Ep73_Energize_full
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] I usually go camping a few weekends a year with friends, sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more, but I'm going this, not this weekend, but the week after with some friends. So we're gonna actually gla go glamping. So we're getting the Airbnb out in the country and we'll have campfire all that.

And it's a lot of fun. And I generally beforehand don't want to go like it's, I'm not. [00:01:00] I'm excited a couple months before, or three months or five whenever we plan it, but then but closer it gets, I'm like, golly, I gotta do all this and that, and I'm gonna miss out on doing this and the work that goes into it.

But I always leave when we come home on Sunday, feeling energized, literally. I mean, I hate to use word always, but it energizes me because I clear my head, I talk to friends, I hang out, I get outside all these good things. And that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about how to energize yourself.

How to energize yourself. So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. If you've found this podcast helpful and haven't already done so, subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Plot your phone. Take 15 seconds. Give us a rating and review on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content. This helps the decide your legacy podcast.

Reach more people and help more people organically. Couple risks I've taken recently, and I share these because I wanna challenge you to do the same. There's not much that's more important to good mental health than facing your fears, and there's not much [00:02:00] more damaging than playing it safe. So I went to the gym on Friday evening and a little bit insecure about that because people are out having fun.

I'm single, you know, this is not gonna be anybody there. I'm missing out, kind of FOMO stuff, but had a good workout. Got home was energized. It was great, but it was a risk cuz I had to really face some inner demons in myself. And then I went and hit golf balls on Saturday and Sunday and I really stopped doing this.

I used to go after work most days and I stopped doing this about the time I was having significant sleep stuff. And I've talked about that in previous episodes and it was energizing. I didn't want to go out and hit balls, but I did and I was energized afterwards. And you know, a lot of times these things that energize us, we avoid doing when that's exactly what we need.

So I'm Adam Gragg. I'm a legacy coach, speaker, podcaster, and mental health professional for almost 25 years. My life purpose, [00:03:00] the reason for existence for me is to help people find transformational clarity that propels them forward to face their biggest fears. So they can live and leave their desired legacy.

I like to talk in a way that you can describe it and talk about principles that you can describe to your six-year-old child, and they're gonna be able to understand what you are talking about. I'm also a fellow traveler. I struggle with everything I talk about on my podcast. I'm probably the number one.

Listener. So I listen to my episodes to remind me cuz I leak, I forget. We all do and this stuff challenges me. I can't, I, I'm shocked by it, but I'll go back sometimes and I need to listen to that. And I said it, it's kind of strange. But I also would challenge you today to listen, not just as a consumer, but as a teacher.

How are you gonna teach? How are you gonna teach something that you learned from today, an insight that you gained to somebody else? Don't be weird about it, just talk about it. You don't even have to say where you learned it. It's [00:04:00] just a new insight and I'm that confident you will walk away with something that you can teach and will be inspired by.

This is a great topic. That's inspired me to prepare for, I know it's gonna inspire you. So this is the podcast that you do not just listen to. So let's take an action first of all, right now. So what is something, and just write this down in your journal, write this, speak it into your phone on your voice memos, wherever you want.

But what is something that you know in your life person placing an activity that drains you? And what is something, person, place, thing, activity, task, whatever that energizes you. What is it could be a specific person, could be a specific place that you go. Maybe church energizes you, maybe going and talking to a certain friend, energizes you, maybe hitting golf balls, energizes you.

Maybe it drains you to cook, and that's why you probably should delegate that to your spouse or your kids. But just identify that one thing. And as we go through this training today, you're gonna figure out a [00:05:00] way, a plan to build in more energy into your life. And that's what we're talking about today. I don't like the concept of time management.

It's good. It's okay. But energy management resonates with me more cuz we have energy that we can channel and that we can spark inside of ourselves if we manage our lives appropriately and we're like a cup with water in it that leaks or an old person or a 50 year old person that leaks, I don't know. Cuz I'm getting ready to turn 50.

I'm not saying I leak, but anyway. You are like a cup that leaks and there's always gonna be a leak in it. And so you have to find ways to keep filling it up the right way or else you're gonna end up being depleted. And there's been a lot of depleted people in this world, and I think Covid has a lot to do with it.

I think poor self-care has a lot to do with it. I think the whole society being so quick fix minded has a lot to do with it. I think people, they want. Now, and that's a problem because it doesn't create the habits that [00:06:00] continually fill you up. We gotta find ways to not be depleted and to fill ourselves up.

Got four things for you to do here. Two. Increase your energy. All right, to energize yourself. So, number one, identify, and this is gonna take some self-reflection, which we've already actually started in this P podcast today. Identify your energy, fills those things at home and work that you know, fill you up.

Some examples, it could be that giving presentations at work fills you up. It could be that cleaning your house fills you up. It could be that reading, cooking, drinking coffee. Hanging out with friends, volunteering pets, dogs, the zoo, animals shopping. Maybe that fills you up learning a new skill, maybe that fills you up.

Those are things that you can identify on your own and you know it's an energy fill when after you've done it, you feel. This, you may not feel physically energized, but you feel emotionally energized, and that's what we're talking about now. So I dread doing [00:07:00] yoga, yet I know that there's never been a time when I've actually done yoga except once, and I think I was just sick and had the flu when I felt de-energized afterwards.

I'm generally inspired to go out and tackle the day when I do it in the morning, or inspired to go out and have a great evening and be productive and engage people when I do it after work. I can really think of a number of things in my life as well that I'm dreading doing. Yet after I do them, I'm gonna be energized.

So I had a client last week who, she's a financial planner and we were just talking about her career and she's been working with me for a while and. She was telling me that she dreads making the cold call. Well actually they're not even cold calls, but she dreads calling up her clients to talk to them about their plan.

And she's been really successful. And I asked her why. And part of it was because the economy has been not kind of, it's been on a little bit of shaky ground in the last, you know, Year or so. And so sometimes there's bad news or they want information or they [00:08:00] wanna engage in a conversation about the economy and everything.

So it can be kind of difficult. At the end of the session, I'll ask clients what they wanna commit to. And so she wanted to commit to making 10 calls that day. The session was in the morning and she did it, man. And so she came back the next week and was just telling me how she actually. Stirred up some business in the process.

The calls went much better than expected and had a level of energy after engaging those calls more than she thought she actually would have. And it reminded her of what she did in the past that provided some energy for her. It's amazing what can happen and it's also amazing how easily our energy level can shift.

So just being single. For the last five and a half years, I've had times dating where. I like somebody and they reciprocate and maybe I'm really discouraged and I'm not feeling excited about my life, and then all of a sudden I get some feedback that they're interested in. In me as well. I don't even know 'em very well, but my energy level, it's like I could go run four miles right then.

Then before I was going [00:09:00] to crawl into bed and take a nap. That's how quickly you can shift emotionally when you focus on or when you start channeling. And shifting your life into those things that are gonna fill you up. So I can have times where I just felt completely drained with my job. I don't want to go seeing clients.

I'm just discouraged. And then something reminds me, it might be a call from a client. It might be somebody that emails me, or it might be something that I remind myself of. Of a success that a client has had and that I'm, I'm energized. You know, it's like I am helping people face their fears to leave and to change their family tree.

And that's like this is gonna impact everybody in their family. The changes they're making is not just for them, it's gonna impact their grandkids. They don't even, their grand GA grandkids, they don't even actually know. And then I get through the day inspired. So that's number one. You wanna identify what fills you up, and there is a link in the show notes here too.

An Energy fills and drains worksheet that you can complete on your own. It's a fillable PDF that you only get a. Through this link in this podcast, check it out. So the second thing, [00:10:00] identify your drains. What are your energy drains? So some examples are going to be things like, you know, maybe too much time around certain people.

I hate to say it, but you might have coworkers, that when you engage with them, it's kind of take, take, take and it's not really filling you up. So those are things that drain you. It could be people in your family, unfortunately. It could be types of interactions you have with people in your family that are negative.

It could be. Preparing reports possibly could be grocery shopping, watching the news, cooking, cleaning. And the crazy thing about these energizers and drainers is they're unique to you. A fill for somebody else might actually be a drain for another person. So cooking for one person might actually drain someone else, as I've mentioned or watching the news.

Could be something that actually inspires somebody at the end of the day and it kind of refreshes 'em when they watch 15, 20 minutes, 30 minutes of the news maybe. So I don't know who those people are anyway, that to me seems kind of foreign. It wouldn't really energize me.

But it may you [00:11:00] and that's fine. I'm not criticizing it sounds like I am, but I'm not. And then a lot of times these energy fills in our lives. They can become drainers if we do too much of them. So for example, if somebody likes to read and then they spend four hours reading every day on the weekend, Saturday and Sunday, and it's pulling 'em away from their family and some self care and going to church and these other things, then it can become a drainer. But if they know when to stop it, which is hard, I mean, that's something that's very difficult for me personally, is to know when to cut it off. So I've been very extreme. I call myself an addict, you know, not a substance abuse addict, but I have been very extreme with exercise.

I have been very extreme with my diet. I have been extremely extreme with my schedule. I have not had the flexibility, and as I've mentioned before on other podcasts, rigidity is the cardinal trait of all mental illness. So having flexibility, make it a seven, be willing to live in the middle is my mantra.

Not something I live by perfectly, but is crucial for living that happy, [00:12:00] satisfied, energized life. A side note too, a drainer for people is anxiety because it takes us and puts us spinning in our own head and we're thinking ahead, what are we gonna say? What are they gonna think about us? How are we gonna respond to this?

What if this happens? It's analyzing our environment and trying to depict, trying to determine all the different things that can happen that can go wrong, and then preparing ourselves for avoiding it. That's extraordinarily draining. I've heard of anxiety as being called kind of creativity turned inward, and I would say that is very accurate because people that are anxious are often highly, highly creative people.

Highly intelligent people. That in fact, there is some indication that the higher your iq, the more prone to anxiety. You may because you, you actually may be, because you have the ability to see things from so many different angles. But that anxiety and is create that, create creativity turned inward. Just think of the people throughout history, artists, you know, people that have [00:13:00] decided that I'm gonna create an outward expression of this tendency to overprocess and overthink.

And so they create great works of art. They create great literature, they create great poetry. They are architects, they're people that have, you know, Written amazing books that help people and become excellent speakers that give people tools that transform their lives. So anyway, it can be used. It can absolutely be something that can be used and channeled in an excellent way, but it can be one of the biggest drainers to people actually have.

So dealing with your anxiety can be crucial to actually getting and making. Being able to fill yourself up and energize yourself. So everybody's gonna have these people, places and things, these tasks, activity, hobbies, things like that, that are gonna drain them. And procrastination for me is a drainer.

Getting things crossed off my list and done is an energizer. Perfectionism is a challenge that's a drainer cuz it leads to procrastination. Getting it done. Done is better than perfect. Some is better than none. Putting myself out there, [00:14:00] I know that it's also something you can easily lose.

You can be energized and then you can be drained just extraordinarily quickly. I remember one time that my car was parked, I was at work in my office, and then I went and outta my office, and then my administrative assistant handed me a note saying, someone rear-ended your car. You know, the crazy thing is, is I'm.

I am, I have a history of not driving very well. I once was well actually I, this is kind of strange, but I, I went out on a date with somebody who had a access to some kind of a record system, and so she had looked me up. She wasn't in law enforcement, nothing like that. But anyway, she could look up some information and then I had all these tickets, speeding tickets from age 16 to 18, and I remember that.

She was laughing about it. I was laughing about it cuz I was explaining they were all infractions. So I've never actually had, had a, been in a car accident, believe it or not. I've never been in a car accident. And I used to, I had to go to like this defensive driving course when I was 17, I [00:15:00] believe, to not lose my license because I would do crazy stuff back in California.

Didn't have to wear seat belts in that day, in those days either, you know? Although in college I did, and I got so many tickets, it was crazy. I got three tickets from the same officer, but, I know when I found out that my car had been hit, that just depleted me. I was, I was leaving the office excited about the rest of the day, excited to go out and have some fun things in the afternoon.

Then just like, Ugh, it's gone. You know, my energy is gone. I gotta go deal with this and call the insurance company. But a lot of that was my perspective, which I could have worked on. But that's just showing you how quickly we can get drained if we're not careful. What I should have done in that situation is gone and engaged some draining, some energizers, rather than focus on that specific drainer that drain in my life that I had to deal with.

But you know, not necessarily at that time, I. What do you do with this though? So you, you want to identify and plan into your life, the energizers, the the fills, and plan 'em in advance. Put 'em into your schedule. You know, [00:16:00] tell your friends about 'em. Do things that make your, hold yourself accountable to engage them.

Don't. Don't sabotage yourself. You know, don't get, get in situations where you're neglecting yourself, and then what do you do with these? These things that drain you well, you minimize them if you can, and you try to eliminate them. If it's a relationship, you try to make sure that you're the one who is directing the relationship to not go down a path that's gonna be draining.

So you're gonna have to have. Conflict. Everyone has to deal with conflict and conflict. Resolved can be a great energizer. Conflict in the moment can be a great drainer, shows you how quickly it can actually shift. But with your drainers, you can delegate them as well. You can ask for help to work on them, so you're more efficient and maybe is not going to be a drainer.

So accounting or bookkeeping type activities. Financial activities might be a great drain to you yet, if you go and you take a class like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University, or you go and take a class. At [00:17:00] the college near you, community college on managing personal finance, and then you realize, I can do this.

And it becomes an energizer because now you have a skillset to actually manage that specific situation. So number one, identify the energy fills. Number two, identify the energy drains. And another side known here is you're gonna identify in those fills and those drains some things that are related to your health.

Because often a lack of sleep is gonna be a drainer. Too much caffeine, not. Getting the right proper nutrition. You may not identify as you go through that worksheet yet, but I will tell you if you've put enough energy into this, you're gonna realize that some of these things are behavioral changes that you can make that are gonna make it more likely that you're energized because your health is so significant.

Take care of that body, yours. So, sleep, nutrition, activity, exercise, being around good people, your monkeys is what I call 'em. So a few tips that have worked for me. With health. So I get up and I drink 32 ounces of water. Don't do that every day. I did it this morning. Great thing. No coffee after lunch, no caffeine [00:18:00] after lunch.

That's a great thing for me. I've practiced that for years. Not perfectly. I plan my workouts into my week. So one thing I'm gonna do later today is go on a run. I was shifting to morning workouts, but I've kind of shifted back to some evening as well, meal planning, which for me is making my lunch the night before.

So I don't have to wake up and think about it, and I'm more likely to make a healthy lunch that way. If I plan out meals and freeze things like breakfast burritos, or I freeze smoothies, or I freeze, I've made a number of different things that I've frozen and then I have it there for me, spaghetti sauce, chili, that healthy things, and then I can actually plan the meal.

So that's very helpful. So if you found this podcast helpful so far, hit the, hit the link to Shatterproof Yourself. It's a video. It's videos and a workbook on seven simple steps to better mental health. You're only gonna get access to that if you hit this link in the show notes.

So number three, third thing to [00:19:00] energize yourself is, is to basically make sure you identify clearly your life purpose. And I've talked about this a number of different times in the past, but your life purpose is going to be a unique way that you're gonna help other people. So think about what you're good at. So maybe you're really good at teaching, or maybe you're really good at mentoring, or maybe you're really kind and compassionate, or you're really good at a certain skill set like baseball, basketball.

The nature astronomy. Maybe you're very good at preaching, you're good at serving in some way. And then what do you enjoy? And then how can I combine what I'm really good at and passionate about and and what I actually enjoy? Cuz you're not gonna enjoy all those things that you might be good at. You know, you might be really good at balancing the checkbook and keeping all the finances organized, but you don't enjoy it.

It's not an energizer for you, no matter what you do, no matter what kind of training you get. And so what am I, what I'm good at, what I [00:20:00] enjoy, and then how I can mesh those together in order to help other people. So how I can do something and I'm good at and also greatly enjoy and then help other people.

And so like I've shared before, my life purpose is to tell people, find transformational clarity, face their biggest fears so they can live and leave their desired legacy. I am driven by that. That's not something that just happened overnight. I've seen that come out. I've tweaked it over the years. When I remember it, and I'm reminded of it, it inspires me.

I step into a coaching session, a speaking event. My purpose in this situation is to help people find clarity, and it's to help people. It's not to help me. It's not about me, it's about them. And I make that shift in the legacy, in my purpose statement that helps me greatly. And when you focus on that consistently and you tweak your life, And you make sure things are in alignment with it, and you're doing things even in your free time that align with that purpose and you're doing things to learn about that purpose and to become better at helping other people utilizing and living out that purpose, [00:21:00] then that energy is gonna well up from within because you know that really nothing's gonna stop you.

It's kind of like when someone has. They're really depressed and they come to me and they say they're depressed and nothing's gonna change. And I don't like my job. I'm drained. I don't feel like there's any career for me. I should have majored in something different. I shouldn't have worked for this company.

I shouldn't have done this. You know, I should have asked for a raise. I should have not have accepted that position. It's all this negative kind of stuff. And they're just stuck in that situation. And then they come back, or even in that session, they start to. See that, hey, I was made for something bigger and I can help people in a unique way, and there's even a path forward for me to move out of this position that I'm in and maybe use it as a paycheck right now and do my best and work hard, but I'm moving towards my life purpose and I'm gonna be able to live that out.

And I can see their energy level just perk up right in the middle of the session. And then they start talking about, well, how do I, you know, I know I could go to school and I get this degree, or I could go and talk to this person who's already in that field and I know that I can go. And [00:22:00] actually there's good money in that field and I really, I've heard about some jobs and I've heard about some opportunities.

I have these books at home I've never read, and now I wanna read 'em. And I'm just like, who is this person? You're not the same person that walked into my office and what happened and what changed. And it's all that they started to. Do some introspective reflection based on questions they were asked, and they could see clearly that they have a purpose and inspires them, and energizes them.

And so the challenge for you is to keep that at front of mind. When you wake up, when you're discouraged, when you're going to bed, you're remembering that this is what I was made for, this is why I'm here. Then the fourth thing to do to energize yourself. Okay, so focus on your vision. And what I like to do at the very beginning of any type of coaching that I do with people once they engage in coaching or with one of my legacy coaches, they get to create a legacy statement.

And this is kind of like a eulogy, but I'm more specific and it's something that. They want people 10 years after they're gone to be saying about them as they're sitting around talking about them at [00:23:00] Christmas and they're relaxed and they're saying, man, grandpa Adam was sure, a prankster. And he just loved to help people find clarity.

And he was funny and he said encouraging things to me. And I even remember some of the things he said and it was. 12 years ago when he died, and I still remember these things that he said about me. And so you're really specific and you get that in writing. And so they do that in the welcome packet before they engage one of our coaches.

And something I've just started doing over the last year is actually at the very last session or the wrap up session of the 12 session L Legacy coaching package. They redo that legacy statement based on and after they've identified their life purpose and their core values, and they've identified what a balanced life looks like and they've identified what some of their negative damaging core beliefs are and negative self-concept.

That they might have, and then they refine it and it's very, it's similar in content, yet it's more specific and refined, and sometimes it's kind of tweaked quite a [00:24:00] bit, but it's even more inspiring than it was. In fact, when they do it in the welcome packet, sometimes people come in and say, that was really helpful and inspiring, and it's made.

To inspire people. It's a 10 page packet that they complete before they engage in coaching, so in legacy coaching. So it's made to inspire people, and that's one of the things that people find some inspiration from sometimes. But oftentimes they just kind of put down whatever comes to mind and then they realize I haven't really kind of clarified my vision.

I mean, I haven't really thought about my legacy. But now they're starting to think about it. So I get super excited for them. And then over time they get super excited. They're usually pretty excited at the beginning because it's quite a commitment and I get, you know, pumped up as they create their legacy plan.

So you figure out and you decide your legacy and you keep that in front of mind. You focus on it. You write it down, you talk to your friends about it, you know? I mean, not in a weird kind of way. Like I said, you don't say, Hey, here's my legacy statement. You learn to sort of communicate kind of like you're the CEO of a company and you're finding creative ways to [00:25:00] communicate to the rest of the team, the vision for the company.

You're not saying, Hey, this is the vision for the company. No. A great way to do that is you may have. You may have emails where you share examples of other companies fulfilling their vision, or you may talk about reaching some goals. Your personal life and how inspiring that is, that inspires your employees.

So you may have specific goals and outcomes that you've set that you're talking about, but it becomes a lot more organic as you get better and better at doing that. And it's something you have to do com, you have to do repeatedly as a good business owner or good executive with your team, or else it's gonna leak.

They're gonna leak just like this whole cup with energy and energizers. And drainers, just like you are going to become depleted. That vision's gonna become depleted as well. I just wanna summarize everything we've talked about.

How do you energize yourself? So number one, you identify your energy fills and you figure out ways to plan those into your life in advance. Identify your drains, energy drains, and figure out ways to minimize delegate, [00:26:00] eliminate those. You identify your life purpose and focus on it.

And that will inspire you to move forward towards that purpose. And you identify your legacy, you decide your legacy, and you make that be something that you focus on, that propels you forward. So if. You've enjoyed this podcast, of course, have me out to speak live or over zoom. I'd love to talk to your team about this stuff that I'm talking about here today, and I have a bunch of other topics as well.

Really enjoy engaging with your team. I'd also enjoy engaging with you personally. If you wanna hire me as a coach or one of my other certified legacy coaches as a coach, would love to visit with you about that. Get you on one of our schedules and create your legacy plan. Decide your legacy. So what resonated with you most from today in the next 24 hours?

Talk about that concept and teach that tool to somebody else Naturally. Take an emotional risk based on something that you've learned today. Remember, my rule, Adams 30 70 rule insight is 30% of transformational change. You're gaining insight [00:27:00] today by listening to this podcast. You're gain insight by reading.

You get insight by learning. But action is much more important than insight. It's 70% or more of transformational change. I'm gonna sign off the way that I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy. No one else.

I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.