– By Celynn Erasmus
Business owners and executives today have to operate within a hyper-challenging space which is constantly changing and which demands an often unsustainably high work-rate. Coupled with fewer resources, these high demands often exceed our capacity, resulting in exhaustion, low energy levels, decreased mental agility, illness and burnout.
What we know is that energy is contagious – and disproportionately so if you’re a leader! If you’re modelling positive, healthy choices as a ‘C.E.O.’ within the workplace, you can be guaranteed productivity and profits will improve. Dr Schwartz from The Energy Project expresses it perfectly by suggesting that you need to become your own Chief Energy Officer so that you know how to mobilise energy on demand.
Peak performance in business is typically attributed to optimised output: efficient time-management, achieving targets, effective communication and the persistent accumulation of new skills. Very rarely, however, is any importance attached to input: strategic refuelling, energy renewal, hydration and rest.
Learning how the body creates energy from what you put into it and at what point during the day (as well as what you do with your body) is knowledge that will transform and empower you – and everyone around you.
Replace, for example, long, stuffy ‘bored-room’ meetings with ‘moving meetings’ which are ways to gently oxygenate the brain and body, whilst giving the mind a new context within which to think more creatively. Evidence proves that moving meetings are an energy-inducer, mood-improver and brain-booster with information-retention markedly improved and problem-solving abilities at their best!
By replacing energy-robbing choices with energy-boosting ones, your body will say thank-you with heightened mental agility, peak physical performance and renewed health. Dr John Medina, author of Brain Rules, explains why ‘knowledge put into action really is powerful’ .
Celynn Erasmus is a qualified dietician and best-selling author who specialises in keynote presentations and workshops. She also works with managers and executives to create resilient high performance leaders and teams through personal energy management.