Tony Schwartz - Be Excellent at Anything

Praise for Be Excellent at Anything

The Energy Project and this book are shedding light on what most working folks know but dont like to talk about: that most of us are not fully engaged or satisfied in our work environment.... Schwartz proposes solutions for business leaders to maximize human potential by embracing our need for both effort and renewal.

Booklist

This months HuffPost Book Club selection.... Be Excellent at Anything is essential reading for anyone who wants a more productive and meaningful life. Its less a self-help book than a peer-reviewed survival manual for the modern age.... When you read Be Excellent at Anything, you get the satisfying feeling you have when someone intelligently articulates something you feel everyone knows is true, but couldnt explain why.... Schwartz provides a road map for how to take back control of our lives from our faster-better-more-techno-merry-go-round culture.

Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post

Schwartz takes a look at self-destructive behaviors that are common in the workplace, then gives a prescription for correcting each.... Entirely refreshing.

The Wall Street Journal

Tony Schwartz has become a national treasure, the champion of a new source of renewable energyourselves! Be Excellent at Anything is a great combination of engaging intellectual foundations, intriguing research findings, and truly practical advice.

Robert Kegan, Ph.D., Harvard Graduate School of Education and coauthor of Immunity to Change

PRIOR BOOKS BY TONY SCHWARTZ

The Power of Full Engagement:

Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance
and Personal Renewal (with Jim Loehr)

What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America

Risking Failure, Surviving Success (with Michael Eisner)

The Art of the Deal (with Donald Trump)

To The Energy Project Team
with love and admiration

Free Press
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2010 by Tony Schwartz

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Free Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

This book was previously published with the title The Way Were Working Isnt Working
First Free Press trade paperback edition February 2011

FREE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Mspace/Maura Fadden Rosenthal

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

Schwartz, Tony, 1952

The way were working isnt working : the four forgotten needs that energize great performance / Tony Schwartz, with Jean Gomes and Catherine McCarthy. 1st Free Press hardcover ed.

p. cm.

1. Performance. 2. Work Psychological aspects. 3. Organizational effectiveness. 4. Personnel management. I. Gomes, Jean. II. McCarthy, Catherine, 1968 III. Title.

HF5549.5.P37S39 2010
658.3128dc22 2009045655
ISBN 978-1-4391-2766-7
ISBN 978-1-4516-1026-0 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4391-4121-2 (ebook)

Drawing of Igor Stravinsky 2009 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

CHAPTER ONE
More and More, Less and Less

CHAPTER TWO
We Cant Change What We Dont Notice

CHAPTER THREE
Were Creatures of Habit

CHAPTER FOUR
Feeling the Pulse

CHAPTER FIVE
Sleep or Die

CHAPTER SIX
Making Waves

CHAPTER SEVEN
Use It or Lose It

CHAPTER EIGHT
Less Is More

CHAPTER NINE
Creating a Culture That Pulses

CHAPTER TEN
The War Between the States

CHAPTER ELEVEN
If You Aint Got Pride, You Aint Got Nothin

CHAPTER TWELVE
The Facts and the Stories We Tell

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A New Value Proposition

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Poverty of Attention

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
One Thing at a Time

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cultivating the Whole Brain

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Autonomy for Accountability

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Who Are You, and What Do You Really Want?

CHAPTER NINETEEN
Were All in This Together

CHAPTER TWENTY
Purpose for Passion

Were capable of so much more than we realize.

Most of us know precious little about what makes it possible to achieve and sustain excellence, especially as the volume and complexity of demand in our lives rise relentlessly. Rather than finding ways to increase and regularly renew our capacity, we unconsciously conspire with the organizations that employ us to get more done by systematically running ourselves down.

Ironically, a growing body of research suggests that each of us has the potential to be excellent at almost anything if we make the right moves. The first key is fierce intentionality about managing the four key sources of energy that fuel us: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

If you already work out regularly, eat well, take regular breaks throughout the day, sleep at least seven to eight hours a night, spend sufficient quality time with your loved ones, manage high stress gracefully, bounce back quickly in the face of setbacks and disappointments, focus easily on the most important tasks in your life, feel consistently productive, and derive high satisfaction and meaning from your workthen you probably dont need this book.

If, on the other hand, you feel exhausted or overwhelmed at times, vulnerable to irritation, impatience, and anxiety, challenged to focus on one thing at a time, less satisfied with your life than youd like to be, and in a constant race just to keep up, then this book has something to offer you.

In 2003, we founded The Energy Project to help organizations address the multidimensional needs of their employees. Since then, weve helped to energize tens of thousands of people at some of the most successful and innovative companies in the world.

During the past year, The Energy Project has been taking the pulse of the world at work. To date, more than 12,000 people from 73 countries have completed The Energy Audit, an assessment that measures how well people are managing their personal energy in each of four dimensions: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. The results speak for themselves.

Sixty-four percent of respondents sleep less than the seven to eight hours nearly all human beings require to feel fully rested.

Seventy-three percent find it difficult to focus on one thing at a time.

Sixty-four percent frequently find themselves feeling irritable, impatient, or anxious at work.

Sixty-six percent report that their decisions at work are often more influenced by external demands than by a strong, clear sense of their own purpose.

Sixty-one percent spend too little time doing what they do best and enjoy most.

Eighty percent say they spend far too much time reacting to immediate demands, rather than focusing on activities with longer-term value and leverage.

It doesnt have to be this way.

The principles and practices we share in these pages are grounded in multidisciplinary research. Modern science has helped us to understand with ever more precision what it takes for people to be more productive at work and to live richer and more satisfying lives, even under conditions of high stress.