The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal [Paperback]

Jim Loehr (Author), Tony Schwartz (Author)

Book Description

Release date: December 21, 2004

The number of hours in a day is fixed, but the quantity and quality of energy available to us is not. This fundamental insight has the power to revolutionize the way you live.

As Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz demonstrate in their groundbreaking New York Times bestseller, managing energy, not time, is the key to enduring high performance as well as to health, happiness, and life balance. Their Full Engagement Training System is grounded in twenty-five years of working with great athletes -- tennis champ Monica Seles and speed-skating gold medalist Dan Jansen, to name just two -- to help them perform more effectively under brutal competitive pressures. Now this powerful, step-by-step program will help you to:

· Mobilize four key sources of energy

· Balance energy expenditure with intermittent energy renewal

· Expand capacity in the same systematic way that elite athletes do

· Create highly specific, positive energy management rituals

The Power of Full Engagement is a highly practical, scientifically based approach to managing your energy more skillfully. It provides a clear road map to becoming more physically energized, emotionally connected, mentally focused, and spiritually aligned -- both on and off the job.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The authors, founders of and executives at LGE Performance Systems, an executive training program based on athletic coaching programs, offer a program aimed at stressed individuals who want to find more purpose in their work and ways to better handle their overburdened relationships. Just as athletes train, play and then recover, people need to recognize their own energy levels. "Balancing stress and recovery is critical not just in competitive sports, but also in managing energy in all facets of our lives. Emotional depth and resilience depend on active engagement with others and with our own feelings." Case studies demonstrate how some modest changes can have an immediate impact. Loehr (Mental Toughness Training for Sports) and Schwartz (Art of the Deal, writing with Donald Trump) also include a chart highlighting Action Steps, Targeted Muscle, Desired Outcome and Performance Barrier and apply these tenets to individual cases. A chart analyzing the benefits and costs to taking certain action shows the impact negative behavior can have on both physical and mental well-being. However, the actual "training program" whereby readers can learn how to institute certain rituals to change their behavior is less well-defined. Managers and other employees who have attended HR seminars may find this plan easy to use, but self-employed people and others less familiar with "training" may be unable to recognize their behavior patterns and change them.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

For 25 years, Loehr and Schwartz have conducted intensive training with professional athletes to help them perform at peak levels under intense competitive pressures. They are not involved in the physical training process, however. Their intervention focuses on effective management of our most precious resource, our energy. They have found to their surprise that the performance demands most people face in their everyday work environments are often tougher than those professional athletes face. Because athletes train constantly, they are more prepared, whereas most people are in the work game 8 to 12 hours a day with little or no training at all. Most of us are constantly trying to manage time; here, the authors have instead set out a prescription for managing energy on every level: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. You are likely to find some of yourself in one of the many case studies they provide to illustrate their techniques. Some of what they say is reminiscent of Tony Robbins' self-help material, but without all the hype it's easier to digest. David Siegfried
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; Reprint edition (December 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743226755
• ISBN-13: 978-0743226752
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 0.7 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (149 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Business & Investing > Business Life > Work Life Balance
  • #15 in Books > Self-Help > Stress Management
  • #16 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Business

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

163 of 167 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for the retiree living alone. January 31, 2004

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

Those of us who are retired and not living with others are a perfect market for this book. Without jobs or family members making demands on us, with most of our time our own, we can fall into habits that work against us: watching TV at all hours of the day and night, sleeping erratically and at all hours, napping during the day even when we're not tired.

This book provides us with both the rationale and the know-how for setting up routines that can transform our lives. After decades of productivity, I found myself rattling around the house wondering,"What am I DOING with my life?". With nothing pressing, my "well-earned rest" turned into an unfocused waste of time and an uncomfortable feeling that I was wasting my life. My mood started to sink, as did my energy.

This book has galvanized me to action. I started with bedtime and arising routines, which quickly led to an exercise routine, then regularly scheduled meals. My energy has returned - I feel like the "old me"! - and my time is now filled with pleasurable and stimulating activities. This book has stopped me from growing old, and I am extremely grateful.

139 of 143 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best business/self-help books of the year. February 5, 2003

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT has the potential to change your life with one single insight: that managing ENERGY, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. While I have as many hours in a day as I had in my 20s, I have to admit that my energy and productivity levels had dropped over the years. This book explains how to increase your energy levels through tapping four primary sources of energy: physical (and includes strategies for "fueling the fire" through exercise, nutrition, and sleep), emotional ("transforming threat into challenge"), mental ("appropriate focus and realistic optimism"), and spiritual ("having a 'why' to live"). The training system this book espouses asks the reader to define their purpose, to face the truth about how they're managing their energy now, and to take action through positive rituals. Since learning and putting into practice some of the ideas in this book, I have managed to at least DOUBLE my energy level during the day as well as my effectiveness in accomplishing the things that are most important to me. You can't put a price tag on results like these -- but if you could, [the price] seems like a miraculous bargain to me.

95 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Make your energy and productivity skyrocket! March 9, 2003

By Karen Page

Format:Hardcover

As an author, my work requires focus and concentration, and in the especially intense period right before a deadline, I often found myself working 12 or more hours a day, hardly stopping to eat lunch and/or dinner. (Despite the fact that I write books about gastronomy, while on deadline meals too often meant grabbing whatever was fast and easy.) The ideas in THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT, to which I was previously exposed through attending programs led by author Tony Schwartz, changed my habits and productivity radically. Instead of the aforementioned "marathon" approach, I now break my workday into 90-minute "sprints," punctuated by 15-minute breaks which serve to re-energize and re-vitalize my efforts. Instead of feeling guilty for going for my daily run in Central Park, I now see it as "recovery" time that is not only a mini-vacation but vital to my overall productivity. Since researching and writing about food definitely stimulates the appetite, instead of skipping meals I now eat all day -- but just five small meals a day, which has actually helped me lose weight and keeps my energy up. And instead of working through the weekend, I now "force" myself to take at least one day off so that I can return to my work refreshed and renewed.

The results, for me, have been astounding -- both in terms of what I have been able to accomplish, and how I feel. My co-author and I recently finished not one but two books, both of which will be coming out in October 2003. And learning to tap new sources of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy has been a great positive charge in my life.

I can't recommend THE POWER OF FULL ENGAGEMENT more highly to anyone who wants to improve the quality of their professional and personal lives.

--Andrew Dornenburg, James Beard Award-winning author...