I want to share this “Leadership Thought” of Peter Koestenbaum’s on energy and leadership…he sends out a weekly leadership thought by email taken from his many books.
ENERGY
Energy, as it is subjectively experienced, is not derived from the chemical properties of food but is the decision to have the courage to be, the commitment to exist. Energy is self-chosen, self-started, self-initiated. Its source is not visible to us, for we are it. Further, the energy we can summon — from sheer free will, self-discipline, determination, resoluteness, or guts — appears to be inexhaustible.
It is psychologically true that our environment can either energize or de-energize us, motivate or de-motivate us. But it is also true, at a deeper level (that is to say, it is philosophically true) that we have the power to choose to energize ourselves (and, of course, to de-energize ourselves). At the seat of the soul resides the power of spontaneous free will, which can choose to motivate or de-motivate, to create enthusiasm or decide for depression.
Leaders energize themselves; they do not require external sources of enthusiasm. They know that to be human is to be a creator, to have the ability to start something from nothing. The creation of the world, a theme in all of the world’s mythologies is the cosmic image of our subjective initiative — a cosmic metaphor for our innermost truth.
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