The Sources of Human Energy

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The Sources of Human Energy

Hope you had a good week and that you found plenty of reasons to laugh. Sorry if my ending of last week’s post kept you hanging. It was not some kind of poor attempt at a cliffhanger. I intended to post one of my favorite old clips but couldn’t find a good version and then forgot to remove the reference. Not funny. Sorry!

The scene I intended to share was from the movie Arthur where Dudley Moore goes into a flower shop and practically buys the entire store to impress on his girlfriend, Liza Minnelli. And Lou Jacobi, who plays the flower shop owner, simply says: "Where were you when I was selling cars?" Not as funny in writing, but that line always gets me!

Many of you sent me ideas for levity. I will read and watch all of them and share what made me laugh. And please do the same! Humor is too important to not be shared.

Now to my reflection this week.

Where does our human power come from? Can we locate our energy source?

Have you thought about that? Without being mystical, religious, or overly philosophical, I am fascinated by human energy. I think it is something we all want more of. And at the highest level, we all know that what you eat, how you sleep, how you exercise, the quality of your relationships, etc. are all important contributions to our energy and sense of power.

But what else?

I think there are 2 key components in life that help determine how much energy we generate each day. One is purpose. And the other is love. Let me start with purpose.

I have come to believe that it is in the distance between what we have and what we want that we humans find our energy. I have quoted Michelangelo before simply because what he once said is so powerful:

“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high, and we miss it, but that it is too low, and we reach it.”

It may sound counterintuitive, but it isn’t. It’s in the creative dissonance between our dreams and our reality where we find our truest and deepest motivations. It helps create a longing, a yearning, and gives our lives direction, and therefore, meaning. It is certainly what informed my own commitment to a purpose bigger than self. I noticed, both in myself and in people around me, that when you feel you are part of something truly important, it doesn’t feel like work. I often remind myself that our most important job is to make our jobs more important!

But obviously, like anything, this can be taken too far. We can also set our aim too high, and then it loses its power. The end goal must be vivid enough to build towards. It’s like going on a trip without a destination. Most of us simply won't go that extra mile unless we know where we are heading. But once we know, we are both literally and figuratively willing to go through both trials and tribulations to reach our destination. Aren’t we?

Like taxes, motivation can also be placed into a Laffer curve expression. The economist Laffer developed this to demonstrate that a country can lower taxation and generate MORE revenue within certain bounds. Likewise, countries can also increase taxation to generate MORE revenue. There is an optimum to be found. Illustrated by my point A below. The right goal finds that sweet spot, that optimum when it comes to your energy and motivation. A goal, a purpose, or a destination that you can resonate and relate to; a goal that you believe you can achieve or contribute towards; something that people around you can collectively and collaboratively find meaning working towards. As long as we believe that we are heading toward our destination, we are motivated to keep going.

To make sure we are near the optimum here, we can test our dreams and aspirations against a variety of frameworks. In business, we often talk about SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-bound) as a good way to think about how to best stay connected to the source of your inspiration. But there are many others of course. The key here is that we are aware of the distance to our purpose is far enough to motivate and close enough to not reach.

The second source of our powers is obviously LOVE. What else is there really?

It was a dialogue between Jerry Seinfeld and Howard Stern (published by Farnam Street’s excellent blog) that got me thinking about the distinction between willpower and lovepower. They are very different and worth reflecting on. (Thank you to Justin Emond for pointing this out).

Howard Stern interviewed Jerry Seinfeld on The Howard Stern Show. Stern was talking about how hard he worked every day to make a living in radio, and then said:

Howard Stern:

"I thought (to myself), you know, it is possible to will yourself, maybe not to be the greatest in the world, but to certainly get what you want."

Jerry Seinfeld:

"I'm going to adjust your perspective a little bit. That was no will. What you were using, what Michael Jordan uses, and what I use, is not will. It's love. When you love something, it's a bottomless pool of energy. That's where the energy comes from. But you have to love it sincerely. Not because you're going to make money from it, be famous, or get whatever you want to get. When you do it because you love it, then you can find yourself moving up and getting really good at something, you wanted to be really good at. Will is like not eating dessert or something that's just forcing yourself. You can't force yourself to be what you have made yourself into. You can love it. Love is endless. Will is finite."

I think this is a critical distinction. Willpower is, of course, useful. Sometimes even necessary. Like when we must do something we really don’t want to in order to survive or to overcome incredible challenges we neither expected nor deserved. But the point here is that love is both a renewable and sustainable resource that also is contagious and abundant. Will is not. And I do think most of us live in a culture where willpower is the dominant narrative for understanding and explaining human energy. Will comes from the brain. Love comes from the heart. And our culture is more comfortable discussing the realms of reason than the realms of emotion.

I am also convinced that part of the erosion of trust in our society comes from a lack of love. I don’t get a sense that our political leaders, or many other leaders for that matter, love our future or even sometimes the people they lead. They seem mainly to be in love with their power instead of what that power should be in service of. Think of incredible leaders like Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and what they accomplished and contributed towards. All based on love. When there is real love, nothing else is needed.

So, that brings me back to me. And you. In order for the people that are serving us to do better by us, we must send them our love. And I must confess. Too often, I don't. And I will work on that. If I want more love, I simply have to give more love. I learned this lesson from the great Robert Greenleaf, who in his masterful book from 1976, Servant Leadership, wrote the quote below that forever changed my perspective on how love truly works. Both personally, institutionally, and societally. And while this is about businesses, you can replace it with politics, friends, teachers, or any group. It works the same. Energy grows where attention flows.

”Having said all of this, I recognize the problem of so much of business not serving well. But the core of the problem, as I see it, is not in business institutions; rather it is in the attitudes, concepts, and expectations regarding business held by the rest of society. People in churches, universities, government and social agencies do not love business institutions. As a consequence, many inside businesses do not love them either. Businesses, despite their crassness, occasional corruption, and unloveliness, must be loved if they are to serve us better.

A few links this week:

• I thought Fred Wilson wrote a very well-balanced view on COVID and our climb back to normalcy without the so often accompaniment of criticism and politicization.

• I had one Tom Brady article last week so I am following up with another brilliant one. This includes some of the best advice I have seen lately. Never make a permanent decision based on a temporary emotion. WOW

I hope you have a week filled with deep, strong, and loving energy!

I love you!