Chad Silverstein argues life is an energy management problem. Fear at work tanks performance. Stop wasting energy on low performers and draining colleagues. Identify what drains you and reclaim it.
Chapters
Chet would always say, life is an energy management problem. It's so true. So true. I hate how fear drives so much, especially at work. I work so hard with my team to try to knock down those barriers of fear. And I remember it used to drive me absolutely crazy because everyone would always say to me, chad, you don't understand. You don't understand. You don't understand what it was like to work for this guy or work for this team. And so I realized early on that it's really hard for people to unlearn what they've learned. It's just hard. I always like getting people who I could start from scratch because they didn't have to unlearn those bad habits or have to change what they've been accustomed to living for so long at another job. And yet I expected the opposite. And so I wanted people to tell me the truth. I wanted people to speak the truth to each other. And, you know, again, we're. We're trained in other places to keep our mouth shut. You know, that's how you can get fired. So people are scared. And when people are scared, they don't work at their best. And if you've ever been consumed with fear and worry and, you know, it just takes it out of you. You know, I've had times where I've been able to work literally straight from morning until night, doing what I love and not getting tired. It's unbelievable. And yet I could then do something for an hour that I absolutely hate. And I'm drained. Absolutely drained. And so when we say life is a. Is an energy management problem, it's because we have to manage our time and we have to manage how much energy we put forth towards things, especially things we don't like doing. And I learned this another hard way early on was I used to always work with a low performers, trying to get them to lift up in my company, because I didn't want people to be low performers. I wanted them to, you know, be with the high performers. And I would ignore the high performers because they were doing a great job. And so I would leave them off to do their own thing. The problem was is that I would get home at the end of the day and just drained, completely depleted from just having any energy, because I just spent all day doing things I didn't want to do, which is working with low performers and caring about their performance more than they actually cared about it themselves. And yet I was ignoring my high performers. And when I made that switch and I started focusing on my high performers, and then I could focus on also continuing myself to be a high performer. So much more energy, so much more alive, more in love with what I was doing and who I was doing it with. I got to the point where I retired years ago. I retired from working on things I don't want to work on anymore and retiring from people I don't want to work with anymore. And my life improved greatly from that. And it took a long time for me to get there. But it's just a decision that I made and I know the negative impact it has in my life. I know how much energy that can suck out of me when I'm stuck doing things I hate or working with people I don't enjoy working with. Now it's working with clients that I love working with and not taking on engagements with people that I know is not going to be a good engagement. I'll just be drained. And it's a. It's a decision and a choice that I'm making in my life. And it's one that I think every person needs to spend a little time thinking about who and what is draining you right now. And what changes can you make? What steps can you make towards some changes? If you can't make the change today that will help, help you get some of that energy back? Because when you have a soul on fire with energy, watch out. Especially if they're aiming at something big, can't get in their way. Things. Things tend to move around them. So that's. That's what we're. That's what we're aiming at. So know what's taking your energy and know how to get some of it back.
