The Power of Full Engagement

Dear Diary,

The last time that we spent some time together, I got a rude awakening. I thought that getting into comedy, a passion of mine, would be the cure for my depression. I thought that I’d never feel down again. After all, how could I feel down when I was pursuing the love of my life?

Yeah right. I fell back into depression just like I always did…fuck me.

Luckily, I discovered a book called, ‘The Power of Engagement‘ which has completely shaken my idea of what life is all about (click here for my notes).

Rest Is For The Wicked

We have been surprised and dismayed to discover how infrequently most people undertake activities simply because they are enjoyable and emotionally nourishing. – The Power of Full Engagement, Loer & Schwartz

In business school, I was taught that resting was just a fancy word for being lazy. I was told that vacations were for the weak. I was taught that working long hours, skipping breaks, and lunches at my desk showed that I was worthy of praise and recognition. I was told that success was like pushing a stone up a mountain; if I stopped, the stone would roll back down and I’d have start all over again.

However, what I wasn’t taught was that by the age of 29, many of my successful friends and I would be seeking sabbaticals overseas and also facing depression. Why? Why were all of my friends collectively rethinking what life was all about?

The Power of Full Engagement

One of the biggest lessons I was taught was that time should be managed meticulously, allowing me to extract the most productivity out of every minute possible, without regard to rest and recovery.

The Power of Full Engagement thinks that idea is utter horse shit. Rather,

Performance, health, and happiness are grounded in the skilful management of energy, not time. (I to the bid)

By the skilfull management of energy, they meant that I was designed to oscillate between periods of work and periods of rest and recovery. In fact, too much energy usage would cause me to burn out. Furthermore, my capacity to use my energy was dependant on my ability to periodically disengage, recover, and renew my energy stores.

Waaaiiiit a minnnuuuuute…

Depressed or Burnt Out?

I got to thinking about all of the times that I was depressed. There were three distinct episodes:

• 2008 – I was working in IT, and long hours coupled with bad eating habits lead me to withdraw, take sick days, and feel like I never wanted to work again.
• 2011 – I was working in finance. Again, long hours and failures lead me to withdraw.
• 2012 – I was working in comedy. Losing the stand-up comedy competition coupled with long hours and one tight deadline after another lead me to withdraw yet again.

Each time, I would respond to failure, stress, and the sheer exhaustion of it all by cocooning myself into my bedroom, watching documentaries and eating fried chicken, sweet and sour pork, pizza, bbq pork slices, pop, chips, fried rice with chicken on top, lo mein, fruit and nut cadbury chocolate, Starbucks muffins, slushies – Crush Bubble Gum, Crush Pomegranate, and Crush Cherry, Cantonese chow mein, and deep fried wontons.

Of course you got depressed, you fucking idiot…

Life is not a Marathon

What’d you think, that you could just work and work and work and never get tired and always stay positive 24/7/365? You know why you sleep? Because your body needs to rest! You think your mind doesn’t need to rest? You think your emotions don’t need to rest? You think your spirit doesn’t need to recover and rejuvenate? Even Superman had a Fortress of Goddamn Solitude so he could rest and get away from Lois and her goddamn nagging. Hey Lois? You had a rough day at work? Well I saved the world from the brink of destruction, died, and came back to fuckin’ life. What was that about your co-worker playing her radio too loud? – The Power of Full Engagement, if rewritten by me

The energy that I have to achieve my life’s goal are drawn from physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual (value-driven) stores. This energy gets depleted through work and must be recovered periodically just like a muscle so I can continue the heavy lifting again the next day.

For example, when Loer & Schwartz were performance coaches for tennis players, they found that the best of the best slowed their heart rates down to 20 beats per minute. This meant that the best tennis players were the best tennis resters. They didn’t even need to coach them on technique!

Leading a Value-Driven Life

The book goes onto say that the foundation of my life is made up of the values that I hold most dear to my heart. If I can learn to live my life according to my values, then I can give meaning to my life, rather than searching for an external meaning.

The problem, the book says, is that I don’t have any self-control. Only about 5% of my daily thoughts and actions are conscious.

But never fear! The authors said that I can hack this fact by creating value-driven rituals and habits. For example, two of the values that I hold dear are Humour and Excellence. Therefore, creating a ritual for daily writing and practising of stand-up comedy would be a perfect way for me to live out my values and turn them into virtues.

Yeah yeah yeah…I initially thought to myself…I’ve heard that before. I’ve often said that I’d write everyday, and that never happened. Bullshit.

But here’s where the book really shines.

The Creative Process

When I write and practise stand-up, it takes a lot of mental energy out of me. That’s why I don’t do it everyday. In addition, because I’m not writing and practising everyday, I tend to doubt my comedy a lot, which makes a lot of sense. If I didn’t practise kicking a lot, I wouldn’t want to leave my leg adrift when facing Bruce Lee.

The book outlines the five major steps to creativity as follows:

Insight* – inspiration Saturation – gathering information Incubation* – subconsciously mulling over ideas Illumination* – the breakthrough Verification – translating the creative breakthrough into rational, accessible language that an audience will respond to *Creative stage which occurs when I’m not thinking about the idea itself (i.e. in the shower, in the car, making lunch, etc.)

Therefore, what I needed to do was to create a daily writing and practising ritual that recognized that creativity didn’t just consist of typing at a desk. Rather, I needed to build in periods of rest and recovery to allow the right side of my brain to work on my ideas.

My Daily Writing & Practise Ritual

So, following the template in the book, I created my first ritual.

Dashboard

Performance Barrier: Low Confidence in my comedy Values driving change: Humour, Excellence Energy & Performance Consequences: Preventing me from becoming a killer comic Wasting my killer material; making my killer material average / below average Impeding my ability to do crowd work and improvise Getting in the way of me deriving pleasure and joy from being on stage Overcoming performance barrier promotes feelings of: Invigoration, Confidence, Joy, Connectedness stemming from Opportunity, Adventure and Challenge Expected Performance Consequences: Better comedian, confidence on stage

Ritual: Daily Writing & Practise

Trigger: Put phone on Airplane Mode so that there aren’t any interruptions/distractions. Round #1:: Insight (inspiration) (15 minutes)*: Type out the ideas that I’ve had over the past few days from the Voice Notes in my phone. (These voice notes are generated whenever I think up a joke, which is usually when I’m outside) Saturation (30-45 minutes): If an idea makes me laugh, churn (write without regard to editing) until my fingers stop moving. Look for connections with previously used material. Check to see if the new material can be incorporated into material that I’m already using on stage. Practise Draw 7 boxes, checking them off every time I rehearse a joke. Install, Move around, Add, or Change (IMAC) jokes with each iteration Rest & Recovery: Incubation/Illumination*: Allow the right side of my brain to work on the ideas while letting the left side of my brain rest by engaging in rejuvenating activities like online guitar lessons, meditation, or discovering new music. Round #2: Verification: Rehearse and IMAC jokes with each rehearsal (30 mins) Incubation and Illumination: Meditate (again, engaging right side of my brain) (15 mins) Verification: Rehearse and IMAC jokes with each rehearsal (30 mins)

By incorporating a period of rest and recovery in between my creative sessions, I’m allowing the left side of my brain to rest while giving the right side of my brain time to work. This prevents me from becoming burnt out. Furthermore, by giving myself a joyful, rejuvenating activity like guitar practise, the daily writing ritual becomes something that I can really look forward to.

Moving Forward

Soooo…yeah. That’s where I am at this point, Diary. It’s taken almost two weeks of consistent, daily effort, but I’ve created rituals for each of my five values. I’m also keeping a diary (don’t be jealous, you know nobody does me like you do), where I record how I’m living my values and how I’m not, so I can adjust my sails accordingly. The book said that congratulating myself for staying true to my values is a rejuvenating activity in and of itself.

*Exhale* I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. When I wake up, I’m not thinking, ‘Shit, I have a ton of work to do.’ Instead, I’m thinking, ‘Man, let’s get to work so I can have some fun and play guitar! I hope that D chord will get easier today. It’s the first fuckin’ chord and I’m still stuck on it. *Exhale* But I’ll get through it…and soon I’ll be playing John Mayer’s Why Georgia on the balcony like a male siren, compelling onion booties hither (thither?)…’

Quinn has me on his show, ‘Quinnopoly’ at the Hard Rock Cafe on December 16th, and I’m going to have to work really hard to iron out all of the kinks in the following set.

One thing’s for sure: I’ve never been more prepared to handle life than I am right now.