,
people want our energymore thanthey want our time.
Morten Andersen (06:00):
And how did people take that because I
remember when I, when I sold theHarvard Business Review article,
first time, the headline was,you know, you don't have to
manage your time you manage yourenergy, and that was, I had
optimized my time. I mean, I wasfully into the time management
systems in the 80s. I was reallytrying to optimize my time and
you, you said, No, no, don't dothat. Focus on the energy
instead, how did people takethat in general,
Jim Loehr (06:22):
I got all kinds of pushback. I spent time with
Stephen Covey, and his son,Stephen, Mr. Covey, and they had
no response. So I said, Here'syour formula. Do you really feel
this is right, I said, whatyou're saying is to be a
successful person, you have toknow what you really care about.
You have to know your values.
And then you have to devote timeto that. And the more time you
(06:42):
devote to it, the more alignedYour life is with that, and that
will produce great success. AndI said, Well, think about this.
What if you're spinning yourtime and you have no energy?
Yes, I said, the criticalelement, time has no valence has
no power, you're just showing upto have something extraordinary
happen. You have to bringextraordinary energy to the time
(07:04):
you have, yes. And so that blewa hole right in the time
management system. And they werereally quite concerned about it.
But it was a paradigm for methat didn't work. It didn't work
in sport didn't work in anyindustry. It's still one of
those things that people kind ofstruggle with, but it is energy.
Yes. And we lose energy. We haveno, we're life is gone. And so
(07:24):
we want to mobilize as muchenergy as we can in the time
we're here. And then reallyimportantly, invested wisely, in
what truly matters to you.
Morten Andersen (07:37):
And I think another thing that turned things
upside down for me a little bitwas that when you say energy,
most of the time, I'm thinkingabout physical energy. I'm
thinking about, am I awake? Do Ihave the physical energy to be
alert in here, but you're reallytalking about different types of
energy, you're talking aboutemotional energy and mental
energy and character andspiritual energy. So that energy
(08:00):
is not just Are you in goodshape, it's actually much more
than that.
Jim Loehr (08:04):
So that's a great point, Morten, and it was
another big insight for us thatenergy is the same in the
universe, air energy is energy.
And all the things we've learnedabout energy in the universe
applies to human energy, there'sno difference, hmm, energy in
the body is created in the unionof oxygen and glucose,
basically, in the middle condryof the cells. But all energy in
the universe has quantity hasquality, it has focus and has
(08:27):
intensity, and so does humanenergy. So the quantity of
energy comes from this union ofoxygen and glucose at the
cellular level, the quality ofenergy comes from our emotions.
And the highest quality energycomes from our positive
emotions, when we're lookingahead and OPT opportunistic way
to make things happen. mentalenergy is how we focus our
(08:49):
energy. And the spiritual energyor the energy of purpose and
character really gives thisdynamic of intensity. It's like
what you care about. So when Igive the greatest quantity, the
best quality energy, the highestfocus, and the greatest
intensity, that is the power Ihave as a human being, hmm. And
(09:11):
if I bring that to anotherperson, if I bring it to an
event, if I bring it to ameeting, people can feel my
energy, we all have an energyand really signature. And it
really will be your energy. It'snot how long you live, that
people will remember, somebodymight remember you live to be
112. But what really will be theimpact you have is the energy
(09:32):
the time you had What did you dowith your energy? What did you
truly impact? What was theresult of this amazing legacy of
energy that you had? Where didit go? And that's where we like
to do this energy audit, whowere what is getting her energy
and who and what is not and whoshould be getting based on your
values. Where should your energybe invested?
Morten Andersen (09:56):
Yes. So there are four types of energy. You
have the physical energy whichcan be high or low, you have
your emotional energy, which canbe positive or negative, you
have your mental energy whichcan be focused or not focused,
you have your spiritual energy,which can be meaningful or non
meaningful, I suppose. And theway you manage that is actually
more important of how you spendyour time. And I think your
(10:18):
example would have, you can bewith your family, but you can
actually not be present, you canphysically be there, but not be
present is something I guess wecan all relate to. Yeah,
Jim Loehr (10:28):
unfortunately, people don't like to hear that, because
it makes them veryuncomfortable, because they gave
themselves a very high mark ontheir scorecard as a mother or
father. But when we put a cameraon you, you were there, but you
were not your energy was notaligned with what your deepest
values that you didn't show youcared, you weren't really tuned
in to what they were saying, youwere you were angry, frustrated,
(10:49):
you're watching TV or on yourBlackBerry, or whatever, you're
on your iPhone. And so you werethere. But like you say, they
got no benefit from it, eventhough you had four hours of
time with him.
Morten Andersen (11:00):
Yes, that was really the essence of the
Powerful Engagement, obviously,also some previous work on that.
And now you published a new bookcalled Leading with Character,
and this is your 17th book. Andit is a fantastic book, you've
written about some of the thingsin other books as well, The Only
Way to Win for example, why didyou feel you had to write this?
What did you not write in theothers that you had to write in
(11:22):
here?
Jim Loehr (11:23):
So for me, this is an evolutionary journey, every time
I write a book, I don't want towrite about something that is
already out there. And I justkind of rehash it and refresh
it, I want to write a book thatactually takes us to something
new, a completely newunderstanding, or a new take on
something new scientificunderstandings. So every book
I've written, it was like acrescendo somewhere in my
(11:46):
thinking, when I put all thistogether, and at the time,
almost always I am viewed asoutside the box, because I'm
jumping ahead of where everybodyelse is. And I was not trained
in psychology to know anythingabout character. It's It's
surprising to me is it probablyis to you or anybody else, how
(12:06):
the heck did you end up there,as a person, I first of all was
in the clinical world. And thenI moved into working in the
arena of high performance, youknow, the Human Performance
Institute, were involved ingetting people to do things
they've never done before tobring bring them to the pinnacle
of what they're capable of. Howdo you get to character from
there? Hmm. So the only way towhen I really began to show some
(12:31):
of the insights that we hadabout the notion of purpose, and
how important that wasn't aperson's life, but the more we
delved into it, and we startedlooking at longitudinal data we
had the institute started in1992. We sold it to Johnson and
Johnson in 2008. And I stayed onfor another six years helping
(12:52):
with the transition, I spent agreat deal of time at the
institute exploring differentconcepts. And one of the most
powerful concepts that we had atthe Institute was something that
I refer to as best self. And itwas a little different than it
had been articulated in theliterature. This was not some
(13:14):
fantasy about how you would liketo be or this would be the best
you could be, and all that kindof stuff. I really wanted people
to articulate who they were whenthey were most proud of
themselves, when they were thevery best that they could be.
And they look back on and said,that's really the best I have to
offer the world. And so we wouldask them at the Institute, we
(13:35):
did this hundreds and hundreds,probably thousands of times I
asked them to put down the sixwords that best describe who
they were at their best. Andthen we asked them a very
similar question. If you couldonly put six words on your
tombstone, at the end of yourlife. What words would you like
to have inscribed on thattombstone? that best describes
(13:59):
who you really were when youwere here? They would make you
feel the best about your lifeand that you justified this gift
of life in the best possibleway? Yes. What struck everybody
in the audience the first timeand every time we did it, we got
the same was that people rarelytalked about winning or fame or
money or accomplishments ortrophies or titles, what they
(14:21):
talked about, almost always wastheir connection to other
people. Mm hmm. So they wouldtalk they would list things like
kindness or when they're whenthey're we thought of in terms
of compassionate or loving, or agreat caring and devoted husband
or mother or humility orintegrity or honesty, but they
(14:45):
define pretty much at thehighest level of value, the
connection they had to otherpeople. Yes. And we began to
realize that there's a scorecardthat we all have, that's deep
inside have us it, no one hasreally ever articulated clearly.
But it's the ultimate scorecardthat actually defines who we are
(15:08):
at our best and how we want tobe remembered when we're when
we're gone. Hmm. And that is ourtreatment of others. And that is
the moral space. So I definecharacter in two ways. One is a
performance character, which areall those things that enable you
to become an extraordinaryperformer, focused, disciplined,
decisive, ambitious, you know,all the things that all these
(15:32):
character strengths that enableyou to perform in an
extraordinarily high level, butthey in no way cross the moral
boundary, you can be anextraordinary as you were
talking in your introduction,you can be an extraordinary
performer and have, you can doit by scamming, you can do it by
cheating, you can cut shortcuts,you can do all kinds of things
(15:52):
to get to the top. But there'sanother category that is your
treatment of others. That'smoral and ethical character. And
what we learned was in terms ofpriority and sustainability,
it's really not, you know, howlong can you stay at that
mountain at the top of themountain, if you're not a person
of great moral and ethicalcharacter, you're going to find
(16:14):
it's going to be a short trip.
And we know today that, youknow, the corporate world spends
100 and $12 billion a yearreplacing CEOs who have fallen
from grace. And for the firsttime in history, they're falling
from grace, not for performanceissues, as much as they're
falling from grace, this wasreported in the Harvard Business
Review, for moral and ethicallapses, it's a very costly
(16:37):
thing. And it's costly to theirfamilies, to the community to
all of us. And it's across thespectrum. So the issue was
really the most important partof who we are, whether we really
understand it fully from theinside. And that's what I wanted
to do with this book is helppeople understand that scorecard
because that's the one thatmatters when it's all said and
(16:59):
done.
Morten Andersen (17:01):
So you're saying that there are really two
things in order to be at yourbest and one is, obviously you
need to perform at your highest?
And second is to have a moralcompass, or, you know, basically
to have a strong character. isone more important than the
other? Or does one come beforeanother? Or are they independent
from each other?
Jim Loehr (17:20):
Well, I call moral and ethical skills and strength,
your your moral and ethicalcharacter is the highest level
of health that you can have,hmm. And you can be a person of
high moral character and not bea high achiever. I mean, I think
of my mom, she didn't do, shewasn't, but she was an
extraordinary woman, ofunbelievable character, but she
(17:42):
didn't have any accolades. Shedidn't go to college, she didn't
graduate from college, there wasno real achievements that you
could point to other than she'san extraordinary woman. And then
you have the other side, you canbe an extraordinary achiever,
and have all kinds of holes inthe moral and ethical side. So
for me, the one is mostimportant, and the one one is
(18:03):
what you achieve, what enablesyou to achieve and the other
was, how did you achieve it, andhow is far more important than
what that was a hugedistinction. And I tried to
bring that out. So we need tounderstand that there is a
difference. And if we're goingto teach our kids anything, if
we're going to have any standardfor ourselves, we need to start
at the top, because that's theone that's really going to make
(18:26):
a difference in the longevityand the legacy that we leave
behind.
Morten Andersen (18:30):
Perfect.
So I've read quite a few of yourbooks now. And what strikes me
is that you are an optimist whenit comes to believing that we
can make a personal change. Andalso in this book, you're
(18:50):
optimistic that we can actuallychange or we can build our
character muscle, so to speak.
But on the other hand, you alsorefer to studies which show that
we are still deeply dependent onauthorities. You mentioned the
Milgram studies, for instance,endless numbers of corporate
scandals the Michael Milken, tothe end run to the Volkswagen,
etc. So what makes you sooptimistic that we can change
(19:15):
and that we can build ourcharacter muscle?
Jim Loehr (19:21):
It's such an interesting exploration into
what I call one's moralmachinery. First thing we
learned is that every one of usis broken morally and ethically
in some way, somewhere inpieces. Hmm. And we really don't
know where our moral and ethicalkind of standard for
(19:44):
extraordinary behavior in thatsense comes from. Hmm, and the
more work we've done in the inthe book identify some 25 ways
that our moral and ethicalbehavior can become hijacked our
our source code for determiningwhat's right and wrong, and
they're everywhere. So we have avery flawed morality system. And
(20:05):
what I was interested in doingwas, first of all, raise
awareness of how flawed oursystem is, how often we make 10
to 12, moral and ethicaldecisions every single day. And
some of the very small and someof them are huge, just how you
treat the valet attendant whobrought your car late, or, you
know, how do you deal with thisfriend who's betrayed your
(20:26):
confidence and told some thingsthat were really not to be told
publicly, and on and on, thesethings are happening every day,
and how you treat your childrenwhen they do something they
shouldn't? And what should beyour best response from your
highest and best moral self?
What is so interesting in all ofthis is that our machinery, all
of us have to go to work. Iwanted to know whether or not
(20:47):
it's fixable. Mm hmm. So webegan to do work. And we did all
kinds of things to see is itpossible to fix the holes in
that system? And we learned inpsychology we've known and you
know, this morning that thesingle best predictor of success
in life is drive. How badly doyou want it? It's persistence,
its dedication. And it's whatAngela Duckworth calls grit,
(21:10):
staying with this whole thing.
So we wanted to dig deeper intothat and to try to understand,
where does that come from? Andcould we rally that grit and
that energy investmentconsistency to actually fix the
holes in this very vulnerablemoral machinery that we're all
(21:32):
carrying around that wasinherited, it wasn't something
that we were conscious of, evenin its creation, we had very
little to do with it. Andsuddenly, we're here and we're
making critical decisions aboutwhat's true north morally and
ethically on a system that'sterribly flawed. So we really
went in and tried to see whatwas the king pan that would
(21:54):
release energy to really winthat battle. And that's where we
got into this notion of purpose,purpose is the single most
important dimension of who weare as human beings. It's the
why behind everything we do, ifwe get the purpose, right, I
mean, you'll you'll do anything?
Yes, if I get the purpose,right, you'll give your life
very, very quickly in theservice of something that's
(22:17):
important. Yes, if you rally theright purpose, you will fix your
character. And behavior ischangeable. If you have a
purpose strong enough, and youare willing to rally the
energies long enough, you canmake massive course corrections.
And we had people that changetheir lives almost 180 as a
result of these interventions,and that's what to me is the
(22:40):
most exciting, number one, wecan change. And it is something
within everyone's reach, so longas we can get the right purpose
for doing so. And that purposeis what I call a self
transcending purpose has verylittle to do with you, and has
everything to do with others.
And then the other one is thatyou understand that it's hard
(23:02):
work, and we have to do a lot ofheavy lifting. And that heavy
lifting is with repeated energyinvestments, just like if you
want a big bicep, you're gonnahave to do a lot of heavy
lifting to get that bicep,
Morten Andersen (23:14):
because then that way, you, you make a
parallel to building physicalenergy. So if I want to have a
higher level of physical energy,I know what to do go to bed
early to eat well, it is toexercise on a regular basis to
breathe deep, and so on. Sothere are some behaviors that I
can do on a daily basis thatwill build my sort of speak
(23:36):
physical muscle, and I guess,the same with emotional energy,
emotional muscle, if I want tohave a positive versus a
negative energy in terms of, ofemotional energy, I also know
what to do on a daily basis,daily basis. And I guess that's
exactly what you're doing withcharacter in this book is that
you actually say, it all comesdown to behavior. And there are
(24:00):
25 decisions or behaviors thatyou can do on a daily basis that
will strengthen your muscle andbuild energy in the character
space.
Jim Loehr (24:11):
It's exactly right.
So let's say that you yourgratitude muscle, as you really
reflect on who you really are,is just really quite weak. It
really isn't about you, you wantto have more gratefulness to all
the people that enabled you tohave this extraordinary life and
all the opportunities thatyou've had, but you rarely show
it. And this is coming throughin many ways, maybe two as you
(24:31):
reflect on it. So you rally thisenergy, this sense of purpose
around improving this part ofyour character. And every day.
Maybe you start today with avery simple in your log in your
journal, a gratitude list andyou make a list every day for
four or five minutes of all thethings that you are truly
(24:52):
grateful for that have happenedin your life and you start that
list and every day you try tothink of a few things That
you've never thought of before.
And that muscle digs deeper. Andyou're investing energy in it by
writing about it, thinking aboutit, maybe even talking about it.
And so that muscle grows and itbecomes much more accessible to
(25:12):
you. And eventually, this willstart manifesting itself in how
you interact with everyone. Andevery day, you now kind of
exemplify how important this isin your life, by the way you
speak the way you act and thegratitude that you have for the
world that you're in.
Morten Andersen (25:29):
Yes.
Jim Loehr (25:30):
And this is true with kindness. It's true with
truthfulness, it's true withhumility, and all of the most
important character strengths wehave, we can build them. And one
of the most powerful ways we'velearned is through journaling.
So amazing. I mean, that was Inever really I mean, as a coach
(25:51):
in various sports, we everyonehas a training log, but I never
realized how importantjournaling is to building the
brand you want building thecapacity you want, emotionally,
mentally, and most importantly,in terms of the character space.
Morten Andersen (26:06):
So you're very optimistic in terms of making a
change. And in order to make achange, or build character, you
need to break it down intohabits, or you need to break it
down into behavior that youchange and journaling is a an
effective way to external or tobuild that muscle, so to speak
in your reflection, and thenmakes it more likely that you
(26:27):
will do it in behaviorafterwards, I suppose.
Jim Loehr (26:30):
Yes, we have to keep making adjustments. There's what
I call automatic adaptation toour world. And then there is
this intentional adaptation.
Oftentimes, our automaticadaptation is not in the best
interest of our families,ourselves. We're eating a lot.
We're adapting, we're having icecream every night for we go to
sleep at night, we ended updoing things we don't even know
(26:52):
how we got there,
Morten Andersen (26:54):
I can recognize a lot of that actually.
Jim Loehr (26:57):
They just start showing up. We're constantly
evolving as a result of ourenvironment and the political
environment that we're in nowhere in the United States, the
hatred, the anger, thefrustration, the violence. So
but then there's another moreintentional, who do you really
want to be? How do you want tolead in this special moment? And
what what are the habits thatyou would like to eventually own
(27:20):
in your own life. And so again,the first thing that we have to
do is, we have to identify whatit is we want to change, we have
to break it down into very kindof almost micro steps. And we
have to have a purpose to driveit. And we have to repeat that
over and over again. And there.
It needs to be tied to someritualistic, whether it's
getting up 10 minutes earlierand have a set an alarm in the
(27:41):
morning and do your journalingfor 10 minutes, which is what
the book recommends. Yes, over150 days, and people go 150
days. 10 minutes. Yeah, that's25 hours spread over multiple
months. But the results of thiscan be so catastrophic, Lee
wonderful. I mean, it's hard.
(28:02):
It's difficult, but it reallycan result in some real seismic
changes in the direction youwant to go. Who do you want to
be before you check out? Yes.
And so I'm a real optimist whenit comes to change. And I wasn't
in the beginning, I was, youknow, I was all in my training
and behavioral psychology andeverything. Cognitive behavioral
therapy, and all the stuff thatI was went through in my
(28:25):
training and in a therapeuticcontext. And this came, there
was nothing there that reallyled me to the importance of
purpose. This came from ourliving lab. And we began to
realize I, you know, we'd havepeople tell their stories, write
their stories about who theyreally are and who they want to
be. And they'd write up an oldstory in a new story. Yes, when
they finally resulted in change,and those that work, it was
(28:48):
really obvious that it was apurpose. And it was a
transcendent purpose. It was apurpose that really had nothing
to do with them. So a father whowants to be more engaged with
his son or daughter, in theevening, when he comes home and
not a dead person walking, hegoes in and he starts working
out at five in the morning, hmm,not for himself because he
doesn't care. But if it meanshe's going to be more engaged
(29:11):
with his son or daughter, andprovide them with a better
picture of health and be aroundthem longer. It's a spiritual
act. It's an act of characterevery time he or she goes in and
works out. That was thedifference. And I will tell you,
the journal helped to try tocement that. And every time he
reflected or she reflected onit, put it in the journal kept
(29:33):
track of it, and eventuallybecomes a habit and now they do
it for the rest of their lives.
Now they have their childrendoing it, and they really feel
good about that change. Changeis possible, but it's hard.
Morten Andersen (29:45):
So it's interesting because if we if I
just think about you and StephenCovey, and so you differed in
terms of should you focus ontime or should you focus on
energy, but where you did agreewas that it all starts with
purpose. It all starts with withfinding your why so to speak,
and obviously that has been, youknow, I know Nietzsche wrote
(30:06):
about that 150 years ago interms of how important reservoir
can endure anyhow. Exactly. Sowe've known that for a while.
And still, as you say, it'sreally not rooted deeply in
psychology. But it is somethingthat I think we know more and
more about that you need toeverything you need to do is
connected to your why to yourmeaning to your purpose,
Jim Loehr (30:27):
I'll just say that Mark Twain made a statement once
that I never, never want to stopthinking about and that is that
is that the two most importantdays in your life, or the day
you were born? And the day youfound out why, so that you if
you have no real purpose foryour life, life is an absolute
nightmare. Yes, if you have nopurpose in your day, if you have
(30:50):
nothing that really makes sense.
So we are Victor Frankel's book,Man's Search for Meaning. It's a
wonderful, one of my favoritebooks of all time. And he really
articulates the power ofpurpose, even in a concentration
camp to stay alive. He wanted totell the story, not for himself,
but to let other people knowabout the horrors and the
heroism that occurred in thosecamps. And that's what kept him
(31:12):
alive. That's what enabled himto do what was impossible to do,
yes, and we are capable of doingthings that are unimaginably out
of the norm, if we have apurpose that really, really is
enduring. And that's what wetried to really come to terms
with at the Institute, and isthe core of what leading with
character is all about.
Morten Andersen (31:34):
And I wonder if you could, because most of us
are not CEO of great companies,we more like your mom, we're
more like having a group ofpeople around us, you know, that
we care deeply about that wewant to do our best in the
environment that we work in. Andwe have regular jobs. From my
own point of view, when I hearabout meaning, purpose, legacy
and things like that, Isometimes feel that that is for
(31:56):
people who are in differentpositions than myself. Can you
maybe give a little bit ofresponse to how can ordinary
people like myself think ofpurpose and place in life?
Jim Loehr (32:09):
It's a great, great question and comment, Morton and
I think what you raise here iscritical that even though we're
dealing with these high endpeople, what we're learning
applies to absolutely everyhuman being, we have to bring it
down to the end. We're all justnormal human beings. And if we
figure out what and what enablespeople to do extraordinary
(32:31):
things, we we begin to realizethis not just applies to the
superstars, but it applies toevery one of us and my help us
to unlock more of our ownpotential. To be good, yes, to
be kinder to be more aligned inour lives and with our energy
and what we care about. And sothis notion of we all have this
existential crisis, we're alwaysasking, Why the heck am I here?
(32:53):
What am I supposed to do withlife? And I won this lottery of
life. Yes. And I had no no handin that whatsoever. I just
showed up. And now what am Isupposed to do with this and
your whole life, you're tryingto figure out with this
incredible, I call itevolutionary masterpiece, where
we now recognize we are able tobe fully conscious of the fact
(33:13):
that one day we're going to die.
So what is this all about?
Morten Andersen (33:17):
Yes,
Jim Loehr (33:18):
just a couple of truths here. One is you were
born, it's an indisputable fact.
It's an indisputable fact thatyou're going to die. And between
your birth and your death issome kind of impact.
Morten Andersen (33:31):
Yes.
Jim Loehr (33:32):
And for every person, you're going to leave a trace.
And that's what character is thetrace that you leave behind, and
not so much for you. But thosearound you. And every single
day, you have an impact onsomething or someone in your
sphere of influence. And we allwant to leave this life with an
impact that's really positive.
And what we learn the ultimateimpact is how you treat others.
(33:55):
And yes, it's so interesting. Ibegan to realize in the previous
book, the only way to win thatthere was an emptiness in a lot
of people who achieve greatthings. There's just this
longing for more is this allthere is I've, I've achieved
I've won two gold medals, theOlympic gold medals I've I have
more money than I can ever spendand all my kids and their kids
(34:16):
and I still feel empty. Yes. Andthey're only as good as their
last performance and they'realways vulnerable to feeling
like a failure. And when we dugdeeper, we found out the
scorecard that mattered was notthe money, not the fame. All
those are nice scorecards. Butthe scorecard that in this is
this hidden scorecard. Andthey're always trying to fill it
(34:36):
and you can't fill it withextrinsic rewards, no. And
extrinsic accomplishments. Thescorecard that ultimately
matters is the impact you've hadon others, your children, your
your spouses, your partners,anyone that you care about your
colleagues at work your friends,what was the sum total of your
impact on their lives. Andthat's the scorecard you hold
(34:59):
yourself accountable for it, ifit's not a good score, you try
to fill it with other things,and you cannot fill it.
Morten Andersen (35:07):
Yes.
So What Monkeys Do is a podcastabout change. And you have
throughout your books andthroughout the Institute, of
course helped many people changeand improve. And because you've
(35:28):
worked with so many people,you've seen, many people
succeed. And also some peoplefail and therefore have a lot of
experience now. And you know,what actually makes the
difference between the peoplewho does make a change, and
those who will probably don't.
And one of the things youmentioned is grit, or drive or
perseverance or something likethat, that's really important in
order to work daily on the fourlevels of energy. But now you've
(35:52):
written this, I would also callvery practical book, there is
actually two books and one ofthe books is a journal, where
you go and you write yourpersonal credo, and you spend,
as you say, 150 days, 10 minuteseach day, I'm five days in six
days in and, and it takes alittle bit more than 10 minutes,
some of the days, but it'sactually an incredibly useful
(36:14):
exercise. And I look forward togoing through all hundred and 50
days, but can you just tell alittle bit about, okay, so I
hear what you're saying, thereare four levels of energy. And
if we want to really feel and bethe success that we want to be
in our own life in the situationwherein we need to manage all
four levels. And actually thefourth level, which is that of
(36:35):
character, spiritual characteris really, really important,
maybe even the most importantone. And I want to build that,
what exactly should I do on adaily basis? Can you maybe help
with that,
Jim Loehr (36:47):
this hundred and 50 day journey that you are on the
sixth day, is actually leadingyou to a certain place. And what
you're doing every day is you'reinvesting energy through your
hand. And it's causing yourbrain to, to think and to
reflect this reflective anddeeply, sometimes disturbing
(37:09):
reflection, where you begin torealize that I am not the person
that I really want to be. I'vegot some vulnerabilities here
that need to be addressed. And Iknow what my aspirations are,
this is kind of who I want tobe. This is what life means to
me. So there are lots ofquestions about how you define
mission success of your life.
What is your ultimate mission inlife, the mission against what
(37:31):
you must determine, in your ownsense of it, that you succeeded
or your life will fail? Ifthere's an ultimate mission that
you must? What is that, huh, sothat you begin to understand
where your energy should beinvested, the most important
part of you as a person is yourenergy. And as long as you have
life, you have energy, as longas you have energy you have
(37:53):
life. And the one thing we dohave the ability to do is to
direct our energy in a directionthat we choose, we have the
ability to do that. If you wantto direct it more toward
fitness, toward emotionalpositivity toward more focus,
you can get involved in yoga,you can get involved in
meditation. If you want todevelop more of a sense of
(38:13):
kindness or a greater sense ofpurpose in life, every day,
you're more alive with what youreally want to accomplish with
your energy. All we have to dois direct energy in those in
those directions, we have to bebetter investors, precise
investors, you get back what youinvest in with your energy, you
remember, it's almost like ifyou want to have something
(38:37):
happen in the form of change,what is really required is an
understanding of the power ofyour energy. Hmm, your energy
repeatedly invested in aspecific way over time, makes
change. So if you want to havethe greatest impatience muscle
on Earth, there are so manyopportunities, you can have the
biggest impatient muscle that'sever been created. You could be
(39:01):
historic when you die, becausethere's so many opportunities to
feed that muscle. If you feedthe muscle of cynicism, sarcasm,
if you feed the muscle of anger,frustration, where you see
yourself as a victim victimhoodgoes will grow and become the
dominant theme in your lifeuntil you die. Hmm. And this is
(39:23):
what's happening to peoplebecause they don't realize if
you want something to die, don'tgo there with your energy. Take
your energy elsewhere, you can'tcut it out neurologically. With
all the research onneurophysiology and
neuroplasticity. We know youcan't really go out and just cut
it out. What you can do isdirect your energy away from it
(39:44):
and you don't give it life Itwill die from lack of attention
it from lack of energy. So haveyour energy flow toward what you
want in life. And if you wantmore positivity, we just have to
Just start looking at thepositive side of things, what I
call realistically positive. Soit's very encouraging to me to
(40:05):
think that as long as we haveenergy we can fight. Yes. And as
long as we have a purpose, and asense of where to put our
energy, we can go after itbecause we have energy, because
we're still alive. And as you gofurther in life, the energy
stores tend to wane a littlebit, unless you stay very fit
and eat right and do all theright things. But you can make
(40:27):
incredible changes in your lifein the lives of others, even in
the twilight of your, of yourlife and of your career. But
it's your energy that's gonnamake the difference. And energy
is aligned with time iscompletely synchronized with
what you want, is the secret tolife is the secret to change.
And I'm a change optimist,because I've seen it over
(40:49):
thousands, hundreds ofthousands, we had over 400,000
people go through our programs,I was tracking this like a
madman over extended periods oftime, because I wanted to know,
I didn't want to create fluff,I'm not interested in fluff. I'm
interested in actually having afoot in science a foot and the
practical world and see where wecan actually come together and
(41:12):
make something that's actuallyworthwhile in people's lives.
Morten Andersen (41:18):
So if people want to make a change, they have
to move energy to watch thatwhat they want to achieve.
nobody really wants to achievecynicism. But you, if you want
to have more positive energyoptimism in your life, you have
to move energy towards that. Andbecause we make decisions on two
different levels, one isautomatic, and one is
(41:40):
intentional. And if we don'tfocus, our intentional energy,
so to speak on what we want togo towards, we will most likely
make poor decisions. And that'swhy journaling is an important
tool as opposed because thatwill direct our intentional
attention to what's what we wantto spend our energy on. Is that
(42:01):
right?
Jim Loehr (42:02):
You're 100% correct, we can't change what we're
unaware of. And if you'reunaware of where your energy is
flowing, if you really don't actwith intentionality, the energy
may go towards cynicism, towardanger towards impatience that
just naturally goes there.
Because it's so available to youto go the other way, you have to
say, wait a minute, I see thisis where I'm giving life to that
dynamic. And I'm not happy withthat, I'm going to go a
(42:26):
different way. So you rally,you're willing discipline and
you rally the sense of I canmove my energy in whatever
direction I want. As long as I'malive, as long as I'm conscious,
I have the ability to push myenergy in a direction that
actually can make a differenceto me. And if you do it
repeatedly, adaptation willoccur. Yes, the body will go, at
some level, it goes, You know, Idon't know what's going on out
(42:50):
there. But we're still we'reputting a lot of energy into
this being positive and beingtruthful, and being authentic
and being kind. And so maybethis is important, let's keep it
going. And so, over time, thisbecomes habituated. And you'll
begin to, you'd begin to do thisautomatically. And then you put
your awareness on something elsethat you want to improve upon.
(43:11):
But awareness is the windowthrough which all change must
occur. Unless it's changed. It'skind of some kind of an
indoctrination that's going on.
But it's not self initiated,changes change from the outside,
I'm really trying to push changefrom the inside. And making sure
that any kind of indoctrinationthat's going on on the outside,
(43:32):
is actually you're very aware ofit, and you're really either
excited about it, or you'regoing to resist it. And there
are a lot of things we have toresist society, multi all the
media's out there, everything isgoing on even the political
forces, an attempt to steal whatI call your brain, your brain,
(43:54):
all the real estate between yourears. And so I've spent a lot of
time trying to understand how dowe prevent that real estate from
being stolen. And awareness isthe key and making sure that you
are in control of your energy.
Because every time you allow anenergy impulse to go into the
brain, it creates life in somedynamic way. And eventually,
that becomes a pathway forenergy to flow. And now it's a
(44:17):
habit. And that habit becomeswho you really are.
Morten Andersen (44:22):
At the end of each interview, I sort of have
do's and don'ts. And if I'm alistener, and I'm inspired to go
and work on my character, whatthree specific advice would you
give that listener? Would yougive me to go and do that?
Jim Loehr (44:36):
I would have you start by thinking about Who are
you? When you're most proud ofyourself? I would have you and I
would have you write those sixwords down. And then I would
have you think about at the endof your life on your tombstone,
what six words you would like tohave on that tombstone that
actually reflected who you were,and the reality of your life
when you were here. That wouldbe step one. Mm hmm. And then
(44:59):
step two I would really try tounderstand for you what life I
really spend a lot of qualitytime to understand what is the
purpose of your life?
Ultimately, Hmm, what must youaccomplish with your life to
feel like you, you reallydeserve this gift of life? And
what are your values? What doyou care most about and what
what's worth chasing? and reallyunderstanding that there is
(45:21):
something that you're going tobe defining as a successful
life. I want to know what thatis. And I'd like for you to
spend time, that's step two,coming to terms with your most
elevated, most important purposein life, which will likely be
trans, transcend you, it'llprobably not about you. And then
thirdly, I'd like for you tobegin to hold yourself
(45:42):
accountable for where you'reputting your energy, and to make
a commitment to reallyunderstanding that the ultimate
value that we see in our livesis how we treat others Hmm. And
to honestly look at, where areyour deficiencies and where
would you like to get stronger,where you're more deeply engaged
(46:03):
with people as opposed to kindof half being there, where you
show and really deep compassionfor others or, you know, moral
courage, integrity, honesty,truthfulness, Authenticity,
every month that you live, everyday that you live, you can move
the ball forward, as long as youunderstand that your energy
that's going to make thedifference. And eventually those
(46:25):
will become so we start out withreally understanding the
scorecard that matters, then wemake sure we've got the purpose,
right. And then we startaligning our energy with those
things. And part of that is, isa journal, to hold ourselves
accountable every single day,for what's going on in our life.
And be tough on yourself andmake sure that you're making the
(46:47):
investments, it's hard work,you're not, you're going to get
back what you invest in, forbetter, for worse, hold yourself
accountable, and make sure thoseare good investments every
single day.
Morten Andersen (46:59):
Fantastic, I will let you know in hundred and
45 days how things are going.
And I'll try to make thatinvestment and see how it works
out. I'm incredibly excitedabout it. And I'm also really
excited about this conversation,I want to thank you for taking
the time to have thisconversation with me and for our
listeners so they can get tounderstand how they can, how we
can build our character. Sothanks a lot for your book.
(47:22):
Thanks a lot for this interview.
I appreciate that.
Jim Loehr (47:25):
Martin, you're more than welcome. Thanks for having
me. And ultimately, the end ofyour 150 days is to build your
own personal credo that actuallybecomes the source code for how
you make moral and ethicaldecisions going forward. And
that's ultimately it is the,it's the most important document
that you'll carry with you forthe rest of your eyes,
(47:46):
identifying truenorth, morallyand ethically for you for the
rest of your life. And it'salways in, it's always in chain,
it's some kind of change motion,it's always adapting. And you're
always trying to make it alittle better and refine it. But
that's ultimately the goal ofthis is for you to develop not a
not some kind of document thatyou you're not even sure where
(48:08):
it came from, you know, you justkind of fall back on that
because that's all you've got.
Now you actually have anintentional document, it is the
best articulation of how youwant to make your moral ethical
decisions going forward. Andthat will give you a much better
peace of mind in terms of andfulfillment for whatever time
you have left. And thanks. Ilook forward to that.
Morten Andersen (48:36):
What a great conversation with Jim, it's hard
to overstate how big aninfluence he has been on
personal performance, read hisbooks, see his TED Talks, it's
all very inspiring. I took threethings away from the interview.
One, the biggest decision we canmake is how we spend our energy.
Jim talks about four levels ofenergy, physical energy, which
(49:00):
can be high or low emotionalenergy, which can be positive or
negative. mental energy whichcan be focused or unfocused and
spiritual energy which can giveyou meaning or not. Where you
spend your energy willultimately decide what type of
person you will become. Tojournaling is the most effective
(49:20):
tool for making a change. Mostof our decisions we make about
how to spend our energy isautomatic. And they're not
always the best. If we want tochange that, we must raise our
awareness. And journaling is sopowerful to do that 10 minutes
each day for 150 days. And youcan make a real change. It is
(49:40):
hard, but it will pay off. Andthree purpose is the ultimate
driver. Jim talked about howimportant is to find your
purpose and make that yourguiding star for all your
changes and for all yourdecisions about where to spend
your energy. You must usepurpose so find out who you are,
(50:00):
what your values are and makeyour purpose from there. If you
like the interview and you wantto hear more, please press the
subscribe button. Also if youdid like the interview, I will
appreciate if you will give it afive star feedback. It helps a
lot for our reach. Until nexttime, take care
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