Latest / Impact Ready / 174. Energy Leaks

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174. Energy Leaks · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello team, welcome to the show. Hope you're having an awesome
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  week this week. Today in this episode, we are
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  going to talk about energy. We're going to talk about
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  something that I call energy leaks.
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  You know, when I I think about impact, I think about four
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  different pillars that influence our ability to be consistent
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  with our influence and powerful so that we get the results that
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  we want in our life. So that we can create the life
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  of our dreams, so that we have great relationships, so that we
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  are very effective leaders. I mean, there's so many things
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  that we want for ourselves and these 4 pillars are are so
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  important when it comes to that. They are energy, purpose,
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  consistency, and ownership. Those are the four pillars.
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  And This is why I talk about these four things so often in
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  different ways in this podcast. I truly think that if we are
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  paying attention to these different buckets, we've got a
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  recipe for getting some really good success in our life.
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  So today I want to talk about energy, and this is a huge one,
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  an extremely important bucket in our life because without energy,
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  we really can't do much of anything.
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  I mean, if you think about a time when you were, say, sick,
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  laying on the couch. At one point you were depleted,
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  you were totally drained. You're feeling like maybe you
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  had one or two out of 10 energy. I'm venturing to guess that
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  wasn't a very productive day for you.
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  We all know what that feels like.
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  And yet so many people are walking around in their daily
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  life with three or four or five out of 10 energy.
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  It's their normal. And they wonder why they aren't
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  getting the results that they want in their life.
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  I know this because in the treatment room in the clinic, I
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  would ask every single patient who would sit in that chair in
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  front of me, hey, what's your perceived energy?
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  Average energy on a scale of 1 to 1010 being great.
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  And so many people would say I'm a three.
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  Maybe I'm a 5 on average. Yeah, I'm about a four.
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  It's a real thing. People, in reality, humans are
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  meant to have really good energy.
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  And I think we forget this. We forget that we're built for
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  it to have fantastic energy that we are engineered for.
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  It's how our bodies are are meant to work.
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  A healthy human is supposed to have 9 or 10 out of 10 energy.
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  That's our Physiology. But there are a lot of things
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  that drain our battery. You have all the physical things
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  that can drain you, like poor diet, drinking a lot of alcohol,
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  different drugs or medications, toxins in the environment, not
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  taking care of our bodies, illnesses, chronic disease.
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  All those things are physical and there's so many more.
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  And then you have all the mental and emotional things that can
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  drain your energy. Chronic stress is a huge one.
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  Distraction, overwhelm, being inundated with information,
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  having unresolved feelings or emotions, trauma, all of those
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  things can drain your mental and physical energy.
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  And this is kind of what I want to focus on today, this specific
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  aspect of what drains our energy.
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  I think about these mental, emotional drains on our energy
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  as energy leaks. Where and when does our energy
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  leak out of us? This is a really powerful
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  question to ask yourself. It's something that I ask
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  myself, especially if you've been feeling low energy or just
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  chronically drained in your life.
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  You know, like we said, there's a lot of things that can drain
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  our energy. In general, I think of an energy
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  leak as something that you put energy into, but it doesn't give
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  you any energy back. There's no reciprocity in this
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  situation, meaning your battery just ends up getting drained.
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  So what could be draining us? The first thing that comes to
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  mind is relationships. Relationships can be a place
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  where there are huge energy leaks.
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  If you have relationships that you're pouring into, but you're
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  not getting a lot back, you're leaking energy.
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  If you're spending a lot of your mental bandwidth taking on other
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  people's emotions or trying to manage their bad moods or their
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  stress or their tiredness. If you're walking on egg shells
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  around somebody, you're leaking energy.
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  If you're in a relationship where there's a lack of
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  responsiveness, and we just talked about responsiveness in
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  one of our past episodes, meaning a lack of care or
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  understanding, and yet you're pouring into this person, that's
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  an energy leak. Imagine energy draining out like
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  a sieve. The more time you spend in the
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  situation, the more of it leaks out.
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  We find ourselves in these situations all the time, and
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  this is where radical ownership comes in, because ultimately
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  it's not our job to own other people's emotions or feelings.
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  We can be responsive to them, of course.
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  We can do our part to show up in the way that we want to in that
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  friendship or that relationship. But when we start taking on the
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  feelings and the states of emotion of other people as if
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  they were our own, that's where we get into trouble.
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  That's where the energy starts to leak for two big reasons,
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  really. The first one, there's no
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  changing that person. You don't have agency to change
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  somebody else. It's not something that you have
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  the ability to do. That can only happen with their
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  own initiative, with their own personal ownership and their
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  self-awareness. Secondly, to be in a constant
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  state of management of somebody else's feelings and emotions.
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  That's not reciprocity and it will never result in you
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  charging up your battery. What are some other places that
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  we might be leaking energy? Some really big ones are screens
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  and distraction. Actually.
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  Those things go hand in hand. One often causes the other, but
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  we can look at them separately as well.
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  Screens are a huge energy leak. They really don't give us
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  anything back. They require a lot of our own
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  energy. It is a drain.
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  On top of that, screens create specific thinking patterns in
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  our brain, and you're going to hear a lot about this in up and
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  coming research. They cause short attention
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  spans, they cause a dopamine addiction because we always want
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  that hit of new entertainment. And frankly, it's massive
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  overstimulation based on the amount of information that's
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  coming at us every single second.
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  And this often leads to distraction.
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  So that's the second one. We are so distracted as a
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  society because there's so much digital and energetic clutter in
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  our brains, and this takes away our ability to think creatively.
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  Team to do deep work to connect with people in a quality way.
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  It is a massive leak on our energy.
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  If you just think about a time where you might have been
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  sitting on the couch and you're maybe you're scrolling on
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  whatever social media app you're on or maybe you're reading the
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  news or you're on Reddit or something like that.
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  And all of a sudden half an hour goes by and you look up.
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  Are you in a place where you are ready to jump in and connect
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  with your family and help around the house and think creatively
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  and get a bunch of stuff done? Are you, are you your most
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  productive self in that moment? No, we absolutely know the
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  feeling of being drained and distracted by time on a screen.
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  Now, of course, there are a ton of other ways that we could be
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  leaking energy, and sometimes it's really specific to you as
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  the person. They'll do a little audit on
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  myself and my own energy state, and I'll ask myself, where am I
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  leaking energy? I'll look at each section of my
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  day. So I'll look at the morning,
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  then the afternoon and then the evening.
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  And it's often really easy for me to find where those leaks
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  are. One of my old habits was to wake
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  up and pick up my phone and look at Instagram.
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  It was a habit. It was a bad habit, something
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  that I kind of did to ease myself into the morning.
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  I told myself oh you can just wake up slowly with this but
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  then I realized what am I doing? I'm immediately putting this
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  blue screen light into my eyes. It's causing me to get into an
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  instant state of comparison or feeling like I was behind.
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  It has my brain just spinning. I worrying about all the
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  different things that I could be or should be doing.
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  I have a million different distracted points of information
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  that I'm trying to manage. And I would come out of that and
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  I would realize I never really had a great sense of how much
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  time I was on my phone, which is the nature of these devices.
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  So all of a sudden, so much time had gone by and I realized I had
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  just leaked energy all over the place for the last 45 minutes,
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  which then took away from some of the important quality tasks
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  that I wanted to do in the morning.
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  I've also known for years that if I don't get up and do some
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  sort of exercise or movement in the morning, it causes me to
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  have energy leaks throughout the day.
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  I'm more tired, I'm not as energized, I'm not as
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  enthusiastic, I'm not as focused, and I just don't feel
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  as good in my skin. Another energy leak for me was
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  distraction, and something that really helped me with that is
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  writing my top two or three must do priorities on a sticky note
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  on my desk before I went to bed. That habit has really helped me
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  get a clear agenda for what matters to me in that next day.
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  And sometimes the note has stuff on it like meditate or play a
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  card game with my daughters, but it helps me stay focused and
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  clearer on what matters most so that I'm not getting distracted
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  by little things and just reacting to problems all day
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  long. And then one of the biggest game
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  changers for me has been managing my communication with
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  people because that's one of the biggest energy leaks that I've
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  found in my life. It's very common because our
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  relationships take up a lot of bandwidth for us.
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  So to be having relationships that are not reciprocal, that
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  can be a huge drain. As we've talked about over the
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  past five years, my friendships and my relationships, they've
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  changed a lot. I've had a lot of new people
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  come into my life. I've had some people leave my
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  sphere, and although it's been painful at times, the goal was
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  to remove any drama or situations where I felt like I
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  was having to manage other people's emotions or their
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  feelings, and there wasn't a lot of reciprocity there.
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  The result is that I have some new relationships in my life,
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  friendships and such that are reciprocal, meaning what I pour
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  into them. I get back in love and care and
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  understanding and validation, and those are all the keys to
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  having a quality relationship. I'm also really mindful of how I
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  spend my time on e-mail. That's another form of
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  communication in our modern world is how we converse with
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  people in a digital way. So whether it's e-mail or
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  chatting or messages or whatever, but also being mindful
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  of how I communicate with clients and colleagues because I
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  don't want to be leaking energy in those dynamics either.
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  I have to have really solid, clear boundaries for myself
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  around how often I am checking my e-mail, what times of day I'm
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  responding to people, etcetera, so that I'm not distracted and
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  so that I can preserve my energy and be effective in the other
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  things that I want to do in my life.
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  Now, these are just a few examples.
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  I'm sure that you can think of a lot of your own.
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  You can do an audit on your own life and find where you might
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  have energy leaking in different areas.
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  It's a really powerful exercise to zoom out every week, quarter,
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  whatever it might be, and look at your habits, look at your
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  ways of being during the day. How are you moving about the
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  world? How are you taking care of
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  yourself mentally and emotionally?
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  How is the quality of your relationships?
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  It's helpful to see what might be draining us.
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  And some of these energy leaks might be physical, and that's a
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  different topic for a different day.
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  But for the mental and emotional reasons, those are things that
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  we have massive agency over and you can start identifying those
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  now and start plugging those holes.
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  I think this is a really important conversation for this
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  time of year. It's the beginning of the year.
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  We have an opportunity to revamp some of the ways of operation
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  that we've had for however long and we can start a new, we can
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  create new habits, We can look ahead very thoughtfully about
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  what we want to create and reverse engineer that so that we
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  can show up in those ways. So I encourage you to look at
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  your life this week, ask yourself, what's my energy on a
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  scale of 1 to 10? And if it's lower than you want
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  it to be, look for those leaks and start plugging those holes
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  this year. I hope this helps.
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  I hope we can raise your baseline energy by a point or
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  two in the next month. I think that's a realistic goal.
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  And I think that would be impressive progress.
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  And I'm cheering you on. If you have questions, send me
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  an e-mail at stephsaffer.com. And slowly we can all raise our
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  baseline energy so that we can have that powerful impact that
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  we want in the world. I appreciate you being here.
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  Thank you for listening, as always.
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  And again, thank you for being ready to Impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.