I’ve got a great blog post for you! JP here … talking about PIE. Yep, you read that right.
So, one of the biggest things that can kill our happiness and energy in life and in business is by working on things that drain our energy.
When you shift what you do every day from energy drains to things that GIVE you energy… things within your unique abilities… it’s amazing what happens to your happiness, productivity, and progress toward your goals.
So, PIE: Personal Impact & Energy.
What does that mean, you ask?
Let me back up a little… I learned this way back when in my REI journey when I was trying to find my mission, trying to find what I love to do, what I was really good at…
My mentor and friend, Greg, challenged me — about a concept he learned from a guy named Dan Sullivan. The concept was “unique ability.”
Now, you’ve probably heard about unique ability from lots of different people in lots of different ways. What’s your superpower, perhaps? What’s something you’re insanely good at?
But my problem was that I was getting things mixed up. I mixed up superpower with stuff that gave me energy or vice versa.
So, I started to do stuff that people would tell me I was really good at — the things that people would pay me really well for. But, I wasn’t recognizing that it was just draining my energy.
At the end of the day, yes, I was really good at it and maybe I enjoyed some of it, but it wasn’t natural. It felt like pulling teeth.
So when thinking about my unique ability, it needed to be something that gave me more energy when I was done doing it than when I started.
As soon as I started doing that, that’s when I created my Energy Audit.
Essentially, you draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper… and the magic happens.
The left side signifies: What am I doing right now in life that drains my energy?
It could be:
- life
- business
- work
- things at home
Be prepared, it can suck writing that list.
On the right side: What are the things that give you energy?
Now, here’s the key to this side — it doesn’t necessarily mean that you are currently doing those things.
So, if you look at your average week and think about the things that give you energy… there might be some things missing from that. Like, working out or running gives you energy, but you just haven’t done it in the past 6 months.
That stuff needs to be written down on your list.
So you’ve got 2 lists:
- Energy Drainers
- Energy Givers
Now, on the Energy Drainer side, circle the top 2 or 3 things that you do consistently and write how many hours a week you’re investing your energy and time into doing those activities.
Let’s say this one thing is 5 hours and the other one is 2. So, you’ve got 7 hours of time every single week that’s draining your energy.
Now, there can be a mindset lock here. I actually had to get over it myself.
So, I used to write 3,000-word blog posts for my website. Sometimes, it would take all day to write. And those articles made us money. And I thought there was no one else on our team who could write articles like that to bring in the same results.
So, I thought I couldn’t stop writing them. I was good at them. Others said so and the results validated that.
But when I did my Energy Audit, I circled that task as an energy drainer. So much, in fact, that it almost caused a tragedy…
I had stayed up all night writing articles before taking my family on a road trip the next day. I fell asleep at the wheel on an interstate driving over a mountain. With my family in the car. I woke up with just enough time to swerve the car back to safety. My front bumper scraped the guardrail.
I almost killed my family.
At that moment, I realized that whatever was causing me to feel like I’ve got to work 60, 70, 80 hours a week to get the thing done… had to stop. Now.
That’s a limiting belief — that to build a business I had to hustle and grind, working a million hours a week.
That’s not sustainable.
That’s why it’s called grinding — if you picture two gears grinding, that’s not a smooth process… grinding is just shaving off the life of the gears. Eventually, those gears wear down so much that they break and can’t turn anymore.
When you’re grinding… that’s not something that’s energy giving.
So years ago, when I did my Energy Audit, I discovered one of the big things that caused me to stay up late, work long hours and drain my energy was writing the articles. That was definitely not worth the health and safety of my family.
So, how did I get rid of it?
I found someone who was as good or better than I was. And I worked with him to give him as much knowledge out of my brain as possible. He was really good. So, I paid him $1,000 an article, which I thought was a crazy amount.
But you know what? It wasn’t crazy, because I looked at that as gaining my energy back while still getting the result.
Just think about where I could use that energy for good:
- Imagine how much energy I can give back to my kids.
- Imagine how much energy I can give back to my team.
- Imagine how much energy I can give to other higher-level things instead of writing articles, as long as I can strategize with them on the front end.
I love that strategizing gives me energy! And that was stuff that was on my Energy Giving column:
- marketing strategy
- business strategy
- whiteboarding the crap out of stuff, and then letting other people execute it
- coaching entrepreneurs
- doing podcasts
- talking to people
So, once I got rid of that 8 hours a week that I was spending writing the articles, I replaced it with something that gave me energy: doing podcasts.
I enjoy the craft of it. I enjoy the act of finding my voice. The more that I start to talk about a topic passionately, the more I start to discover frameworks of better ways to explain things, and the better I can give insights into my own journey.
It’s kind of therapeutic for me. I love it. It gives me energy.
And the reason I’m talking about this is because when you think about what you’re going to invest your time in… it’s through things that give you energy.
And when you do that, your income goes up. When you do that, your positive impact on others goes up.
I strongly encourage you to do an Energy Audit. Today.
You can’t move what’s not measured. You can’t improve what’s not measured.
The first time I did my Energy Audit, I was at 80% energy draining / 20% energy giving. Then, of course, I worked to reverse that.
Remember, you’re working in your unique ability when you have more energy at the end of the day than before you started. Ask yourself: Is that you?
Or, are you coming home every day wishing you had enough energy to show up for your family… and you’re not even remotely excited to face the next day?
That was me before all of my hustle and grind almost caused me to lose my family — the ones I was working so hard (not smart) for.
Don’t go another day without doing this one simple exercise that completely changed my life. Do you own Energy Audit today.