Does the "Law of Capture" Apply When Someone Drains Your Figurative Energy?
Even though the Law of Capture allows you to drain your neighbor’s oil reservoir, at current prices you’d probably be interested in stealing something much more valuable [Note: this episode was released 2 days after oil prices hit negative $37 per barrel on 4/20/20]
And given the stress and pressure than many people are under today, one would argue that few things are more valuable and precious than our figurative energy, which can quickly be drained by others if we’re not careful.
As leaders, it’s critical not only to be on guard against your own energy being depleted, but to carry a heightened awareness of how you might be impacting others…especially those whose limited energy might already trend negative.
In this episode, we use the Law of Capture to help boost your “energy awareness,” to increase the ways you can help yourself and others regain energy, and to turn negative energy into something productive and beneficial.
Related Content:
“Do you really catch more flies with honey than vinegar?” (The Energy Detox)
While you might be quick to blame the "Negative Nancys" and "Debbie Downers" in your life for draining your precious energy, the reality is that the "Positive Pollys" of the world can sometimes be even more draining.
And if you're a fan of accentuating the positive and pointing out silver linings, this Fast Company article provides a nice reminder of how quickly Toxic Positivity can erode trust, convey a lack of compassion, and damage business performance:
“There’s a dark side to looking on the bright side. Here’s a healthier antidote” (Fast Company)
An organizational psychologist explains that while it is well-intentioned, toxic positivity suppresses emotions. That can lead to stronger negative emotions such as anxiety and depression, which can also manifest as physical illness. (Fast Company)
Despite the above warning against toxic positivity, the reality is that hunting for the positive is typically a good starting point if you’re leading a team. If you agree with that conclusion but need an easy—and musical—way to remind yourself to start with the positive, then consider committing the following Bing Crosby tune to memory…
“You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive;
E-lim-i-nate the negative;
And latch on to the affirmative;
Don’t mess with Mr. In-between.”
Ignoring the operational inaccuracies of this clip from The Simpsons, let Burns Slant-Drilling Co. serve as one final reminder to avoid draining others—and allowing yourself to be drained…
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TRANSCRIPT:
00:00
Hello and welcome to The Energy Detox, a leadership podcast with oilfield flair. Our mission here and the mission of our sponsor, Witting Partners, is to help you practically find and remove the junk that is unwittingly holding you back from producing sustainable success in both your professional and personal lives.
00:33
I'm your host, Joe Sinnott, and today we're going to use the "law of capture" to drive a discussion on the many different ways people can drain your precious energy and to heighten your awareness of the times that you might be unwittingly draining the energy and the productivity and the morale and the confidence of your stakeholders, whether they're family, friends, co-workers, or clients. And beyond leaning on a few obvious analogies and offering up a few gentle reminders of things you likely have an understanding of already, we promise, as always, to be realistic throughout this conversation and to fully acknowledge that there are absolutely going to be times where life leaves you feeling drained.
01:13
But we firmly believe that the right mindset, an ounce of preparation, and a few practical questions to keep in mind can boost your ability to withstand those times when your tank is drained and to make it a far more pleasant experience—and by pleasant I don't just mean that you don't have to involve any lawyers during those times when you inevitably need to steal a bit of energy from someone else.
01:34
So before drilling down into the figurative content of today's episode, let's take a minute to define the law of capture, also called the "rule of capture" for those who might not be familiar with the concept or for those lawyers I've already insulted who can't wait to point out all the flaws in my attempt to describe the legalities around today's topic.
01:52
So the law or rule of capture essentially says that if you are performing activity on your land and you happen to capture resources from a neighbor's land, you have the right to keep what you captured. And obviously for the purposes of The Energy Detox, we'll focus on what this means when drilling oil or gas wells. But the concept also applies to water wells or even to hunting.
02:13
If you drill a water well on your property and you drain a reservoir that also happens to be under your neighbor's property, the law says that your neighbor has no legal recourse, in part because he could have drilled his own well. Or if he had drilled a well already and it happens to go dry because of you, he's still out of luck unless you did something malicious or you actually drilled part of your well under his property, which would, of course, be trespassing.
02:35
Similarly, if there are tons of deer or some other animal living on your neighbor's land and they happen to cross over onto your land, you in many cases have the right to shoot them and keep them ("capture" them).
02:47
And on the oil and gas side, it's the same idea. You have oil or gas under your property. Your neighbor does, too. You drill a well that happens to tap into your neighbor's portion of the reservoir, and whatever you produce is yours to keep because you got it out of the ground first. Now, obviously, different states have different rules governing the law of capture, and in some cases the impacts are mitigated by spacing regulations of some sort that dictate how far you need to be from lease boundaries or from other wells.
03:14
And with the explosion of horizontal drilling over the last decade or so. There have certainly been challenges to existing laws, including in Pennsylvania recently, where a lower court had said that the rule of capture didn't apply to hydraulic fracturing. But then an earlier this year, the state Supreme Court said that the existing laws DO still apply in the case of horizontal gas wells, and they wound up reversing the lower court's ruling. And the point is that regardless of state laws governing this concept, the laws of physics and the laws of nature remain the same. And those laws don't necessarily care what judges or corporations or lawyers consider to be right or fair or just, of course.
03:52
So with the basic definition out of the way, what are the practical implications of the law of capture in the world of oil and natural gas development? Well, for one, if you own mineral rights under a piece of land and you don't lease your land to someone who is going to drill and produce it, then there is a risk that all the land around your property is going to be drilled and your minerals will be left stranded. And even if the actual amount of hydrocarbons drained from the rock underlying your land is minimal, the fact remains that your neighbors are getting royalty checks—small as they might be at current natural gas and oil prices—and you may never get any money because the company is unlikely to come back and drill an infill well on your property later on. So whether you were drained or not, the fact remains that you're probably not getting paid for your minerals.
04:39
Another implication, especially historically, is that there could be a race of sorts to stick wells in the ground and develop an area right up to the least lines before someone else drills on the other side of the boundary. Because thanks to the rule of capture, whoever gets there first wins because whichever well starts producing first in a dense area is clearly going to have the benefits of higher pressures and more volumes, all else being equal. And while there are more laws on the books today to help prevent over-drilling, historically there were certainly more instances of this race to poke as many holes in the ground as possible.
05:10
So putting you in the shoes of a landowner for a second...whether minerals are being stranded under your property or your neighbors are racing to drill wells all around your property, you obviously can be left feeling like your energy was drained or like your energy is stranded and isn't going to do you or anyone any good. And watching other people “go, go, go” all around you can obviously make you feel stuck and frustrated and angry. And as we've touched on in the last two episodes, these situations are figuratively playing out at a massive scale right now.
05:41
As millions of people lose their jobs, some have the luxury of being able to "go, go, go" and shift gears while many others feel stuck and are left drained by the whole situation. And so the first goal of this episode is to make sure that you, as a leader, are on the lookout for people who might be falling into that situation so that you can help them preserve their energy and not let it go to waste. And the second goal is to help enhance your awareness and potentially shift your mindset if you're a risk—and I would argue we are all at risk to some degree—of having our energy completely drained by current events.
06:15
So regardless of whether you're more at risk today of being the one who unwittingly drained someone else's energy or if you're more at risk of letting yourself be drained, the first thing to be on guard against is negative energy. And when we say negative energy, we're not talking about the below zero price that oil reached this week, and we're not talking about some dark spirit or force or aura. We're talking about those folks who are a disproportionate drain on other people's energy.
06:42
And some of those people are pretty cut and dry and fall into what one might call the "misery loves company" category. And you know who these people are: the people who seem to cheer up on a cloudy and miserable day. The people who seem to almost be rooting for the coronavirus to prove victorious over civilization, the people who are a little too chipper when a potentially destructive hurricane is approaching the coast.
07:04
But regardless of the tragedy that they might be interested in, you know plenty of people like this in your lives, and often these people aren't subtle about their negative energy and are, therefore, a bit easier to dismiss without your energy being impacted. But there's another category of people who may not naturally be negative, but they nevertheless can often leave you feeling depleted after just a few interactions. And for many of these people, what is it that's driving their negativity? What is the most common denominator for these occasional periods of getting down? Obviously, it's easy to point to stress in someone's life. God knows the world has plenty of stress these days. Or you might assume that there's some health or family issue that's clouding everything else going on in their lives. Or maybe some people are negative because they feel that they're being ignored or that nobody cares about them.
07:54
And while those might be true explanations on many occasions, we propose that the biggest thing driving people's negative energy is a lack of clear knowledge and understanding in the examples we just mentioned. The root cause of the stress people might be facing is that they might not know whether they will have a job in a week or two, and they don't understand why they haven't received their stimulus check, for example, from the government. And if it's a health issue, it might be that they don't know what they will do if a loved one were to die, or that they don't understand why they have had some mysterious pain in their side for several weeks.
08:31
And if someone feels like they're being ignored or that nobody cares about them, they often don't know what other people really think or feel about them. And they don't understand why others seem to be ignoring them and might be, quite frankly, too busy or distracted by other things right now to pay an appropriate amount of attention.
08:49
Because if you lack the knowledge or the understanding in these situations, and if you lack the information necessary to provide clarity to yourself, it can be really tough to be positive. And you don't have a whole lot of people talking about how they are "at peace" with a situation if they don't already have some grasp about what's actually going on and how it impacts them. Yet during the coronavirus pandemic we have going on right now, there are a whole lot of high risk people out there who are quick to say they're "a peace" if they were to catch COVID-19 and die...as crazy as that sounds, they exist...and you hear that.
09:25
So how the heck are they able to be so positive during a time like this? Well, they focus on what they know. They likely know that their affairs are in order. Fortunately, they understand how things would play out with their estate if they were to die. They know that they have communicated to their family how much they love them. They understand what the coronavirus is and what it might mean to them if they catch it. Now, none of this example means that they want to die, because I'm pretty sure that would shift them back into the "negative energy" bucket, which would be completely understandable. But they don't have to deal with the mystery and the guesswork and the unknowns that can rapidly increase anxiety and negativity. And that is happening at again a huge scale right now.
10:09
So what does this all have to do with the law of capture? Well, sometimes when we're talking about the law of capture, the situation and the facts are pretty obvious. For example, if you have a water well that produced for decades and then went dry when your neighbor drilled one, you don't need to hire a geologist to figure out what happened. Your neighbor drained your well. You know and understand exactly what happened, and it's pretty cut and dry (pun fully intended).
10:32
But often when we're talking about oil or gas well communication (as we did in Episode 3), the impacts can't be clearly or immediately seen. And when you can't see things, it's easier to be fearful and concerned and to project that fear and concern on to others in the form of negative energy. And if you're doing that, you're acting negatively and irrationally in some cases because you can't point to obvious facts. You can, however, make educated guesses. You can employ a reservoir engineer to tell you what is probably happening under the surface. But navigating these gray areas can bring out the worst in people, quite frankly (and, of course, it could bring out the lawyers as well).
11:12
And to throw another timely analogy into the conversation, take the impact that a sudden job loss can have a family budget. If 'Family A' had a good handle on their budget, and they clearly know where money was going, what they had saved, what investments they had, then they can approach the impacts of a job loss practically and perhaps even calmly, even if the situation is dire.
11:34
And if another family—call them 'Family B'—had similar income and expenses and investments, yet they never worried or thought much about the bills that were being paid automatically each month and didn't really worry about budgeting and about their financial situation. And they don't have a firm grasp on what happens now that their income is gone. Well, Family B's reaction to having to manage their loss of a job is likely going to be very different, even if both families have the exact same budget and assets and liabilities on paper.
12:03
And why is Family A going to be much better off? Because they know the details. They understand what's going on in the background. They know how their money is moving. Because while Family A can logically start taking positive next steps more quickly, Family B is much more likely to be wading through some negative energy before they can get moving...and they might then project that negativity, and they might be grasping at bits and pieces of random information and making uninformed decisions and probably coming across as a little more "Woe is me" and producing a lot more negative energy and being susceptible to absorbing negative energy than Family A would be.
12:40
And the point of this is that when you or others are reflecting tons of negative energy, it so often is a result of not having all the data and, therefore, not having a full understanding of the situation. And, of course, the good news is, if you're aware of this and if you're in a position to help people (especially in Family B's situation), you can quickly help them sort through the information gathering to build that understanding.
13:02
So hope shouldn't be lost. But when you're in the moment and when they're in the moment, sometimes it is. And sometimes it reflects a negativity that, quite frankly, is not necessary and can be stopped.
13:13
So, again, going back to the law of capture. It's like the large landowner—say, someone who owns a farm or a ranch with tons of acreage. And this person doesn't understand how oil or gas reservoirs work, and they incorrectly assert that a neighbor's oil or gas well three miles away is draining their well. Odds are strong that that's not the case, but when you can't see underground and when the potential impacts are not obvious (as was the case with water well suddenly going dry that we mentioned), it can lead to that landowner being paranoid and being negative.
13:43
And if we can conjure up an image of a stereotypical paranoid, crazy, angry neighbor who has these off the wall ideas about how the neighbors are impacting his property and well-being and "they're all a nuisance"...well, when you have that image, think about what happens when you mix stress and incomplete information and faulty assumptions together: we can all turn into that crazy neighbor! And if there's one takeaway from this episode, it's that you need to be on guard for those times when you might be acting like a crazy and irrational neighbor.
14:14
And before letting the negativity overflow into the neighborhood, ask what information you might be missing. Ask what questions haven't been addressed. Ask what false assumptions may have been made. Because I know in my career, I've encountered it many times: me or others quickly assuming someone we work with is an idiot because of something they said or did. And we default to being negative so often, or we immediately assume that someone is actively working against us, but we never actually asked what drove that supposed idiot to make the decision he did, or to act in a particular way...and when you're in a leadership position or a position of any influence, it is absolutely critical that you be on guard against this.
14:55
And it's important when faced with someone else's negativity to ask yourself, "What am I missing?" Because it's so easy to let ourselves get caught up in negativity all the time, especially during challenging times like we're in right now, where the oil and gas industry is being attacked by market forces and pandemic forces and overproduction and international competitors. And in the meantime, the previous enemies of the oil and gas industry—the anti-frac'ers and "Green Peacers" of the world—they obviously aren't in the conversation like they used to be. But when they were in the conversation and when those conversations turned negative, what was it that often drove the negative energy?
15:34
Again, we'd argue that it was largely a lack of knowledge and a lack of understanding. In fact, there are so many stories of people with a grave misunderstanding of what we do in oil and gas—of the science behind what we do—and no understanding of what an undeniable net positive on the environment we've seen over the last 10 years because of oil and gas development. And, you know, ignoring the investors who have lost billions of dollars on oil and gas, what a tremendous economic impact we've had on local and state economies.
16:04
And if you don't get past the negativity, however, and if you don't take a moment to ask what's producing the negativity and you aren't able to convey the facts to the person who might be mis-informed and lacking understanding, there's an awfully good chance that you're going to find yourself sucked in, or that that person is just gonna continue going on spreading their negativity to others, which could indirectly come back and impact you and others down the road if you're not able to impart some change or some impact or stem the flow of that negativity in some way.
16:33
And the example of environmental groups also brings up another idea around the law of capture. And that is the ability to actually capture the negative energy and turn it into a positive. In the conversation about climate change, "carbon capture" has been a big part of the conversation (well, at least before the world stopped working and traveling and cut energy usage by a tremendous amount, essentially reducing our carbon footprint supposedly)...but carbon capture. What is it intended to do? Well, it's intended to capture from the atmosphere the harmful CO2 that can then be used for some positive purpose, like making concrete, for example...
17:11
Or—to throw out a slightly more proven and practical carbon capture example—like a tree that captures CO2 that allows it to grow and produce oxygen and fruit and wood, which, of course, is a very nice and non-controversial image to picture on this Earth Day that is celebrated here on April 22nd.
17:29
But the point is...whether you think of a tree or a crazy neighbor or a frustrated co-worker, there are negatives that can be captured and used to the benefit of others if you have the right approach, if you have the right mindset, and if you're always ready to choke off the flow of negative energy whenever it starts flowing from you or others.
17:48
So, again, we've taken a whole lot of liberties in applying this law of capture concept already. But the question for this episode is, "What can this teach us about how we unwittingly capture or steal other people's figurative energy and how we allow our energy reserve to be depleted by others?"
18:04
And the answer in the vast number of situations is that the law of capture teaches us that we need to ask questions to clarify what is known and to enhance our understanding of what we might not be able to see. Because energy drainage that is occurring in the physical world of hydrocarbon reservoirs is usually occurring thousands of feet below the surface. And as we mentioned several times already, you obviously can't directly see what's going on, and you don't know precisely what's happening.
18:32
Maybe the drainage or communication is minimal. Maybe you're slowly draining your neighbor's reservoir to the point he'll never notice in his lifetime. Or maybe you have a natural fracture that has you pulling a ton of energy from his side of the fence, and it will be more substantial. And of course, you can be on the other side of the fence, and you might be the one who doesn't realize the extent to which you're being robbed, so to speak. But simply being ignorant to the specifics of what's going on underground doesn't give you an excuse not to ask the right questions about the known science of what's likely happening so as to increase your understanding of the situation.
19:06
So out of all of this negative energy talk, hopefully you agree that it is possible to mitigate negative energy and in some cases, to figuratively capture negative energy or the lessons learned from negative energy and do great things with it to help yourself or others. But how? How will you do that? Well, to start, the good news for anyone listening who is in transition (or who knows someone in transition...or who might have to rebuild a team that is currently being decimated by layoffs) is that the world hit a reset button of sorts.
19:36
And as people and teams and companies are shaken up, keep in mind that people's resumes and skills and abilities and talents might actually wind up taking a back seat to people with positive energy who can give and produce at least as much energy as they consume and who have an awareness of the things going on beneath the surface so that underlying problems aren't left to fester and cause problems...and that they're addressed by these people.
20:01
And if you're one of these positive people, I promise you that it can and will show in interviews and the professional connections you're making and, in-turn, on the job. So as you have the chance to surround yourself with new connections or, ultimately, a new career over the coming months and years—whether you are the one doing the applying for jobs or the one that's doing the hiring—picture yourself being on the lookout for a new home with new people and new surroundings, and asking yourself how your neighbors can and will impact you and your property directly and indirectly for years to come, because that stuff doesn't show up in the real estate listing just as your positive or negative energy may not show up on a resume...but those things could make a world of difference in your long-term satisfaction.
20:47
And other than maybe offering some positive encouragement to people in transition, how else can you help other people? Well, probably the biggest way to help is to not keep your mouth shut when you come across an acquaintance you know who is being unnecessarily negative. I mean, if it's a "misery loves company" kind of person, maybe just nod and smile and not engage. But if you see someone you know is throwing off negative energy because something is temporarily out of whack, don't just sit there. Because, ultimately, if you're in a position to say something and don't, then you're inaction may be seen as validation of whatever that person is unnecessarily feeling.
21:22
And I've definitely been guilty of this in my professional life. And I regretted it. Because if you think—as I have at times—that being quiet will subtly give people a hint that you disagree or that they're off base, you're probably wrong in most cases...and they're not going to take your silence as some sort of sign that they're in the wrong and that they're going to start re-thinking things. Because, while you might have heard the quote from the late Jack Welch, who said, "if you can't energize others, you can't be a leader," I would take it a step forward and say that part of being a leader is actually de-energizing folks when it makes sense to do so and helping them reduce their energy, especially if it's negative.
21:59
So don't leave your observations open to interpretation when you're a leader and don't risk not being able to help someone who is "mis-energized," so to speak. Don't just nod and smile. Don't miss the opportunity to ask the right questions. And don't try to correct the person on the spot, as you know that person might become even more emboldened in their negativity.
22:21
And one of the best ways to address this is to simply repeat back what you're hearing. Get the person to hear what they're saying, because I know when I'm being negative, the quickest way for someone to stop me in my tracks is to repeat back what I just said. And now as a coach and as a parent, I'm much quicker to jump into this method, and I certainly wish in my prior managerial roles I did more of this consistently when someone came to me fired up over something, and I wasn't as prepared to handle it as I should have been.
22:50
And I know that some of my regret comes from me trying to be too nuanced or subtle at times. And what does subtlety do? It often does nothing! In fact, it can be draining trying hard to stay cool. And there's a time and a place to commit energy to really helping people slowly and gently dive into things, as we spoke about in Episode 4 about deepening relationships and connections. But there's also a time and a place to simply say, "Cut the crap."
23:16
And similarly for you drilling folks...there's a time and a place to spend tons of money and tons of time on a fishing operation, and there's a time to just sever the pipe, sidetrack, and move on with life. But whatever your approach is for a given situation, preparation is key, and through today's conversation, the goal is to help you determine how you can best be prepared, especially since instances of negative energy probably aren't going to subside anytime soon.
23:42
And you need to be prepared because in many cases, people and their negative energy may be somewhat inescapable, especially in a work environment. And if you're with someone who is a "pressure sink," they can easily draw energy out of you if you're not on guard. And they can also begin to cause long term damage to their own reputation and to their own health if they don't slow the flow of negative energy.
24:04
And the reputation piece is straightforward. If everyone doesn't want to work with them because they are exhausting, the nice thing to do if you're a leader in a position to have some influence would be to share that information with the person however you see fit. But even more serious than just helping someone improve their standing and reputation is to make sure they are not turning to other methods to unload their anger and unleash their negativity.
24:29
You know, we can joke about "driving someone to drink," but as a leader and as a friend or a family member, it's your duty to be on guard against them relying too much on "artificial lift," so to speak, to deal with their negativity. And even if you're not the one unwittingly pushing a person in this direction, that doesn't lessen your responsibility for a bit of wellness intervention, if you will, keeping in mind that there are plenty of tactful ways to approach this by stating what you know and trying to arrive at some mutual understanding of the situation so that things don't turn more negative.
25:02
For instance, an exchange can happen where you simply say, "You know, I've noticed you've been online at every hour of the day recently. How are you managing the non-stop demands? How would you feel if maybe I took something off your plate for at least a week? How about this? How 'bout X, Y, or Z?" Give some specifics. You know, just as we talked about in Episode 3 about well spacing, it's critical to be aware of how your simple words can impact people, and a simple exchange like that can absolutely impact someone.
25:31
And while you might think that sharing your own stress and maybe some of your own negativity that you have in your life and a bit of that "misery loves company" that you likely have somewhere deep inside...you might think that sharing some of that can actually demonstrate empathy and be helpful. And the thing is, though, that can actually cause a person to further lose hope. If you're not asking yourself how your words might be received from somebody who's already in that place, and if all you're doing is validating what they've already shared with you, that is not positive.
26:02
And, of course, more important than words and actions is if you're able to actually help in some way—not just with words...if you're actually able to do something for someone. And I say this because I know at times when it was impossible for me to hide the stress and pressure and negativity of a given work situation, my awesome co-workers would do what most people would do and offer to help, offer to grab me lunch, offer to do whatever...but often in my stubbornness and my foolishness and my overconfidence or whatever, I'd utter the old "no thanks, I'm fine."
26:33
But when someone just goes ahead and drops a sandwich off on your desk without asking permission, or brings you a coffee you didn't agree to, or they "capture" one of the cupcakes someone set out in the break room before they all disappear and hand you one, that can feel like hitting the lottery.
26:50
And keep in mind it doesn't have to involve food or drink. And with everyone working remotely, it's not like physically handing food or drink to them is an option anyway. But a well-timed and thoughtful e-mail or message or text...or even some proactive task you're able to do remotely that they would normally do can be just as impactful. And obviously, depending on your specific roles and responsibilities, those options can vary. But if you ask yourself, "What are all the ways that I could help fuel someone who's tank is clearly depleted?" you'll undoubtedly come up with a few.
27:24
And if you shift gears to your relationships with your spouse or girlfriend or boyfriend, there's probably a laundry list (pun fully intended) of household chores you can assist with un-prompted and without seeking permission or making open ended and vague offers of assistance. And as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, these are not exactly earth-shattering tips, and these are things you certainly already know. And these are the type of recommendations, however, that can really stress you out if all you're hearing about is all these ways to help other people. while you’re one of the people that actually needs the help, and YOU have the depleted tank.
27:58
So, if you're one of people that can't fathom right now adding another thing to your plate, keep in mind that this can still be exactly why the message today is so important. Because if you're one of the people who feels drained of energy, there's no shame in communicating that to someone. There's no shame in saying you would love someone to drop a coffee off right now for you. And if there's an ounce (or 20 ounces) of guilt at the thought of asking someone for help, get over it!...you'll buy next time...you'll pay it forward...heck, you can pay it forward five-fold.
28:30
Because even if you can't stop someone from draining your energy, if you're on alert and if you set aside your ego, you're gonna be much closer to leading a life of fulfillment and sustainability. Regardless of whether you're the person in need of assistance or the person in a position to give assistance. But before you take my mention of fulfillment and sustainability as something positive, keep in mind that even people with limitless positive energy can be draining to others, too. In fact, sometimes the overly positive folks are more draining than negative folks who can be more easily dismissed.
29:00
And whether it's good or bad or neutral, the thing with people with a lot of energy is that they drain people who often are already down in some way. And what does that do? Well, it adds an "energy inequality," of sorts, where some people are all fired up and yelling at each other—again, maybe positively or negatively—while everyone else is sitting quietly in the corner. And that's not healthy in a business. It's not healthy in a family. And it's not healthy anywhere.
29:29
So, keep in mind that some people's energy is drained by or it's often generated from different sources. So, if you've done a Myers Briggs test, for example, you know that the E's of the world (the extroverts) derive energy from being around others, and the I's of the world (the introverts) are often drained from being around other people. And some of those E's out there might even thrive on conflict and enjoy arguing and may actually be fueled and energized by others, even others who are exhibiting negative energy.
29:58
And if you're one of those E's and you've listened to this point, you're probably rolling your eyes and saying that all of this negative energy talk is silly...but silly or not, and even if you are blessed to be immune to other people's negative energy, the point of The Energy Detox and this episode is to increase your awareness of how you impact others and to help you avoid unwittingly damaging your effectiveness as a leader.
30:23
So having some of these ideas in mind ain't gonna hurt. And I'd also argue that lots of conflict and whatever negative energy is derived from it is also the result of the same root causes we discussed earlier—a lack of knowledge and understanding. Take the heated debates on the coronavirus response over the last couple of weeks. Sure, there are personal experiences and individual factors and even political considerations that will color people's opinions. But often a heated argument is going to result from one or both sides having limited knowledge and understanding of the situation, with both sides trying to capture time, energy, and attention from the other, while everyone in the middle is left shaking their heads and potentially feeling drained.
31:10
So all that being said, we simply encourage you to be aware as you go throughout the day, that no matter how you feel, you are likely playing the role of both the drainer and the drainee to some degree. And it could make sense to stop on occasion to not just check your fuel tank, but also the tanks of all of your stakeholders.
31:32
With that being said, and turning to our final question for today, ask yourself…
In what ways do you prevent others from disproportionately stealing your energy...and how effective are you at ensuring the energy you share with others is as consistently positive, sustainable, and non-toxic as possible?
31:55
And as you ponder that, please allow me, your grateful host Joe Sinnott, to thank you sincerely for allowing me to capture some of your time and your attention today, with special acknowledgement to everyone out there who has been able to help others in need of burning off some of the steady flow of negative energy that is out there.
32:14
And if you'd like to learn more about The Energy Detox or our sponsor Witting Partners, please visit us at theenergydetox.com.
And until next time, remember that you have the power to choose to be like a tree, capturing CO2 and turning it into something good. And remember that it doesn't matter whether you see carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant or a necessary building block of life on Earth, because if you capture it and you stick to the natural process, the result is undoubtedly going to be positive.
Thanks again…and happy Earth Day!