Fastoration

Creating space for energy renewal is vital to effective leadership, but restorative practices don’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. In this episode, Ralph and Bill discuss the four key areas of energy renewal, and coining the phrase “Fastoration,” suggest ways to simply and efficiently fit them into a full schedule. Listen, and discover ways to optimize your daily routine – and your leadership.

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Bill Berthel: Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast. Our podcasts are focused on individual team and organizational development. We focus on leadership topics and provide concepts, ideas, and pragmatic tips and practices for all leaders. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone: And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel: Ralph, I love today’s topic. We even made up a word for it.

Restoration. What is fastoration?

Ralph Simone: Oh. That could be anything you want, but, but here’s what we think it is in, in the context of energy and essential activities. It’s the essential and efficient restoration in four key areas.

Bill Berthel: I love it. I think I need to get committed to this. So what are these four areas of energy renewal that we can commit to?

Ralph Simone: So these are four areas that probably most of our listeners are familiar with, but we’re gonna make it simpler. We’re going to make it harder for them to stay out of action in these areas. So the first one is the one that most everyone is familiar with. Physical. Hmm. You know, the things that we’re doing to restore, replenish our physical energy.

Now remember we’ve talked about this a number of times. Leadership is an energetic activity. Yeah. And in order to be leading and living at higher levels of performance and consciousness, we need to be restoring ourselves in these four areas. So physical’s one of ’em. You know, that’s exercise, that’s hydration, that’s nutrition, that’s sleep.

But one of the things you, we don’t have to complicate it. It doesn’t have to be extensive hours upon hours. I, I remember coaching a guy years ago. He thought that a workout was only worthwhile if it was over two hours in length. Hmm. This was a busy executive who was working 60 – 70 hours a week. So you can guess how many windows of opportunity he had for a two hour workout.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, I was gonna say, if that’s the definition of a workout, I’m not sure I’ve ever worked out in my life.

Ralph Simone: No, this is No. But you’ve done fastoration and I think one of the things that we’re gonna shift people’s perspective is how that they can build these essential things in with, without it being burdensome to them.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So what’s the second area of energy renewal?

Ralph Simone: Second one is spiritual and you know, that’s really, you know, taking a little bit of time each day to reflect, to contemplate on those things that are most important to you. The things that bring you purpose and meaning. I mean, the word inspire means in spirit.

And when we can connect to that deeper, yes, it gives us the energy to kind of soldier through some of the challenges that we might encounter during the day.

Bill Berthel: I think revisiting our values, going to those fundamental building blocks of our human dynamic of values is so important in this space.

Ralph Simone: Yeah. And it doesn’t mean sitting on a, you know, a mat and meditating for 15 or 20 minutes.

It might be, particularly for type A people, it might be walking. Yeah. And while walking, contemplating those values. And so again, I think people look at things, they look at it very narrowly. They see it as limiting, but again, fastoration, you can from point A to point B, you can be mindful of your walking and focused on your values.

Bill Berthel: Yeah. So spiritual is meaning and purpose. What’s the third area of fastoration?

Ralph Simone: Well, I think it’s the other one that many of us are familiar with, although some stop doing it after school, and that’s mental energy renewal. Yeah. You know, that’s hobbies that bring us joy, that challenge our mental acuity, you know, woodworking, uh, working on cars, uh, doing wordle, which I was a little, uh, under the weather today on, in fact, I didn’t even know the word after they showed me the answer.

But those kinds of things that keep us mentally sharp. Remember, you know, we’re leading and many organizations. It’s a very mental activity and I think this is where, you know, learning is critical.

Bill Berthel: Learning or challenging our thinking process. Something is I, I, I love it. You mentioned wordle. Most people are solving that in three to five minutes or not solving it, and that’s okay.

But it has us in that cognitive process of thinking a little differently than we may be thinking through the day.

Ralph Simone: Yeah. I solve it or not solve it in three to five minutes every day. Exactly. And I think one of the things here is that as we look at these things, we’re not talking about a significant time commitment, but we are talking about an intentional commitment to this fastoration daily. Daily, an integrated effort. Right?

Bill Berthel: What’s that fourth fastoration area we can focus on?

Ralph Simone: We, we were having some fun before we got on this podcast around the social emotional mm-hmm. , right? And so that’s, you know, reaching out to people that, uh, energize you.

It’s also really being in tune to the emotions. You know, kind of motivate you and the ones that perhaps trigger or limit you. And so it’s really emotional intelligence. But I, I was telling the story of my kids sometimes when their, when their energy emotionally is low. I said, call a friend. Yeah, call somebody that you used to, you know, yuck it up with, have a lot of fun.

I mean, I have a buddy that I don’t think we’ve had a serious conversation. We have had a couple, but most of it, I just call ’em up. We joke about something from the past, , we’re laughing like hell, we hang up, but there’s a huge, huge energy shift. Sometimes it takes less than five minutes, and so all of these things in fastoration.

I think we need to be intentional. We need to be mindful, but even physical, you can get a good workout in 17 minutes. Yeah, absolutely. You, you know, the what? The high intensity interval training, you can get the heart rate up, right? Or get or walk the dog where you can take care of the physical piece. You could take care of the social emotional piece, right?

And pay attention to your dog, right? You’re gonna learn some things just in that. I think we make way too much of something that is essential to our effectiveness as leaders and as parents and as neighbors, is that we must take care of those four areas. And I think fastoration is a really efficient way to do it.

Bill Berthel: Oh, I love that. You know, as you talked about the buddy you have that you’re able to call, I, I’m lucky enough to have that relationship with my own brother and oftentimes we get together to help each other with a project and you know, our wives will often comment, you guys gonna get anything done today?

And we defend that we’re getting more than just this project done today. Right? We’re reconnecting, we’re laughing, we’re recharging that social emotional area.

Ralph Simone: It’s, it’s integrated.

It’s gotta be all serious to get stuff done? I gotta tell you, when you’re more playful, I think you’re looser. When you’re looser, I think you have a greater opportunity to perform in flow state. And what are we looking for in people and organizations? We’re looking for that optimal performance and flow state in order to have that, you gotta have energy. In order, have the energy you need to be working in these four areas, but not so long that it becomes cumbersome.

Bill Berthel: No, it’s fastoration. It’s the essential and efficient restoration, energy renewal in these four focused areas, and that’s what we’re asking our listeners to consider, experiment with on a daily basis. Your commitment to restoration in these four areas of energy.

And you can listen to a new podcast two times a month here at Get Emergent, where we will bring you contemporary leadership topics and ideas, balanced with best practices you can apply in your leadership.