Minute With Mallon: Cut the Drainers!
Welcome to Minute with Mallon!
Something I Taught:
One thing I love working on with my clients is increasing the amount of good, positive energy in their lives. When you really think about it, it's all we really have. And maximizing it brings a payoff that is HUGE!
Life moves fast, and it's easy to feel drained and worn out by the constant demands we face. Whether it's work pressures, family commitments, or the endless stream of emails, messages, and distractions, these demands on our time and attention mean that our energy can quickly get depleted.
That's why it's important to recognize and cut out the things that drain us – that deplete our energy without offering a valuable return. When we do, we can redirect our time and energy toward what really matters.
This isn't just about productivity – it's about feeling better, thinking clearer, and living a more fulfilling life.
I remember one night waking up to hear the toilet running. After ignoring it a few times, I finally got up, fixed it, and realized I'd lost an hour of sleep by not acting sooner. It's a great reminder of how not confronting small problems early can wind up draining our energy. 😩
So here at the beginning of the year, let's talk about how you can increase the positive energy in your life TODAY!
Here are six key energy drainers:
Energy-Draining People
Energy-Draining Work Pressures
Energy-Draining Habits
Energy-Draining Clutter
Energy-Draining Needs & Expectations
Energy-Draining Emotions
Look at that list. Which one jumps off the screen at you?
Now, grab a piece of paper and determine the one specific thing under that category that most affects you and your energy levels right now! Write it down!
Then ask yourself these questions, and write out your answers:
● Is this something that will disappear over time?
● What is this energy drainer costing me? (Time, energy, money, peace of mind?)
● If this is likely to persist, what actions can I take to eliminate this energy-drainer or reduce its effect on me?
● What can I learn from this energy drainer?
Then, and most importantly, Take Action!
One larger company I work with handled 99 of these time-sapping problems over a three-month period by becoming more aware of the energy drainers they were dealing with. I know this because they wrote them down each week! They hit their goal of 99!
And now you have the opportunity to block these drains and boost your energy too!
You can thank me later! 🤗
Something to Ponder:
"Forgiveness is accepting the apology you will never get."
R. Brault
Something I Learned:
I’m headed back to Kenya towards the end of February to help lead our 7th mission trip there. When we first started going back in 2016, we had no idea what we were doing. But over the years, we made some beautiful friendships and have had the opportunity to help the Maasai Tribe.
Our lives and their lives are very different. Many of their customs made no sense to us at first, but now they make total sense.
I'm currently rereading a book called One of Them by Eti Dayan. Reading it helped me to understand the Maasai culture, appreciate their daily lives, build connections with them, and challenge assumptions I first went over there with.
Here's are three examples of things I learned about the importance of cows in their culture:
"Barsoinkan explained that giving cows to a woman is highly significant primarily if the husband dies—the woman maintains the right to milk them, and they would allow her to continue supporting herself and her children without depending on anyone. These cows and their offspring would be a form of “life insurance” that the husband bestows upon his wife."
“The value of the cow is not merely as food. It also serves additional needs: its dung serves as coating material when building a house; you saw this when we built the new village. Its hide is our mattress, which we place on the elevated pallet (the bed) inside the house. There is no Maasai house without cowhide! The more cows are slaughtered during a person’s lifetime, the more layers of hide are added to the bed. These days, there are people who purchase mattresses, but they are placed over the cow hide."
"Since the cows are so important to us, only some of them are kept at home with us. The rest are passed on to the care of distant relatives, and some of them are kept by debtors for many years. A passerby has no way of knowing how many cows a person truly has. Moreover, out of fear of the ‘evil eye,’ we don’t count the cows! But when they come back from pasture, we’ll always observe them, and even without counting, we’ll know if one of them is missing. Even if the herd is immense in size! You see, without cows, it’s difficult for a person to get married."
Something I Saw:
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Hope you have an incredible week!
Robert
