How Charged Up Is Your Battery?

Our society celebrates being busy, because if you aren’t busy — and even stressed — then you must not be accomplishing all that you should. The challenge is that when you’re constantly moving, there is no time to slow down and fully recharge your batteries.

Think about it. If your laptop or mobile phone gives you the "low battery" warning, do you plug it in to power it up just enough to get you through the next few minutes? Sometimes, maybe, but I’m guessing that isn’t what you regularly do.

It is much more effective to let it fully recharge so that it can give its best performance reliably. The same is true for you and your battery.

I learned from one of my first bosses, who rarely unplugged, that constant connectivity takes its toll over time. If you never get your personal battery (mind and body) fully charged into the green zone, your stamina and effectiveness can take permanent hits, and you will likely find yourself more easily drained and back in the red and yellow zones. Once there, the possibility increases for you to be impatient and imprudent in your leadership, decision making and personal relationships.

We are coming into the summer vacation season. Do you have any true time planned away to unplug? If it’s a family vacation, will you put them in "second place" so you can respond to emails and calls? If you answered "yes," think about this:

1. Do you believe as a leader or manager that you have people you can trust to do well in your absence? Perhaps your time away also provides a growth opportunity for employees in your center.
2. You live a "life" not a "work."
3. You set an example for many people and their families and spouses. Show them that you believe in recharging your own battery and encourage them to do so as well.

The topic for this blog post came to me as I was making plans for drupa and decided to add to my travels a couple of weeks of true unplugging in Europe with my wife, Jill. My team knows I’m on a mission to re-charge my battery and have a great adventure with Jill. It’s long overdue, but I’ve had enough of these moments to know that leaving the comfort zone, jumping into foreign cultures, and doing something totally unrelated to my work will bring me back refreshed and recharged.

Can you do something similar for yourself?

Check in with me to see how I do "re-charging" in June and share your thoughts on how you take a week or more to unplug from work and freshen your perspective. You can reach me directly at kevinc@alliancefranchisebrands.com.