ENERGY

When you zoom out far enough, you realize the entire game is controlled by one variable: energy. Energy is everything: love, loyalty, computing, heat, electricity, labor, food, water, gas, etc. An abundance of energy creates prosperity, growth, and accomplishment. A shortage of energy produces societal chaos, famines, inflation, and revolutions. Energy is at the heart of everything: our economy, our government, our communities, families, and our individual lives. Everyone — corporations, governments, relationships, distractions — is competing for it. If you don’t value your energy, someone else will. Guard it, or the world will siphon it away before you ever get anything meaningful done.

Companies want cheap labor because they want cheap energy. The lower the cost of human output, the more energy they can stockpile for themselves. When a country exhausts all its resources not to build society but to line pockets and stay in power, their wealth (energy) starts to fade, and they must suck all the energy out of every vacuum until there’s nothing left. People and institutions want to suck the energy out of your life to benefit themselves. If you understand this, you’ll understand more of how the world works. When countries go bankrupt, they want you because you have the stored energy that will keep them running.

If you’re a communist dictator and you control everything, you’re going to keep your people down. Take Kim Jung Un from North Korea as an example. He keeps his population misinformed, malnourished, and isolated. Why? Because a population with no physical energy, no informational energy, and no economic energy has zero ability to organize, revolt, or even imagine change.

A starving mind can’t strategize.

A starving body can’t fight.

A starving population can’t rebel.

Energy is the name of the game.

Where this is applicable is to you, the individual.

Think about it…. How you use your energy in the gym (if you decide to even go to the gym) will determine whether you’re jacked or not, whether you have a six pack or a gut, a dad-bob or a comic book like physique that looks like it was sculpted by Michaelangelo himself.

How do you allocate your energy in your work? Are you doing mundane tasks that can be allocated to a much greater mission? Something that will challenge you and align with your burning purpose for life? If you’re doing what you have to do and you don’t love your job, but you need to pay the bills, the most important thing to look at it is how are you allocating the outputs of your energy — the dollars and cents? Are you burning it on people, habits, and routines that don’t serve your long-term goals?

For a long time, I believed that the world revolved around capital allocation. It seemed like the ultimate skill—deciding where resources should flow to generate the greatest return. Eventually, I realized that this is only a narrow slice of a much larger pie. The true foundation is energy allocation. Capital is merely one form of stored energy, but it isn’t the root. Everything begins with the energy you choose to spend: your attention, your discipline, your effort, your creativity. Money is simply a downstream tool. Once you understand that, everything changes.

Your energy is the most sacred resource you have. Everyone’s competing for it. You make or break your life with how much importance you place on this commodity of yours. Is it for good, evil, productive or wasteful endeavors? The answer when looking back will determine the quality of life you have and the things you accomplish.

Allocate your energy wisely, my friend. Your life depends on it.