The Eight Energies

Posted on October 12, 2007
Filed Under Career / Business, Emotions and Intellect, Health and Fitness, Money and Finances, Recreation, Relationships

In the late nineties I developed a program called the Amazing Momentum Generator with my then business partner, Jeffrey D. Brown.

Jeff and I identified what we called the “Seven Synergies” - the seven key areas of life that define its overall quality. Most programs focus on individual areas of life as though they have little to no effect on the others. Jeff and I saw something different; that each area is interrelated and dependent on the others - there’s a synergy. And also that there is a necessary foundation, a hierarchy, that needs to be developed to move forward with optimal success.

Here are the “Seven Synergies” - or the “Eight Energies” as I now call them.

1. Spiritual
2. Emotions and Intellect
3. Health and Fitness
4. Environment
5. Relationships
6. Recreation
7. Career
8. Finances

I’ll write more about each in the future, but what I want to share today is a new insight - and an experiment I’m going to put into action soon.

Most of us enjoy 16 hours of waking time in a day. How is your time divided up into each of the 8 categories above.

It seems logical that an ideally balanced life would devote 2 hours per day to each of the 8 areas; but the reality is that most of our time is spent in a few of the categories - and no time is spent in some (and those some may be the most important places for time to be spent).

I have reached a level of financial success in my life that many would envy. The cost has been spending most of my time in the “Career” category (and you’ll notice that I distinguish between career and finances because most people use career as a way of making money, but it doesn’t have to be that way once you see beyond the “employee mentality”).

Since money is the measuring card and we’ll assume that all of my money comes from career activities, what if I only worked 2 hours per day? At first glance, that doesn’t sound like enough - but how many hours of your work day are TRULY productive?

About 2?

What financial impact would there be if I spent more time improving my environment? What financial impact would there be if I worked to develop relationships for 2 hours per day? Those could be business relationships and personal - I’ll admit that on the average day I spend nowhere near 2 hours focused on DEVELOPING relationships. What if I spent 2 hours per day working on my health and fitness? My emotions and intellect? My spiritual base?

To some, this sounds crazy, I’m sure - but, each of these areas feeds the other areas and if one or two (or three, four or five) of these areas are incomplete and ignored than it’s like an 8-cylinder engine running on 3 cylinders. The result is a lot of miss firing and the vehicle (me) is nowhere near optimal efficiency.

So, my friend, give this some thought. I’ll keep you posted and let you know how it’s going for me.

All the best to you, John

Popularity: 33% [?]

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.