Your Energy Options

-By Jaime Willis

Matt and I are very excited to let you know that we are both now certified to administer and debrief the Energy Leadership Index Assessment (ELI). If you are interested in taking an ELI and want more information about pricing, please email us.

The ELI Assessment isn't like other corporate assessments (Myers-Briggs, DISC, Kolbe), in that it is an attitudinal assessment, not a personality one. When you get your Myers-Briggs, DISC, or Kolbe results, those results are yours for life, and your job is learn to work with your personality instead of against it to get what you want out of your life.

By measuring your attitude, energy, and level of consciousness, the ELI really allows you to understand your leadership potential, your personal satisfaction, and your awareness at the time you take the test. When you get your results back, Matt & I provide you with a full debrief of where your energy is currently. If you'd like to improve that energy, we can help you do that too.

Someone was asking me the other day to explain the levels of energy in more detail, so I came up with this analogy. Imagine you are going through your day, and your energy level is equivalent to the amount of light you have available to you. Let's look at how much light you'd have at each level of energy.

If you are operating with level one energy, your flashlight would be so dim, it would be hard to see anything, even things that were directly in front of you. As you go through your day, everything would seem harder – you would struggle to just make your way through the tasks required of you. You may see other people’s flashlights shine brighter and be sad that you got stuck with such a dim flashlight – bad things like this always seem to happen to you. You may blame yourself for getting such a crappy flashlight.

If you are operating with level two energy, your flashlight would be slightly brighter, but would occasionally blink on and off and may fluctuate between really dim and slightly brighter. Trying to get anything done with your flashlight would be infuriating, as you never felt like you could count on your flashlight to produce light when you most needed it. If you saw someone else with a bright flashlight, you’d be angry, wondering why they got a better working flashlight than yours. You may wonder who has it in for you, giving you such a crappy flashlight.

If you are operating with level three energy, your flashlight would be bright enough to light your path a few feet in front of you. You’d be happy to have a working flashlight, and go through your tasks with relative ease. But you might wonder what your life would be like if you could see even further with your flashlight. You may feel like you are just settling for what’s right in front of you instead of exploring the whole world around you.

If you are operating with level four energy, your light is a lantern – you can light up an entire room with your energy. You use your lantern to help light up the room for those you care about – you may provide light at your office and light up a common room in your house for your coworkers and family. Sometimes, you may wish that you could turn off your light and get some sleep, but you want to make sure that everyone who needs to use the light can, so you stay up until everyone else is done using your lantern. You feel great about being able to help light people’s way every day.

If you are operating with level five energy, your light is a huge spotlight. You can see the path in front of you for miles, and you are excited about traveling towards your destiny. You can see challenges in the path ahead, but your light gives you the opportunity to make the best of the difficult path. You are happy to help others and providing them light, so long as it doesn’t distract from your path in life. Lots of people begin following you, as your spotlight makes you a natural leader on your journey.

If you are operating with level six energy, your light is powered by a solar panel array. You can synthesize light from all different sources and use that to power your flashlight. If the day is cloudy, and you aren’t getting much light from your flashlight, you just appreciate the experience of living life in dim light. When your light is fully charged and bright, you appreciate the experience of living in complete brightness. You enjoy whoever and whatever comes your way, and are completely happy with the ups and downs of your flashlight’s light.

If you are operating with level seven energy, your light is as bright as a sun. Your light is literally exploding with creation as your sunlight lights the entire world around you. You are able to enjoy every single person and experience that is awash in your light, but may find it difficult to connect to individuals on a personal level, as your light is almost too bright for one person alone to experience.


In reality, you are going to fluctuate between each of these levels all day long. The idea is that if you would be happier operating at a higher energy level, what things in your life and more specifically, in your attitude and awareness can you change to make operating at a higher energy level easier for you?

How's Your Energy?

-By Jaime Willis

"The higher your energy level, the more efficient your body is. The more efficient your body is, the better you feel and the more you will use your talent to produce outstanding results." -Tony Robbins

Through our coach training program, Matt and I have been learning a lot about how to be happier and more successful by raising our energy. I wanted to take time this morning to share a little bit of what we learned and how it's impacting my life.

When you break life down to it's smallest building blocks, we are all made from energy. Energy is what makes us and the entire world tick. In the book, Energy Leadership, by Bruce D. Schneider (read this book, by the way, it is excellent), Bruce posits that if we are all made of energy, then improving our energy is what we need to work on to have happier, more fulfilled lives.

Schneider breaks energy down into seven categories or levels, the higher the level you can operate in, the happier you tend to be in all areas of your life.

Chart courtesy of Bruce D. Schneider and iPEC Coaching.

To break the levels down into easy to understand language, lets think of them in terms of winning and losing.

Level 1: I lose. Level 1 is victim energy -- think of Eeyore's "woe is me" attitude.

Level 2: You lose. This level is all about blame and anger. If something is wrong in my life, it's your fault.

Level 3: I win. This is the first level with more positive than negative energy. You take responsibility for your actions and you make stuff happen.

Level 4: You win. This is the quintessential "mom" level -- you want the best for others, so you will do whatever it takes to help them achieve.

Level 5: We both win. This level is all about opportunity -- no matter what the situation, you can find the opportunity in it and work to find the win-win for everyone.

Level 6: We always win. This level is all about the experience. It doesn't matter if it is "good" or "bad," the experience is worth the ride.

Level 7: Winning and losing are illusions. This is the highest level of consciousness, when you are connected directly to your higher power and are experiencing absolute joy.

What is fascinating about these levels to me was learning that 85% of the world operates at Levels 1 & 2! How different would our community, much less our world be if we could all learn to operate at a Level 5 -- where everything is win-win? (As a side note, it is really difficult for mere mortals to operate at Levels 6 and 7 for more than a short period of time, so striving for a baseline Level 5 energy is the typical goal).

As part of our training, Matt and I each took Energy Leadership Index Assessments, which measure our baseline operating energy level. As someone who loves to help others, I was sure that my assessment would show that I was operating at a Level 4.

I was shocked to discover how much Level 1 and Level 2 energy that I still had in my life, and what a huge impact it had on my baseline score. Although I have a ton of Level 4 and Level 5 energy, it is being masked by self-pity and conflict. What a wake-up call!

When I got my results back, I was upset (Level 2 - ha!). I didn't want to believe that the test was accurate. Then I started to notice how quick I was to snap at others throughout the day, (Level 2), make a snide comment about a situation (Level 2) or lament the fact that the bus *always* shows up just before I cross the street (Level 1). Wow!

What is great about this process is that your energy level is not immutable -- you can change! Just noticing my energy levels has had a positive impact -- I am less likely to make snide or "woe is me" comments, and try to find the opportunity in each situation. I'm a work in progress (aren't we all?), but I am confident that when I retake the ELI Assessment in several months, my score will be dramatically different.

If you are interested in learning what your own Energy baseline is, contact us and we can give you additional information about completing an assessment and debrief.