I paid $5,000 for this one piece of advice...

Years ago, I was sitting at church and our pastor dropped this story on us (paraphrased):

I was recently connected with a highly influential and respected business coach. I’ve been feeling stuck in life, so I booked a session with him. The fee was $5,000 for a thirty-minute session, so it was a big leap of faith. Still, I felt compelled to do it.

He listened to me speak for twenty minutes. Then he was quiet. He was summing up my problem and determining the proper diagnosis and treatment plan. Then he laid this piece of wisdom on me:

“Spend your time doing things that give you energy. Stop doing things that drain your energy.”

I paid $5,000 for this one piece of advice, and it was totally worth it.

Wow.

Let’s unpack this a bit. Honestly, it’s easier for me to identify the things in my life that drain my energy. The secret for identifying them is to ask yourself, “What do I procrastinate doing?” It’s a pretty good indicator that those things are your energy vampires.

For me, it’s any administrative task: client reporting, proposal writing, or the endless minutiae of household running (bills, taxes, etc.)

Can I do these things? Yes. Do I procrastinate doing them and pretty much hate every minute I do them? Also, yes. Sometimes you meet resistance in doing an activity, and you need to break through this resistance before you can start flowing. This is not the experience with energy-draining items. You break through the resistance wall and still feel drained the entire time you do them.

So, how do I avoid doing these?

I invest in bringing on teammates who can do them. I invested in a transaction manager at work who handles client reporting and proposal writing. I invested in an executive assistant who does my scheduling and manages my inbox. I invested in a personal assistant to help me manage all the craziness that comes with running our household and personal real estate investments.

You may need to give yourself permission to do this… I know what you’re thinking, and I’ll be the first to say: you deserve it. Do it.

Guess what? All of these people do all of these things better than I do.

Notice I used the word “invested”. Previously, I would wait until I felt like I could afford to hire someone. Then I realized it would take a leap of faith and an investment to help me break free.

So, I’ve been working on limiting all activities that drain my life energy. Conversely, I’ve been trying to spend as much time as possible doing things that give me energy.

For me, this is essentially anything that involves strategy or creativity. I love strategizing for clients and our team, creating new business opportunities, marketing, writing, and building. These are the things that give me energy.

At the end of the day, the quality of our lives will be determined by our ability to connect to the source of energy that runs through everything.

Don’t get hung up on the word energy. Replace it with whatever you connect with - spirit, universe, lifeforce, God, etc.

This energy is the nectar of life. Let’s all tap into it this week.

Sean