It’s November. New month, the changing of clocks, the time of year for balancing calendars, budgets, and moments of joy, and the start of the holiday silly season.
How are you greeting this moment?
Depending on your viewpoint, lens, and attitude, it’s either exciting and a bit nerve-racking or a back to the grind (and how on earth do I deal with this all?) time of year.
Which one are you?
As we step through those new or familiar doors together, what enters first? For most of us, it’s our energy. Are you bounding forward with zest and vitality, are you hovering near the wall with fear leading your path, are you holding the hand of a scared stranger and lighting the way with a comforting word, are you hoarding anger towards a thing you ‘have’ to do, or are you scattered all over trying to keep everything together frazzled with all that’s going on?
How do you see yourself, how do others see you, what does your energy say?
Years ago, as a university alumna, I joined the admissions squad in interviewing students as part of their prospective application. A regular question was, “in three words, how would a close friend describe you, how would an acquaintance describe you, and simultaneously, how would you describe yourself?”
In today’s world, where much of life is spent digitally showing up, virtually ‘e-meeting’, or sifting through emails attempting to ‘read’ tone, how we show up both in person and online is paramount. Of course, none of us are smiley and peppy all the time, but our overall being sends messages. Which ones do you share?
Some of us have oodles of energy, others shine in a different way. Perhaps we’ve come across energy vampires, energizer bunnies, or those who feel like sunlight and radiate warmth and positivity. Whether we’re in tune with our own or recognize it in others, it’s safe to say that our energy enters the room often before we do…and it leaves a trail that tells a story of how others see us.
In the world of positive psychology as well as in the business world, the term positive energizers is often floated. A friend of mine calls it leading with love, while researchers note it as a sharing of positive relational energy. Mostly, it’s a strategy used to ensure the best possible communication, leadership, and solution in any engagement. It fosters positive connections, offers impactful relationships, and creates a space where all feel able to flourish and thrive.
Whether you’re a leader aiming to create a positive workplace environment, a teacher seeking to showcase an individual’s potential, or a human holding place for friends, family members, or community members where all feel safe, know their ideas and heart are valued and appreciated, and feel safe to take risks in their presence - the idea of energy and the effects involved truly matters.
Got the idea? I bet, if we’re lucky, you automatically find yourself creating an image of someone you know who makes you or others feel this way. Perhaps it’s someone you work with, a teacher you once had, a celebrity known for their empathetic business acumen, a friend or acquaintance, or someone who runs that Insta channel that every time you read a post you feel warm and fuzzy about it all. Maybe it’s even you.
Dr. Kim Cameron is one of the world’s leaders on the study of Positive Energizers. He’s a Professor Emeritus, co-founder of the Center for Positive Organizations at University of Michigan, and holder of many titles of equal importance. Dr. Cameron’s work surrounds positive attributes and how these virtuous filled practices work with positive leadership, performance, and cultural change. “Positive energizers can coach and mentor other members, and they can help individuals who are less positively energizing to become substantially more so.’?
As we transfer energy within our relationships we impact everyone around us. Are you a positive energizer? Do you know any?
Want to learn to be one?
Even without the ‘breaking news’ of the everyday, the political chaos, or the ever-present inequities in pretty much everything, this time of year is filled with a whole lot of emotions. It’s a challenge for some and a welcome haven for others. It’s a let’s hibernate until it’s over time for some and the excitement of ‘smells like snow’ Gilmore Girl main character energy with all things small town seasonal delight for others.
The energy we share, give off, and encounter at this time of year (and well, any time of year) is a game changer.
What do we want that to look like?
As a self-described empath, I feel this: all of it. The energy in the room, the energy of the person in front of me, and that of anyone trying to lead. The kind that draws you in, lights you up, makes you feel like you can be your best self, and the kind that enacts your inner forcefield, enervates your being, and makes you doubt - loudly.
The good part is, we get to choose.
We have the power to choose how we show up, how we meet the moment, how we aim to make others feel, and share the power of that good energy. And, whether you’re in a situation where it feels like you’re around more of those vampires than light-bringers, you still get to choose how you show up.
At a time when the northern hemisphere begins to lose the light, the southern hemisphere gains theirs. At a time when political fray and economic angst seem to halt the light, helpers and supporters show up to shine theirs on fellow citizens. Positive energizers are everywhere, if only we seek to see them, and if only, we make the choice to be them.
Shine on, friends. The season of positive energizers is all year long.
Tips and Tricks to up your positive energizer game
Read the room, change the game
“When you are enthusiastic about what you do you feel this positive energy. It’s very simple” - Paulo Coelho
Consider how Mr. Rogers invited us into his neighborhood, how Ina Garten’s infectious smile welcomes her dinner party guests, or how Dame Jacinda Ardern offers an optimistic choice of leading with empathy in a world that tells her otherwise. These light-bringers both read the room and shift the energy of any space they’re in. Rarely do they mention the word energy, but they certainly structure their entire being around it. You, too, can do the same.
Some of the qualities of these positive enhancers are authenticity, offering both gratitude and acknowledgement to all, being an active listener and curious questioner, engaging in and empowering optimism in the spaces they inhabit, and making room for all to flourish and for all emotions (both positive and negative) to enter the chat. While these attributes can enhance the performance of any business, imagine just how they can change the humans we encounter.
This is how we change the game. This is how we tilt our world towards more light.
Be like Bill Nye
“All it takes is just a little change of perspective and you begin to see a whole new world” - Bob Ross
How many of you learned science from Bill Nye, The Science Guy? Sure, it helped if science interested you in the first place, but that guy, that energy…he lit up every room he entered - energy quite literally jumping off the screen. With each experiment, with each ‘wow’ moment, you learned, felt lifted, and maybe even decided this right there was exactly what you wanted to do. Whether it’s the profound wisdom and insight this Presidential Medal of Freedom scientist exhibits or that aura of energy surrounding your yoga shala or reiki room, it’s real, lights you up, and quite literally alters your perspective.
Dani Marino, Founder and CEO of Humble Warrior, RYT500, tarot reader, and reiki guide knows first-hand about the power of energy. “Reiki is definitely energy,” she says. “Everything is truly energy. And the more you ‘work with energies’ or become sensitive to it, that’s how you lead.” That energy can both “guide you and also deter you from others depending on the feel of that energy - people and places definitely give off different energy - it’s subtle sometimes, but it’s there.”
Whether you’re a boundless light or a subtle ray of sunshine, energy breeds energy. Dance with the question of how you want to feel and how you want to make others feel; let that lead your journey and see where it takes you.
Leave the space better than you found it
“When leaders demonstrate virtuous behaviors and seek them in others, other individuals are more likely to flourish - to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more.” - Kim Cameron
Whether it’s the teacher you loved, the boss who made the job harder, or the leader who sought to involve and engage citizens in taking responsibility for the greater good - we remember how they made us feel. With both the power to build people up or make life more difficult, our energy and action make an impact with each relationship.
How can we leave the space better than we found it, lift others up along the way, and inspire those within our reach to do the same?
In a period of immense climate change, we know it’s up to us to all do our part. We know to recycle, leave only footprints, pack out what we bring in, and teach the next generation to live in harmony with nature. If we aim to leave spaces better than we found them, can we do the same for humans?
When you need your mood shifted, who do you go to? When others need their cup refilled, do they seek you out?
Positive energizers are changemakers - in business, education, culture, and in life. “They are a catalyst for those around them to get in touch with and reach their fullest potential.”
If you’re working on raising your own energy levels to do the same for those around you, add these facets into the work you do on yourself:
• Look for the good in others - show your interest and be interesting
• Offer support (avoid blame) with kindness, genuine heart, and compassion
• Aim to inspire - think what’s working well
• Channel meaning into your work and life
• Build on your personal character strengths
• Reflect on your impact and the waves you make
• Follow the Golden Rule: treat others as you’d like to be treated
• Work on yourself so your own relationship is one of positive energy
Be a positively memorable guest
“Choose to be optimistic, it feels better.” -The Dalai Lama
One of the tenets of a positive leader is optimism. It’s a message of the Dalai Lama, a practice of the happiest man alive, and one of any traveler who chose to see the good when Mother Nature or logistical snafus shifted their plans. Those who see the glass as refillable in a time when others seek to choose something else? That’s the energy a positive energizer brings to the table.
In a time of year when hosting gatherings is tenfold, what type of guest are you? What type of guest do you hope to engage with at those family or community meetups? What energy do you bring to the table…and when others leave your presence, how do they feel?
That’s the power of energy transference.
Energizers’ greatest secret is that, by uplifting others through authentic, values-based leadership, they end up lifting up both themselves and their organizations. Positive energizers demonstrate and cultivate virtuous actions, including forgiveness, compassion, humility, kindness, trust, integrity, honesty, generosity, gratitude, and recognition…as a result, everyone flourishes.
“Positive energy is not a personality attribute, inherent charisma, or physical attractiveness. It’s not a matter of merely being gregarious or outgoing. It’s not correlated with being extroverted.” The Positive Energizers are, however, the 'Positive Deviants' - those people who, despite facing all the same challenges this volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world brings, still say ‘yes we can!’
Can you?
Leave a trail of glitter
“Positivity doesn’t just change the contents of your mind…It widens the span of possibilities that you see.” - Barbara Frederickson
Coronado, California is known for many things, one of those being its sparkly sand. All who visit notice it. With each sandy footprint, beachgoers literally leave a trail of glitter. We do the same with our relationships. We can sprinkle positivity into our exchanges, enhancing each step along the way. And, like positive energizers, we, too, can change the game.
What positive energizing is not is “the superficial demonstration of false positivity…rather, it is the active demonstration of values.” In a meme sense, it’s the people who feel like sunlight. In an artistic sense, it’s the sparkle shining off of one human that outstretches and lightens all it touches…you know, a real-life glitter effect.
Positive energizers offer others a chance to shine. These interrupters of negative energy lean toward the light and stoke it in their surroundings. They evoke positive change. Like flowers, humans also do better with light. Nature’s version is the heliotropic effect, yet humans also thrive with that warmth and brightness. We seek out that light and know we grow in leaps and bounds in its presence. Positive energizers are that heliotropic effect in human form. They leave everyone they touch better.
You can use your energy for good. You can be the light for others. The choice is yours.
How will you show up?
Please click the photo below for a collection of my Through the Eyes of an Educator columns:
Stacey Ebert, our Educational Travels Editor, is a traveler at heart who met her Australian-born husband while on a trip in New Zealand. Stacey was an extracurricular advisor and taught history in a Long Island public high school for over fifteen years, enjoying both the formal and informal educational practices. After a one year 'round the world honeymoon, travel and its many gifts changed her perspective. She has since left the educational world to focus on writing and travel. She is energetic and enthusiastic about long term travel, finding what makes you happy and making the leap. In her spare time she is an event planner, yogi, dark chocolate lover, and spends as much time as possible with her toes in the sand.
Check out her website at thegiftoftravel.wordpress.com for more of her travel musings.