The Manager - 115 - Energy and Attention
THE MANAGER - BY ROB LAMBERT
Hi,
I hope you are safe and well and had a cracking weekend.
I hope you enjoyed the free guide I sent you mid-week. I know a few of you have asked for more, more, more, so I’ve made my first book Remaining Relevant and Employable entirely free.
If you missed the email with the free guide – the link is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kyclhxs7tctwz5s/CM%20-%20Guide%20Career.pdf?dl=0
Remaining Relevant can be downloaded for free here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/tnznbeobwfuonw5/Book%20-%20Remaining%20Relevant.pdf?dl=0
I’m also nearly finished on a new book called “Forget Time Management – Energy and Attention is where it’s at”. I’m still playing with the title and tidying up some loose ends. I hope to launch it on Tuesday this week.
Energy and Attention is where it’s at
Life happens in the now. What has gone has gone. What is to happen has yet to happen. Life literally unfolds every second of everyday.
We cannot control the past and we cannot control the future, but we can control where we focus our energy and attention in the now.
As managers, leaders and employees we are often suckered in to reaching “destinations” and being on a journey. But life is not a journey, it is lived in the now.
“Dream Big and think positively and it will happen”. Nonsense.
“We will gain market domination”. Outside of our control. How many leaders set this as a destination only to find the pandemic did away with any hopes of this?
“We will be the number 1 platform in the world”. Outside of our control. What if we don’t get permission from the marketplace? What happens if our customers prefer the excellent service from someone else?
“I want a good reputation”. We cannot control what others think about us.
We live and operate in the moment. We cannot control a lot of what the business world strives to control. But we can control our characters (the way we behave) in the now. We can control where we focus our energy and attention.
Today I’m going to encourage you to focus your energy and attention on what you can control.
You can control your own behaviours. You can control your character. What you do, how you treat others, what you spend your limited energy and attention on. You cannot control what others do, what they think about you and what they choose to focus their energy and attention on.
You can control what you spend your energy and attention on. That CV that needs writing, that hard bit of work that needs doing, that person you need to spend time with, that loved one that you should tell how much you care about them.
You can control how good your work is, how much energy you put into it, how you divert your attention from social media to something more important. You can control who you give your attention to at work. You can control how little you gossip or how often you get distracted by shiny new tech.
If you focus on what you can control and divert your energy and attention to what matters the most to you, you can reduce how much you are swayed around by the whims of other. You can reduce the anxiety that comes from trying to control something outside of your control.
You can let go of the destination that is outside of your control. After all, what happens when you get there? You are still YOU. Is there yet another destination after it?
And you can live your life in the moment. Or at least try to – we are human after all.
Alan Watts said life is like a dance or music. It is not a destination. We don’t listen to music for the final note. We don’t dance for the last step or pose. We do it to enjoy every moment of it. Business is the same. We do it to live in the moment, to become who we are supposed to be, not to hit the next target, the next milestone, the next destination, the next goal - and then wonder what is next.
When we fixate on what we cannot control and strive for destination after destination, we run the risk of missing the now. When we "hope" for something that is outside of our control we will also suffer hope's twin - "anxiety". Will it come true? What if I fail? What if something stops my dreams from coming true? Hope and Anxiety are linked - especially so when something is outside of our control.
The now is all there ever is.
At work today, are you behaving in a way that you want to be remembered by? Are you focusing your energy and attention on the right things? Are you spending time with the right people? Or are you distracted?
Are your behaviours morphing? Are you becoming someone even you wouldn't want to hang out with? Are you trying to hit the goals at all cost? Are you treating people in a way that you know is not right? I've been there. It's hard to resist the demands of others and the norms of a workplace, as the destination becomes all that matters.
You can only really control your own behaviours, not others.
You can only really control your energy and attention, not time. After all, time never responds well to being managed.
If the now is all there ever is, it pays to spend it becoming the person we want to be, and doing the work that really matters, and loving those we need to.
In the book I dive deeper into these issues, how to paint a picture of who we are to become, how to use goals to create routines and habits, but more importantly how to focus our energy and attention on what matters without being wedded to the outcome. It's not easy. And even though this applies to us, we can use the same thinking to create a painted picture for our team, use goals to build routines and focus energy and attention on areas that matter as a manager.
With that – I hope you have a great day – and choose where to spend your energy and attention wisely.
New book out Tuesday…. hopefully.
Take care
Rob
What's new on Cultivated Management?
This week I released a new video:
How to treat your career like a project
FOOD FOR YOUR MANAGEMENT BRAIN
1. Some business skills to consider mastering on the weekend - https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/359722
2. Who doesn't like admiring other people's workstation setups. Don't be envious though, use them for inspiration to create your own amazing workspace.
http://www.home-designing.com/workstation-setup-ideas-photos
3. Some screen free career goals and hobbies. Enjoyed this.
https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/stuff-they-dont-tell-you-screen-free-career-goals/
4. Which of these time traps is consuming your energy and attention?
https://ideas.ted.com/which-of-these-6-time-traps-is-eating-up-all-your-time/
5. The paradox mindset may be the key to success. To seek out competing ideas and different ways of thinking.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20201109-why-the-paradox-mindset-is-the-key-to-success
6. First principle thinking to get smarter and think for yourself
https://fs.blog/2020/11/how-julia-child-used-first-principles-thinking/
Learn with me
Learn how to develop your superpower in the world of work - effective communication skills.
My award winning in-person Communication workshop, is now online as a modular text only course. Complete it at your own pace, practice the lessons with practical exercises and develop a solid understanding of the science of communication.
Find out more here.
Thanks for reading this week's edition of The Manager.
If you enjoyed this newsletter and you think someone else would benefit from it, then please share it.
If you'd like to support Cultivated Management, consider buying a book - or working with me.
If this is the first time you've seen this newsletter - then you can subscribe here.
If you like videos - then check out the YouTube channel.
Thanks
Rob..