As weekly subscribers know I am editor of FED posts and this week rather than editing a post I have written one whilst away on holiday. And it was being on holiday that had me think about how we manage our energies, and in particular how we stay switched on to wherever we are.

Anni Townend

Years ago I can remember being on holiday with my family and my Dad ‘chomping at the bit’ to get back to work after the first few days. A week was, by his own admission, about all he could manage and even then it was a huge challenge for him to switch off completely. He’d be with us physically – well sort of, as on walks he would stride ahead into the distance as if getting ahead and getting to wherever we were heading would bring him closer to being able to pack up the car and return back home and to work. He was always on the go, never quite able to stop and to stand still. Indeed I think that he had lost the knack of switching off and even feared that if he did switch off he might never get switched on again, and so he kept on going.

And this was in the days before the internet, blackberries, and the like! I can only imagine how, had they been to hand then as they are now, we would have seen even less of him. Even if he had been with us he would have undoubtedly been somewhere else.

Some leaders are really good at switching off and on. Or so it seems. What I have noticed is that they are in fact switched on all the time – but with a difference. They are switched on to wherever they are and who they are with. In conversation with these leaders they tell me that they are really good at managing their energy, and that this is key to their being switched on – they are switched on to their energy.

Leadership nudge: How switched on are you to your energy and to really being present wherever you are? What is the one thing that you could do this week that would help you manage your energy? Who could you enlist to support you in managing your energy and what benefits might there be to them, as well as to you?

By Anni Townend

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