Running Out of Energy

Most people are familiar with the expression "hitting the wall"; it’s an athletic term.  However, if you’re not into sports, you may need a clearer definition.

Many of you have stated this another way… "falling off the wagon" perhaps?

Hitting the wall (also known as falling off the wagon, bonking, or the bonk) originally referred to runners who were describing what happened to them between the eighteenth and twenty-fifty mile of a marathon.  At about mile 20, the runners’ legs become stiff and pain-filled. It demands colossal effort to simply lift their legs.

This is that moment where their blood sugar drops, their muscle glycogen depletes, and their muscles feel like lead pipes.  Thinking becomes fuzzy and judgment is faulty.  Some runners report experiencing a form of hallucinating.  Those involved with cycling – also an endurance sport – report similar experiences.

Basically, hitting the wall is all about running out of energy.  The energy stores are depleted.   That means not only does the body begin to suffer, but the mind – the brain – as well.

Dick Beardsley, spoke about his experience of hitting the wall at the second marathon of his career, in the 1977 City of Lakes Marathon: "It felt like an elephant had jumped out of a tree onto my shoulders and was making me carry it the rest of the way in.

In some form or another, hitting the wall is like a collapse of the entire system.

• The muscle-glycogen bonk is when the brain works fine but the legs just up and quit.
  
• Then there’s the blood-glucose bonk, when the legs work fine but the brain shuts down.
  
• Then you have the everything bonk.  This might include dehydration, training errors, gastric problems, and nutrition gaffes.
  
• And then there’s the little-purple-men bonk:

"After about 20-K, I started to see little purple men running up and down the sides of these cliffs," says Mark Tarnopolsky, M.D., who wears hats as both a leading sports nutrition researcher and an endurance athlete. "I knew it was an hallucination, but I stopped in the middle of the race to look at them anyway," he says. "It was kind of crazy." 1

An Every Day Event
So now you’re wondering what all this has to do with you.  Perhaps you’ve never run a marathon in your entire life.

The truth is, as an achiever, you are running a marathon and maybe perpetual sprints as you face the relentless demands in your life and business. Hitting the wall happens every day of your life.

Even if you’re not a fitness enthusiast or even into sports this experience may be even more common for you than it is for an average athlete.  The circumstances may not seem as extreme, but it is just as serious nonetheless.

One of the biggest challenges achievers face in everyday life and especially in business, is the art of avoiding “the wall.” What gets passed off as not enough time is really not enough energy!

Even for those achievers who view life “as a marathon and not a sprint” and who pride themselves on their ability to pace – hitting the wall is still a common experience. Only the difference for the average achiever, who’s not competing in sports, is that they are not suffering from a lack of calories or blood sugar they are overspending their vital energy.

Learn how to manage your vital energy and you’re in for a big positive life change. 

If you are tired of suffering from low energy every single day, getting into a PerformanceLifestyle is the answer; you see it’s your lifestyle – how you think and live that determines your energy levels at any given period of time.

John Allen Mollenhauer "JAM".

No, it’s got nothing to do with nutrition or fitness, nothing to do with sleep and rest (directly that is), allot to do with your goals in life and business and everything to do with what makes it all possible.

Are you "set up" for health and success?

Does the very structure of your life and business enable you to function and perform well?

If not, you’re about to discover what most people never realize is at the root of their problems of dealing with overwhelm, exhaustion and ultimately getting overweight and one of the greatest limiters of success.  

If there is one thing that separates healthy high achieving people from those who struggle trying to take care of themselves amidst the relentless demands of the day, it’s having a well designed environment, a well structured life and business that enables them to get the best return on their investment of time and energy.

This is a big part of a PerformanceLifestyle; if the foundation is not set up right, everything else goes askew – your lifestyle is a great example.

The most effective health and fitness strategy there is, is having an environment that is set up right! It’s what makes everything else possible.

How can you take care of yourself, when you are being driven crazy?

I am never surprised by the amazing things that happen when I make changes to my environment and how much easier it is to maintain my health, manage my energy and have enough excess capacity each day to train and develop fitness, when those changes are made.

When your life get’s overwhelming, you can be sure your health, energy and fitness will suffer. The most effective healthy, energy and fitness strategy there is, starts with addressing how your life is set up… learn how to make changes at that level and you’ll be so much more effective maintaining great health and achieving your successes.

I recently moved into a new house after years of realizing that the structure of my own life was not serving me well and while I was able to maintain a great lifestyle before, it’s even easier now.

Moral of the story, most aspects that determine your lifestyle are hidden.

In November, I have a book coming out called "The Curse of the Capable", with Arthur Ciaramicoli PhD, that get’s into the hidden challenges to a balanced, healthy high achieving life.

I can’t wait to share it with you; dealing with many of these challenges in my own life, is really making a big difference in the quality of my life and I know it will for you.

I’ll let you know when the website is ready.

Talk soon,

JAM

The hardest thing in the world to accept is that we have limitations and that we can easily run out of energy; today, more easily than ever. 

At any given moment in time you have a certain energy capacity, that can be expanded, but at times, not in the moment when you need it to. That requires time and space.

And that is hard to accept, especially when you’re a high achiever faced with performance demands and the need to stay productive.

 We fight this reality, and we struggle.

Down deep, you know differently, but you’ve bought into the idea that you are a machine; our westernized thinking is very mechanistic – input, throughout, output – and unfortunately your body does not work solely on that principle. If it did, simply eating healthy food and exercising would be all you need to know to look, feel and perform better.

You and I both know that’s not true.

Right in the moment when you are inspired to move forward, your body does not want to go forward. It pulls back and you are forced to shift into a different mode, else "hitting the wall" or "running out of energy", becomes imminent, predictable, and an unavoidable experience.

So what do you do?

It’s either manage your personal energy (what Catherine Pastille

PhD calls the "Powerhouse Principle" here at PerformanceLifestyle.com), or dramatically reduce your quality of life – your capacity to function and perform well. This IS the challenge of our time.

It is in managing our "powerhouses" so to speak, that we can regulate our performance, expand our capacities, and manage our energy while we achieve our goals, without depleting ourselves in the process.

This IS the challenge that it is, because in our success driven world, we think that success is a function of motive alone, but we forget that the suffix of motivation "ation", is all about energy!

If you have the motive, but don’t have the energy, you are a very detrimental place. Will power will last only so long until adrenal fatigue takes over and the wear and tear on your body, takes it’s toll, limiting your capacity, and your capability… due to lower energy.

This idea of managing energy, has always been the age old dilemma for achievers and it is at the root of ALL poor performance and lifestyle decisions.

As a high achiever, I had struggled with this my whole life, until only recently in the grand scheme of things, when I learned how to surrender and actually manage my energy.

I would hit the wall, and not know why, and then fight it…

Ever been there?

You are running out of energy, but you’ve got lots to do, so you struggle with the exhaustion by putting the petal to the metal. You hit the wall because you are not managing your energy and you don’t know what to do. Maybe in theory yes, but in experience, no.

You are performing at a pace and at a level that your lifestyle does not support.

I know this is a real bitch.

How the heck to you slow down in the face of game that never stops?

You surrender.

Yes, I said it! ( achiever blasphemy!)

As a high achiever, this has become my mantra and it was revealed to me in a conversation with Colin Collard and Shawn Phillips many weeks back in beautiful Golden, Colorado.

I never quite put it in those terms, even though I have been surrendering for sometime… sometimes by force. Now surrender has become a proactive affair.

In our conversation, we we’re talking about PerformanceLifestyle and the realities of how we’ve all bought into the seductive idea of performance, while chasing the successful "lifestyle", but realize we’ve been chasing the wrong carrot! When what we really need is a successful lifestyle to support our performance to get the golden carrot.

( I’ll go into this in my next post).

It’s all a matter of how you define lifestyle. In a PerformanceLifestyle we define lifestyle as the way you think and how you live, to achieve your goals.

To live a balance, healthy high achieving lifestyle means "surrendering" to the natural experience we talk about in PerformanceLifestyle training, yet in a proactive way.

Trust me, if you think you can just keep going while living on artificial stimulants, filling your body with nutrient poor food, let alone being physically inactive because you don’t have enough time and excess capacity to activate and strengthen your body, then you are GUARANTEED,  to have performance (low energy) problem, weight, and health problems in your near or not to distant future.

The latest diet and exercise program will not save you.

To know how to surrender in a proactive way, we need to shift our mindset to understanding how to function and perform well, to "thrive" in the process of achieving our goals, and not simply make goals out of stuff, that are part and parcel of that outcome, like eating better and exercising, which are not goals in and of themselves.

As my associate, Shawn Phillips states… Fitness is not about Fitness.

We need to focus on what the essential concepts and skills are for managing our energy… including but not limited to fueling our body with great tasting food, staying active and conditioned, and achieving our real goals in life… without driving our selves into the ground!

To do this, we need to understand how to get all aspects of our lifestyle working for us, not against us.

In the age of achievement, your capacity to perform well becomes your dominant focus, and each and every aspect of your lifestyle is essential to your success.

Don’t struggle with it all, proactively surrender, and learn the insights and skills that enable you to move forward in a position of strength.

This is the way of the Healthy High Achiever

What do you think?

I’d love to hear your thoughts…

John Allen Mollenhauer "JAM"

Hi All,

Over the past 20 years, the last 6 years in particular, since mid 2007, I’ve been progressively tapping into and teaching a mindset for health and success, called PerformanceLifestyle.

Many of you participated in 14 trainings I’ve done thus far, and are now participating in the ongoing weekly support we provide via phone and the Training Center online which helps you discover, learn and apply the lifestyle skills necessary to achieve your goals without trading your well being and health for success, any more.

In this quest to discover, learn and convey the 12 Essential Skills for Lifestyle Success, (which also enable you to live at or near your ideal weight, all year round), I’ve stopped at nothing to reveal the full breadth and depth of what it takes in today’s fast-paced day and age, where it’s easy to live overwhelmed, exhausted and get overweight, to achieve your goals in the healthiest way, most successful way.

I suppose, I have always been in search of understanding why such highly capable people (the people I work with; myself included) feel so challenged at times, in taking care of themselves and at a deep enough level to really get the benefits.

Of course, misinformation and practical knowledge aside (which is a big factor in the struggle) because faulty information will not work no matter how hard you try; in this process, I discovered a modern day syndrome that I could see was causing great challenge for people (and, speaking for myself)  me.

It’s called Performance Addiction, which I learned I was a long time sufferer of. In a strange twist of fate, getting to the bottom of it is what drove me in my quest. 

The silver lining was the discovery and development of a restorative life process, ironically known as "PerformanceLifestyle". This process is essentially what I’ve been delivering in these trainings. The process and the skills that will enable anyone to make a true lifestyle change without having to take themselves out the game or opt for health vs success or vice-versa. 

I ended up co writing a new book with the author of  Performance Addiction, Harvard psychology instructor Arthur Ciaramicoli PhD. It will out in November (Fall 2009) and it’s called, The Curse of the Capable, about the hidden challenges to a balanced healthy high-achieving life.

For me it wasn’t about writing the book it was about restoring my life and that’s what I want to share with you.

If you are an achiever, a small business owner, entrepreneur, a working parent and you’re faced with relentless demand on your time and energy that’s been wearing you down, there’s a chance that you’ve bought into performing at the cost of your life, or at least the quality you are seeking. 

You’ve got ambition and you’ve got goals and it’s likely you want the best for your children as well.

But herein lies the problem:

High performance without the lifestyle to support it, ultimately means that you will trade your well being and your health for success and it doesn’t work! 

I know this first hand.

The success industry tells us to "achieve success and eventually you’ll live the life of your dreams" (referring to all the benefits of wealth), but what they fail to tell you is that to get there you need to already have a successful lifestyle.

That’s the only way you get there and sustain it!

For years I was all about goal achievement, and all I thought about was performing at high levels, but could never understand why my follow through for higher levels of success was limited, especially when I always had such incredible opportunity in front of me. I would develop ideas, have some success, then shelve them and move onto something new.

Have you ever experienced that?

I would accomplish a ton, but would never really achieve the level of success I was looking for.

When I started my company 6 years ago, the same pattern held true, only at this stage in my life, I was in fact tracking down the fairway to discovering the solutions, solving the real problem.

I started www.MyTrainer.com (the early versions of it) but then over time realized I needed to go deeper. I then created www.NutrientRich.com and did not stop there, realizing in both cases, that I was trying to get to bottom of something; I referred to it as "IT".

So I moved forward and created www.ManageYourEnergy.com (formerly "beat fatigue now.com) to deal with the fatigue I has been feeling for a long time, all while helping those I serve deal with the same or similar issues. 

Each solution I created, I got closer to solving the problem; how do we need to think and live to best achieve our goals, and stay balanced and healthy!   

Along the way, there were other projects and many interation’s of those that I mentioned above all at a great cost of time, energy and resources.

But I kept on going… It’s amazing what happens when you are driven almost obsessively by something that is afflicting you.

The good news is that there were silver linings.

Over a matter of years, not only did I end up creating some very nice, high profile projects, I would eventually get to in a focused way; I clarified this mindset called PerformanceLifestyle – the healthiest way to achieve your goals and created, 2 versions of PerformanceLifestyle.com.

Version 3 is coming soon and you’re going to love it!

PerformanceLifestyle is essentially about getting a) structure of your life, b) your lifestyle and c) your goals into alignment and "firing on all cylinders" as we say.

The main theme of each skill we learn in each of these areas, is that of managing our personal energy, which is such a central concept of life that it requires an array of skills to do it successfully.

But what prevents someone from being able to make the change necessary for this alignment that all healthy high achieving benefit from?

The bottom line I discovered is a resilient, sense of self…, without which your chances of becoming a Performance Addict is high, which means thinking that achieving more, will make you feel better. That leads to what is now known as the curse that capable people suffer from, what achievement isn’t designed to solve, and it’s almost inevitable that people (particularly achievers) experience the curse, simply because most of us are not taking care of ourselves at a high enough level, in the process of achieving our goals. 

Incredibly, you can’t quite put your finger on the problem while you’re going through it, but eventually if you peal things back far enough you realize what the problem is, why you are not looking, feeling and performing the way you want to and missing out on the quality of life you seek.

And believe me, this is more common than you may think. 

Getting the answers to why, what to do about it and how to make a change to get free of that stuff that’s holding you back, as I have come to learn, is what we call "restoring".

Restoring yourself for a better life, is about establishing a new way to approach to achieving your goals with the balance health and quality of life you need and require for sustainable success.

Realizing and taking the steps below has been the most incredible journey and positioned me to share these 3 significant steps to restoring a better life with you.

Here they are.

1) Realize that trying to perform at high levels without the right lifestyle to support it, ultimately could means that you will trade your well-being and your health for success.
 
So, realize your limitations and change your approach.
 
2) Restructure your life and business to the extent that you need to change your lifestyle; and learn the lifestyle skills to achieve your goals in the healthiest, most successful way possible.  
 
Notice, I did not just say change your lifestyle alone; because if the right set up is not working, it’s hard to succeed at maintaining a new and improved lifestyle and follow through on achieving your goals.   
 
3) Get free of the hidden challenges that are preventing you from doing steps 1 or 2, these are the aspects of your thinking (what’s going on between your ears) that are driving you a little crazy

That’s the stuff that’s going on that you call "it". You can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know it’s there.

As simple as these three steps seem, I want you to know that they are all very significant, and part of what we call, a whole life performance transition, nothing short of doing what it really takes to restore and live a better life. 

Where do you start?

You start where you are, because that’s where you are.  Everything you do and if you’re going to do it "well", depends on taking these steps to the extent you need to in your life and I’m doing my best to giving you a road map, so that you can do the same.

It’s not an overnight thing, but what is?

If you really want to live a better live, start driving down the right road and drive well!

~ John Allen Mollenhauer "JAM".

For the past 4 weeks, it’s been hard to sit let alone focus and communicate.

So here are a few things you can learn from this experience:

1: when you have a game changing experience, you have to download a new philosophy, to support you during the transition.

In other words it helps to change your story and make sure it supports you.

2: If you are not going to be as active, you’ll want to change your diet to include the most nutrient rich foods,

with the least amount of calories, that way you don’t over fuel your body when it’s less active.

3:  Get exercise to the extent you can..

.. in this case I am walking getting messages and periodically using my call gym for exercises that do not create pain.

5: Adjust the pace at which you achieve your goals.

I find during these times, I streamline and simplify my goals in a big way, because there is even more time to focus.

In a PerformanceLifestyle, we are always search for the healthiest ways to achieve our goals in life, business and or sport. So, one of the skills is always "noticing" what works and what doesn’t.
 
I talk about this often, and have AHA moments all the time, around the lifestyle strategy (actually tactic) I’m about to share. I think it’s an essential part of any workable lifestyle performance strategy:
 
People often ask me why I always have time to train, eat well, sleep, rest, recover and rejuvenate, etc amidst a relentless schedule and I don’t burn out. (that was not always true).
 
My answer is this… when I do these things, as needed; I use this time to plan my next steps.
 
In other words, when I am exercising I plan the next steps of my day. I use the time, not always, but often to "actively meditate"; to let ideas gestate and gel, crystallize and clarify and by the time I’m done taking care of me, I’m ready for some serious action.
 
I do better work and I am often far more productive in a self care mode than I am in the mode of action. It’s called preparation time.
 
In a PerformanceLifestyle we are always preparing for the events and actions in our life, so why not do it during self care time and use self care time, which is the time where you prepare yourself psychologically, emotionally and physically for the events in your life.
 
In a PerformanceLifestyle you don’t take time out to take care of yourself, you take the time you need to prepare for the events in your life, and that means managing your capacity. So you are always taking care of yourself. Self care, how you do everything we do in PerformanceLifestyle, is preparation time! – who needs permission or time out for that, it’s your lifestyle!
 
It’s among the most productive time there is in your day and it should be going on all the time as you are basically always preparing for events. ALL THE TIME!

And this means having a mastery of PerformanceLifestyle skills.
Also, if you are suffering from personal energy debt you will have trouble doing this. Or if you don’t understand your present situation… then you won’t likely have the awareness to do this well in the moment.
 
We’ll be discussing this tonight in the weekly TeleTraining.
 
Move forward in a position of strength,  ~ JAM

In the lifestyle, nutrition and fitness, and performance fields I work in, nowhere is the "age of better", more prevalent. It is the driver of all marketing.

I’ve gotten caught up in it too over the years… my marketing used to say, "look better", "feel better" and "perform better".  

Now, I still and will always contend that that you WILL look, feel and perform better when you learn the healthiest way to achieve your goals (in your life, your business and or sport).

By the way, it’s almost therapeutic to write this because I too often have expectations that are just unrealistic.

Will you always feel great, even in a lifestyle that is working for you, promoting your health, and your success? 

If you have "personal energy debt", this is what happens.

This is a concept that I have been studying for some time now and let me be the first to break the news to you, this is the hidden force that undermines all health and success.

It’s one of those things that you cannot put your finger on, because you can’t see it, touch it, or do anything immediatly about it. It can feel insidious and drive you mad (well a little crazy) or at least make you wonder "what’s wrong with me"?

• Do you depend on coffee, colas, diet colas, or sugary foods to get you through the day?
• Do you say things like "I would never make it through the day without exercise"
• Are you afraid to take a power nap for fear of sinking into a deep sleep?
• …

The irony of it all, is that it’s natural to a certain degree; but today, it is chronic and it is widespread.

If so, it is very likely you are in personal energy debt and this is what you need to handle before you are going to get your mojo back, let alone get physicaly active in a sustainable way, be more productive or train with ease again.

You can disregard your personal energy debt, but mind you, at a large cost to your health, success and longevity. We’ll talk more about it.

To get things working for you again, I mean really working for you where you’ve got major forward moving momentum, you have got to get out of personal energy debt!

I know this from a first hand experience, so I’m not going to sugar coat this…, this is a challenge. It is one where you don’t have to do much.

Case in point the challenge.

In a PerformanceLifestyle this is one of the first skills you must learn, staying out of personal energy debt. 

~ John Allen Mollenhauer

This the PerformanceLifestyle blog for Healthy High Achievers.

Well tonight I’m talking about a different type of performance, an actual performance as in the arts. It’s all the same really but this is just pure talent.

Last year, I was watching Britain’s Got Talent and was blown away about the surprise talent of Paul Potts. When he was asked what he was going to sing he said "opera".  Everyone turned their head in amazement, and fear over what they where about to hear from this low key guy, and the rest is history…

Here are a few of the video’s that will blow your mind as you watch Paul Potts Transformation from mobile phone salesman to… (you’ll see): Get out the tears of joy tissues to wipe your eyes.

Here’s where it began

Here’s where it went

Here’s where it started
 

Now, if you think that was a suprise. It happened again!

I was browing the web and again, Britain’s Got Talent delivered another singer. This literally blew my mind!

–>> Here name is Susan Boyle.

Enjoy watching this, it again brought tears of joy as a another star rises.

~ JAM