Focus 3 
The ability to create your own energy is one of the most important skills in the world.
Energy comes from two places: you create it from the inside or you catch it from the outside.
The main difference between creating energy and catching it is control. When you create energy, the source is you, which gives you control. When you catch energy, the source is your environment, giving it control.
Catching energy can have amazing benefits. When people around you are in a great mood, that energy is contagious. But so is the energy when people around you complain. That’s the danger.
The energy around you doesn’t always work for you. It can distract you, discourage you, and it will derail you if you catch it. Impatience, boredom, fear, jealousy, blame, complaining, and cynicism are a few common examples. People are constantly spreading these contagious but crippling attitudes. You see it at work, online, on TV, and for some of you, at home too. This kind of energy has the power and potential to capture your attention and control your mind.
If you don’t create your own energy, you catch the energy in your environment, mostly from the people in it. It gives them control over you. It means you are a prisoner to the mood in the office or at the dinner table.
There is a better way. Don’t be a prisoner of your circumstances. You control the energy you choose to create for yourself, regardless of the situation. Some people argue it is the most important skill in the world.
Environments, like people, are unstable and unpredictable. The world is crazy and people are crazier. You can’t rely on your environment to give you the energy to do disciplined things. You can’t rely on other people either. You can rely on yourself, if you train the right way.
The energy has to come from you. If you rely on external sources of energy to motivate you and move you, the countdown clock is already ticking toward your eventual failure.
If you learn how to create your own energy, then you are in the best possible position. You can confidently endure bad situations that derail others and you can capitalize on positive momentum swings because you’re prepared to be opportunistic. Some call this learnable skill “luck”. Preparing yourself for opportunity and adversity doesn’t make you lucky. It makes you ready.
