Create A Healthy, High-Energy Career This Year

Editor’s note: Welcome back after the holidays. I hope you all had some good rest and some great quality time with your loved ones. We sure did.

I know that many of you have been wondering how we’re doing and what I’ve been up to (thank you for your emails and little kind notes!), so there’s a quick little update at the end of this post. More importantly though, here’s something that I wanted to share with you to help you start the year on a strong footing…

Create A Healthy, High-Energy Career This Year: Interview with Tony Schwartz

Towards the end of last year I had the pleasure of interviewing Tony Schwartz for the Bottom-line Bookclub. With new content still on hold at the Bottom-line Bookclub, I haven’t released this interview to the Bottom-line Bookclub yet, and I got to thinking that this is one I wanted to share with all of you because it’s such a zinger! I’m going to be taking a lot of Tony’s wisdom into this year with me.

With over 30 years of research and experience helping individuals and companies to understand and optimize their use of their energy, Tony is a solid expert. As far as I’m concerned, his latest book, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, is the best resource for managers and leaders of today, and this interview will give you a good idea why I say so.

So without further ado, here’s the download and interview summary. Enjoy!

Click here to download the 60min audio interview

(Right click and select “save as”)

What’s in the interview:

2:30 – Tony explains what’s broken about the way we’re working.
5:12 – Why the frequent travel that many consultant do for work is so bad for our health and energy management and what we can do to mitigate these risks to our health and energy.
10:00 – Why it’s so important to think in terms of “energy management” instead of “time management.”
11:50 – The 4 types of energy that we need to manage if we want to optimize our health, energy levels, productivity and performance at work and beyond.
15:00 – Why we should live our lives like sprinters instead of marathon runners.
20:25 – How you can become more present and enjoy your life more – while still being more productive than you’ve ever been.
22:45 – The difference between active and passive renewal and why we need both.
26:15 – Why we need to have hobbies and build variety into our activities if we want to perform at our best.
27:50 – How Tony dramatically improved his productivity so that he wrote his recent book 6 times quicker than the time it took to write his previous books.
32:10 – The correct place of delayed gratification, discipline, pain and hard work in high performance (It’s not what you think though!).
34:20 – Why your iPhone and other hand-held devices are killing the quality of your energy and attention.
35:30 – The impact of stress and fear on our energy levels and performance, and why it’s so important to manage your stress if you want peak performance.
42:45 – The core issue that lies beneath all of our stress. Understand this and you’ll make yourself resilient and more immune to stress!
45:15 – The most important thing you need to do as a manager and leader if you want to get the best out of your people (And it’s not what you’d expect!)
47:25 – Tony’s top tip for managing your energy and productivity if you’re a “renaissance soul” who has many talents and interests.
50:40 – Tony’s top tip for avoiding the energy-destroying impact of perfectionism.

Here’s to a healthy, high-energy new year!

To learn more from Tony, find him at The Energy Project and grab yourself a copy of The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working. Tony is energy_project on Twitter.

Update on the Bottom-line Bookclub

I’ve had a bunch of emails recently from folks wanting to know when the Bottom-line Bookclub membership will be opened up again. The short answer is I haven’t decided yet if and/ or when I’ll start producing new content for the Bottom-line Bookclub. So, in the meantime, I’ve come up with a solution, because I’d love you to be able to benefit from the archives of Bottom-lines that I’ve built up over the past 16 months.

Here’s what I’m doing: I’m making it possible for you to enjoy access to all 16 of the Bottom-line programs in the archives for a once-off payment that’s a steal.

Here are some of the books I’ve bottom-lined so far:

You can find a complete list of the 16 books featured over here.
Each of the bottom-line programs in the archives includes:

• A pdf manual and 45min audio bottom-line explaining the best 3 ideas in the featured book.
• A pdf workbook to help you to take action and use the ideas in the book.
• A 60min interview with the author or a relevant expert to further deepen your learning and inspire you.

So what’s it cost for access to all this goodness?

Life-time access to the archives (and anything I add to the archives in future is a one-off payment of just $47.

Happy learning and growing, and I hope the Bottom-line Bookclub can help you to make 2011 a year of thriving at work and beyond.

And finally…

Update on us

We’re doing okay and I’m starting to emerge from the square 1 into square 2 and a new sense of normal. I’ve been quiet here because I’ve been taking some of my own medicine, doing a lot of my own internal work and cocooning and focusing on rebuilding my health instead, but rest assured I’m okay.

I always tell my clients that during square one of major changes it’s especially important to tune into your emotional and body compass and to go with what you feel drawn to do and never force yourself to do what you’re not drawn to do. I’ve been rather surprised at what I’ve been drawn to do and what I’ve completely lost interest in, but I’m following it. Probably the most surprising has been that I feel drawn to connect with people offline much more than ever, so I’ve been indulging in enjoying healing connections with friends and family and I’ve become much more social than I’ve ever been. On the other hand, I’ve almost completely lost my internet addiction (I know, unbelievable!) so, if I’m quieter on Twitter and Facebook, that’s why! Do feel free to still drop me a line or two through Twitter and Facebook – I might just take a little longer than usual to reply.

I’m making a lot of changes personally – especially in my work, but I’m not ready yet to share exactly what those changes are. Don’t worry, hopefully I’ll be sharing my news soon. I’m also thinking about whether, how and when it might be useful if I share with you a bit about my journey over the past few months and what I’ve found most useful as I navigate the grieving and the big changes in it all. Let me know if you’d like that.