Energy

If you voted at the end of last week’s newsletter, there was a tie for two different topics. Since there was a tie, I will take it in a third direction. Although not heavily motorcycle related, it still applies.

This week’s newsletter has concepts that I have heard and read about. I don’t know the original source of the concepts. It could be the speakers’ or the author’s. However, someone’s knowledge in combination someone’s else’s knowledge are the building blocks for greater knowledge.

I have this one question running through my head from time to time. It’s a great question and I think I can ask myself this question for the remainder of my life. I heard it from Alex Hormozi. The question, “What is the one thing that I could do, that would fix everything else?” At first glance, it’s an impossible question. How can one thing fix everything else? Upon further investigation, the exaggeration is only used to get the point across. If we reduce the “…everything…” to “…most everything…”. Upon contemplation, you can think of something. For me, the answer to that question is my Bathroom Remodel. This question is basically an exercise in priorities. How can a bathroom remodel have higher priority than work, food or sleep? It doesn’t, but once life’s basic needs are taken care of for the moment, all attention and energy need to be placed on the answer to that question. During the holidays I didn’t have much work for my business. With food and sleep plentiful, it was a great time to work on the one thing that would fix everything. The problem with focusing all spare time on this “one thing”, it leads to burnout. It’s the one thing that would fix everything because you don’t want to do it, or else it would already be done. I get excited when I see progress on the bathroom remodel, but the work is energy-draining.

One of the many books I’m currently reading is, “Buy Back Your Time”, from Dan Martell. Although my buyback ratio is not enough to hire someone at this time in my business, there are many other concepts I can use to apply to my life right now. Dan talks about scheduling time in your calendar for work that “lights you up”, in his terms. In my terms, it’s activities that create more energy than they consume (energy-creating). The thing you could do where time, food and sleep have no existence. For you (maybe) and me, this is riding motorcycles on track, or the dirt. Or working on motorcycles. Activities like these are the anti-burnout. This off-season, working on motorcycles in preparation for the upcoming track season is scheduled for mornings on the weekends. Because I sometimes work on the weekend, this removes the energy creating activities, and I have been suffering for not rescheduling.

Breaking down the question discussed earlier into more specific parts of your life works too. Such as motorcycle riding technique. “What’s the one thing you could do, that would fix all your motorcycle riding problems?”, is the same thing as Ken Hill’s, “What’s the one thing that’s holding you back?”-question. For me, this would be losing weight, or “my weight” to Ken’s question. Mornings on the weekdays are scheduled for exercise. Exercising is energy neutral for me, it creates as much energy after the exercise as it consumes during.

Dan Martell is trying to get us to live more of our life in the energy creating activities. Including energy creating activities that make us money. Such as, building a fence or doing a welding project for a customer, “Lights me up” and makes me money. Fixing grout problems and caulking for customers makes me money although it’s energy-draining. Riding sportbikes on track and working on my motorcycles is my most energy creating activity, although it makes me the absolutely least amount of money. Maybe I can change that one day by replacing selfishness with service; is the only way.

Next week’s topic will be one of the tying votes, Brake Mean Effective Pressure (BMEP).