Tony Schwartz

The real enemy of high performance is not stress . . . the problem is the absence of disciplined, intermittent recovery.

To maintain a powerful pulse in our lives, we must learn how to rhythmically spend and renew energy.

We build emotional, mental and spiritual capacity in precisely the same way that we build physical capacity.

If nothing succeeds like success, it is equally true that nothing fails like excess. Because change requires moving beyond our comfort zone, it is best initiated in small and manageable increments.

Energy is simply the capacity to do work. Our most fundamental need as human beings is to spend and recover energy.

Periods of recovery are likewise intrinsic to creativity and to intimate connection. Sounds become music in the spaces between notes, just as words are created by the spaces between letters. It is in the spaces between work that love, friendship, depth and dimension are nurtured. Without time for recovery, our lives become a blur of doing unbalanced by much opportunity for being.

At the most practical level, our capacity to be fully engaged depends on our ability to periodically disengage.

Take a moment to consider how broad a range of emotional muscles you have in your own life. In all likelihood you will discover that you have considerably more strength on one side of the spectrum than on the other.

From an energy perspective, negative emotions are costly and inefficient. Much like a gas-guzzling car, they draw down our energy stores at a rapid rate.

A value in action is a virtue.

In short, money may not buy happiness, but happiness may help you get rich.

Creating positive rituals is the most powerful means we have found to effectively manage energy in the service of full engagement.

The more scheduled and systematic these rituals became, the more renewal they provided.

Character—the courage and conviction to live by our deepest values—is the key muscle that serves spiritual energy.

I did not accept her question with its implicit either-or approach to happiness. I told her that instead of asking ‘Should I be happy now or in the future?’ she should ask, ‘How can I be happy now and in the future?’

Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.

We can’t change what we don’t notice.