Mark: A Gallup poll found that over 70% of American workers are not engaged at their jobs. Michelle: Wow. That’s not just a sad statistic, Mark. That sounds like a full-blown energy crisis. More than two-thirds of the workforce is just… running on empty? Mark: Exactly. And the fascinating thing is, the solution isn't a better calendar or a new to-do list app. The solution, according to the book we're diving into today, is to start treating yourself like a world-class athlete. Michelle: Okay, my interest is piqued. An athlete? Most days I feel like the opposite of an athlete. Mark: Well, that's the core idea in The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz. And this isn't just some motivational fluff. The author pairing here is what makes it so compelling. Michelle: Oh? Who are they? Mark: Jim Loehr is a legendary performance psychologist. This is a guy who has trained dozens of world-number-one athletes, from tennis to golf, and even worked with the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team on performing under extreme pressure. Michelle: Okay, so he knows a thing or two about stress. Mark: And his co-author, Tony Schwartz, is a high-profile journalist. He's the person who actually ghostwrote The Art of the Deal. So you have this incredible blend of deep psychological science from Loehr and brilliant, accessible storytelling from Schwartz. It’s a powerhouse combination. Michelle: A performance psychologist and a master storyteller. That explains why the book became such a massive bestseller. It’s got both the science and the narrative. So, where do they even start with this idea of treating office workers like athletes? Mark: They start with a really provocative comparison that flips our whole understanding of work on its head.

Mark: They ask us to compare the life of a professional athlete to what they call a "Corporate Athlete"—which is basically anyone in a high-demand professional job today. Michelle: Hold on, are you seriously saying my job hunched over a laptop is more demanding than being a professional tennis player at the U.S. Open? That sounds a little dramatic. Mark: It does, but hear me out. The numbers are staggering. Loehr and Schwartz point out that elite athletes spend about 90% of their time training to perform for maybe 10% of their time. They have brutal, intense periods of competition, but they are followed by massive, structured periods of recovery. They have an off-season that lasts for months. Michelle: Right, that makes sense. You can't play at that level year-round. Mark: But now think about the corporate athlete. We are expected to perform at a high level, continuously, for eight, ten, sometimes twelve hours a day. We get a few weeks of vacation a year, and a study they cite found that nearly half of professionals still check their work email every day while on vacation. There is no off-season. The performance demands are relentless and never-ending. Michelle: Huh. When you put it like that, it’s less about the intensity of a single moment and more about the sheer, unending duration of the demand. We’re in a marathon with no finish line, and we never stop to get water. Mark: Precisely. And we do it with almost zero systematic training for it. We don't train our focus, our emotional resilience, or our physical energy the way an athlete does. We just expect ourselves to show up and have it. The book uses this perfect, and frankly heartbreaking, case study of a man named Roger B. to illustrate this. Michelle: Okay, tell me about Roger. Mark: Roger is 42, a sales manager, making a six-figure salary, nice house, family—the whole package. On paper, he’s a massive success. But his boss sends him to Loehr and Schwartz's training program because his performance has cratered. He went from being an A-level star to, in his boss's words, "a C plus at best." Michelle: I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling. Hitting a wall after years of success. What was going on with him? Mark: He was completely disengaged. He was physically drained—he’d gained over 20 pounds, his body fat was at 27%, and his cholesterol was dangerously high. He skipped breakfast, lived on sugary snacks and coffee, and then had a huge dinner and a couple of drinks to "unwind," which just wrecked his sleep. Michelle: That sounds… familiar. The corporate survival diet. Mark: Emotionally, he was a wreck. He was impatient and negative with his team and his family. Mentally, he couldn't focus. He was constantly distracted by emails and the pressure to do more. And spiritually, he felt completely disconnected. He had no passion, no real sense of purpose. He was just going through the motions, feeling like a victim of his own life. Michelle: Wow. He’s the perfect poster child for the depleted corporate athlete. He’s not failing because he’s bad at his job; he’s failing because his energy systems have completely broken down. Mark: Exactly. He was living a linear life—all expenditure, no renewal. And the book argues that linearity, in any system, ultimately leads to dysfunction and breakdown. Michelle: Okay, so we're all these depleted corporate athletes, running on fumes and living these linear lives. I'm sold on the problem. But what's the fix? We can't just take a four-month off-season like a tennis pro.

Mark: You can't. But you can build recovery into your life on a micro-level. This brings us to the second core idea: the pulse of performance. The authors call it "rhythmic wave oscillation." Michelle: That’s a mouthful. What does ‘oscillation’ actually mean in practice? Is it just a fancy word for taking more breaks? Mark: It's more profound than that. It’s about working with your body's natural rhythms, not against them. The most powerful example they give comes from Loehr’s work with tennis players. He was trying to figure out what separated the absolute best players from the merely very good ones. Michelle: And what was it? A better backhand? A faster serve? Mark: No. He videotaped them for hours and found that during the points, their techniques were often indistinguishable. The magic wasn't happening during the point. It was happening in the 16 to 20 seconds between the points. Michelle: What were they doing? Mark: The top players had incredibly consistent recovery rituals. They’d walk back to the baseline with their heads down, shoulders relaxed, and they’d control their breathing. Loehr then hooked them up to EKG monitors and found something astonishing. In those 20 seconds, the best players' heart rates would drop by as much as 20 beats per minute. They were actively, skillfully recovering. The lower-ranked players? Their heart rates stayed high, redlining for the entire match. They never recovered. Michelle: Whoa. So the secret to endurance wasn't just being tougher; it was being better at relaxing. They were oscillating—stress, recover, stress, recover—within the match itself. Mark: Precisely! And we all have these rhythms built into us. The book talks about "ultradian rhythms," which are 90- to 120-minute energy cycles that run through our day. At the end of each cycle, our body gives us a signal that it needs a break. Michelle: So that 2:30 PM feeling where I just want to stare at the wall and would sell my soul for a cookie… that’s not me being lazy? That’s my body telling me to… oscillate? Mark: That is your body telling you it's time for renewal! But our culture tells us to ignore that signal, push through, and chug another coffee. The book argues that's like a tennis player sprinting around the court between points. You just burn yourself out faster. Michelle: Okay, this is a game-changer. So what does a good recovery ritual look like for a normal person at their desk? Mark: It can be incredibly simple. They tell the story of an executive named Bruce F. who used to run these grueling three-hour meetings with no breaks, thinking it was a sign of strength. After learning this principle, he instituted 15-minute breaks every 90 minutes. No business talk allowed. People would stretch, chat, grab a healthy snack. The result? He said, "We get more done at our meetings now in less time, and we have more fun doing it." Michelle: That makes so much sense. You’re not losing time; you’re investing in the quality of the energy you bring back to the table. It’s a total mindset shift. Mark: It is. But even the best recovery rituals, the most perfect oscillation, won't work if you don't fundamentally care about the game you're playing. And that brings us to the deepest and most powerful energy source of all.

Michelle: Spiritual energy. I’ll be honest, Mark, this is the part of the book that some readers find a bit… fuzzy. It can sound very abstract. How do the authors define it in a concrete way? Mark: They define it very practically. Spiritual energy isn't necessarily religious. It's the energy we get when our daily actions are aligned with our deepest values and a sense of purpose. It’s the answer to the question, "Why am I doing this?" It's what provides the motivation and perseverance to stick with something, even when it's hard. Michelle: It’s the 'why' behind the 'what'. Mark: Exactly. And the best way to understand its power is to go back to the story of Roger B., the burnt-out executive. His real transformation didn't start with a new workout plan or a better diet. It started with a moment of devastating truth. Michelle: What happened? Mark: He was at home, already stressed and irritable from work. His nine-year-old daughter, Alyssa, accidentally spilled some juice on her sweater. Roger completely lost it and started yelling at her. And in the middle of his tirade, his daughter looked at him with tears in her eyes and said… "All you ever do is yell at me. Why do you hate me so much?" Michelle: Oh, man. That’s a gut punch. For any parent, that's the nightmare scenario. Mark: It was his breaking point. He wrote that it was "the single most painful moment of his life." In that moment, he was forced to face the truth: the person he was becoming was in direct violation of the person he wanted to be. He valued his family above all else, yet his actions were poisoning his most important relationships. Michelle: That’s so powerful. It wasn't a spreadsheet or a performance review that changed him. It was a moment of profound emotional and spiritual crisis. Mark: It was. And that crisis became the fuel for his change. The first thing the program had him do was to define his core values. He wrote down: family, kindness, excellence, integrity, and health. He then wrote a vision statement for his future based on those values. For the first time in years, he had a compass. He knew what he was fighting for. Michelle: So how did that translate into action? It’s one thing to write down your values, but it's another to live them when you’re stressed. Mark: He built rituals around them. To serve his value of "health," he started a strict workout and nutrition plan. To serve his value of "family," he created a non-negotiable ritual: he would leave work at 6 PM every night to have dinner with his family, and he would work from home one day a week to be more involved in his kids' lives. He even started leaving little notes for his daughters every morning. Michelle: That’s incredible. But I have to ask the question that I’m sure many listeners are thinking. This all sounds great for Roger, but how does someone who feels that stuck and that lost even start to find their purpose? It feels like such a huge, overwhelming question. Mark: The book provides a clear, three-step process for anyone. Step one is Define Purpose, which is what Roger did by clarifying his values. Step two is Face the Truth, which means taking an honest look at how you're actually managing your energy right now, just like Roger had to with his health and his anger. And step three is Take Action, which means building the specific, positive rituals that close the gap between the person you want to be and the person you currently are. It’s a roadmap out of that disengaged state.

Michelle: So, when you put it all together, it’s a pretty profound framework. It’s like a pyramid. The problem is an energy crisis, not a time crisis. That’s the foundation. Mark: Right. Then the practical solution is building a life based on oscillation—rhythmic stress and recovery—instead of a linear grind. That's the structure. Michelle: And the peak of the pyramid, the thing that gives it all direction and power, is connecting it all to a deep sense of purpose and your core values. That’s the fuel. Mark: You've nailed it. Loehr and Schwartz have a great line that sums it all up: "Performance, health and happiness are grounded in the skillful management of energy." They are all interconnected. You can't sacrifice one for the other and expect to sustain it. Michelle: It really reframes the whole idea of self-care. It’s not an indulgence; it's a critical part of high performance. Recovery isn't what you do when you’re done working; it’s what you do so that you can do the work. Mark: That is the central message. And it’s more relevant today, in our always-on, digitally-bombarded world, than it was when the book was written back in 2003. The need for deliberate disengagement is higher than ever. Michelle: So, for everyone listening who feels like a "Corporate Athlete" running on fumes, what’s one small thing they could do today, inspired by this book? Mark: I think the simplest and most powerful action is to schedule and protect one or two 15-minute recovery rituals. Maybe it's a walk outside without your phone. Maybe it's listening to music. Maybe it's just sitting quietly and breathing. The key is that it has to be a full mental and emotional disengagement. Michelle: I love that. A small act of oscillation. Just for today, try taking one 15-minute, fully disconnected break in the afternoon. No phone, no email. Just… feel the pulse and keep the beat. Mark: A perfect way to put it. We'd love to hear what your go-to recovery ritual is, or what you struggle with most when it comes to managing your energy. It’s a conversation we all need to be having. Michelle: Absolutely. This has been an energizing discussion, in every sense of the word. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.