Upping Your Elvis

Chris Barez-Brown

Description

Upping Your Elvis is best described as a big energetic boost in a book. Learn how we're not naturally designed for business and how we spend far too much energy trying to fit in with its needs rather than the other way around. We're fish out of water-and it's sucking the life out of us. Packed full of simple tips and behaviours that will transform the way you show up, Chris Barez-Brown's latest book helps people understand what makes them tick, liberating them from the restrictive systems of traditional business and opening their eyes to a new way of working and living. This is the handbook to help you find your inner Elvis, that special mix of authenticity, energy, focus, talent and courage that is unique to you.

Sujets

• Strategic management

Informations

• Publié par: Distributed by eBookpartnership
• Date de parution: 25 mars 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781913532659
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the United Kingdom by Upping Your Elvis in 2021.
www.uppingyourelvis.com
Copyright © Chris Baréz-Brown 2021
Chris Baréz-Brown has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The information in this book was put together from experiments conducted with leading wellness experts. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-913532-63-5 (print) | ISBN 978-1-913532-64-2 (Audio) | ISBN 978-1-913532-65-9 (Ebook)
Project managed by Christopher Wold, whitefox Edited by Nicola Rijsdijk | Proofread by Melissa Fagan Design and illustration by Karen Lilje, Hybrid Creative
Printed and bound by Balto Print, Lithuania

1 .

“Who is Elvis round here?” 02

2 .

Human by design 15

Our physical design 18
Eat well 20 Move 22 Manage your chemicals 24 Rest 26 Sleep 28

Our mental design 30
Focus 32 Escape autopilot 34 Fix your space 36

Our emotional design 38
Feel your feelings 40 Find your best work 42

Our spiritual design 44
Find meaning 46 Connect 48
3 .

How to Up Your Elvis 53

Warm-up hack 56
Hack #1 Fuck-it fund 57
Get your energy right 58
Hack #2 Oxygen alchemy 61 Hack #3 You snooze, you win 62 Hack #4 Eat like your ancestors 64 Hack #5 Get in rhythm, live your beat 67 Hack #6 Morning routine 68
Get laser-focused 70
Hack #7 Set it up 72 Hack #8 Big Thing 74 Hack #9 Diary cull 78 Hack #10 Zoning 80 Hack #11 Go monk 81

Go deep 82
Hack #12 Talk It Out 84 Hack #13 Devil, be gone! 86 Hack #14 Grow you 90 Hack #15 The right space 92 Hack #16 Purpose 94
Get your freak on 98
Hack #17 Standards 100 Hack #18 Get fresh 102 Hack #19 Experiments 104 Hack #20 Call it 107 Hack #21 Share the love 108
Bonus hacks 110
Hack #22 Lunch time, me time 112 Hack #23 Write it out 113 Hack #24 Cut the crap 114 Hack #25 Reflect 115

1 .
When Bono was on his “Drop the Debt” campaign, he used to visit organisations keen to know who could
make shit happen .
So he used to ask,
2.
Who is Elvis round here?

It’s a great question.
By asking it you will find
The mavericks . The rule-breakers . The ones with lots of energy . The creatives and the agitators . People with swagger and charisma . Those who stand out by being themselves .
5.
Business needs Elvis now more than ever . And each and every one of us has an Elvis within .
6.
At Upping Your Elvis, we’ve devoted more than a decade to helping some of the biggest and best companies on the planet succeed – and we’ve done that by getting people to Up Their Elvis.
Each and every one of us has an Elvis within, and you’ll know when you’ve found your Elvis when it just feels right. My Elvis will look different to yours, because you are the only Elvis of your kind.
You are unique.
And right now, you have everything you need to lead the most extraordinary life.
The chance of you being here is so crazily small that you were just meant to be. You can’t fight it, even though you will try.
You were born to be you. Nothing else will do.
When we are truly ourselves, we breathe more deeply and smile more often. By being you, you can relax and be comfortable in your own skin. By being you, your worries and anxieties disappear. Every day is your best day. Everything is just as it should be.
It just fits.
You are amazing. You are special. You have a unique set of talents.
And you’re a bit weird. We all have our little oddities, those things that make us who we are ... Maybe it’s a passion for sunrises, the way you hum when you think, that particular way of making a cup of tea, or an intuition for when a friend needs a call.
When we embrace our kinks, the world spins better.
You may have your best ideas walking the dog. You may be able to concentrate best early in the day before the craziness begins. You may find you are most happy when working with a team. These things are part of your nature, and when you embrace them, they become your superpowers.
Far too many people hide their superpowers away – but not you. It’s time to let your freak out.
It’s time to up your Elvis .
7.
But before we talk more about you, I need to tell you ...
A story about puppies
Stacey joined a big corporate 15 years ago as a graduate trainee. She was optimistic, excited and ambitious.
Two weeks into her new career, she went on an insight immersion into a low-income neighbourhood to learn how people lived with a lot less money than she was used to. Stacey was moved by this eye-opening experience.
On the way back to the bus with her colleagues, she heard a noise coming from a discarded tyre on the side of the road. In it, she found three abandoned puppies.
She knew she couldn’t save them all, but she decided she could save one. So she picked up a puppy and carried it onto the bus.
Her new colleagues laid into her.
8.
You have to toughen up if you’re going to get ahead in this business
You have to be more professional
You can’t be so emotional
Many years later, she realised she had done just that. She’d become tougher, less emotional and more professional ... And she’d stopped picking up puppies.
What happened to Stacey happens to us all. She didn’t just wake up one day and say, “From this moment on, I will be professional”.
Instead, bit by bit, day by day, she changed her behaviour because she wanted to fit in.
We all have an inbuilt need to be accepted by our group. It’s a powerful compulsion, and it’s coded into our very design. That’s because 50,000 years ago, our tribe was vital to our survival – it’s what we relied on for protection and support.
9.
Today, most of us are constantly being socialised towards the established norms of our work teams and leaders. That’s great for building relationships and a sense of belonging – but the downer is that over time we can become disconnected from who we really are.
And that means we stop being unique and extraordinary. We lose our individual superpowers. (And we stop picking up puppies.)
Work is a huge part of who we are. It presents amazing opportunities to grow and develop, create meaningful impact, forge lasting relationships and support our families. But the balance is increasingly off.
Work is shaping us rather than being shaped by us.
The truth is, we humans simply aren’t designed for today’s workplaces. We’re fish out of water – and it’s sucking the life out of us.
Most businesses are designed for efficiency, command and control, conformity and certainty – and we’ve been trained to work in that way. We get sweeties when we’re good and detention when we’re bad. We never get the full picture and yet we’re expected to live corporate values as part of a big soup of talent. We’re in endless meetings or we sit at our desks looking at screens. Our leaders believe we need managing and reviewing to stay on track. They encourage consistent behaviours and values against which we are measured.
And as the days merge, it all starts to feel incredibly monotonous ...
Deep down, we know we can be more, deliver more, feel more. But unless we adapt our relationship with work, our energies will always be restricted and poorly dissipated. And since one third of our days on this planet are workdays, not loving what we are doing is a terrible waste of life.
10.
It’s time to get the balance back . It’s time to start being you .
Business needs you to be you! Gone are the days when success came from sweating your assets. That may work for production lines, finances and distribution systems – but not for people.
Why? Because people aren’t all the same. We each have distinct talents and hopes and dreams. (And we generally don’t like to be sweated.) People need to be celebrated, nurtured, supported and appreciated – it’s the only way to win. By deliberately stepping out of restrictive systems so we can work to our specific personal makeup, we will shine more brightly.
That’s positive action.
Business used to be predictable. These days, nothing is certain – there’s no model for business and no guarantees. What we need today is to escape the confines of the traditional business world, and yet keep the ability to dip into the good bits when needed. Yes, there’ll be times when the leaders of business won’t appreciate our noble act – but that is the nature of change.
We do this not only to make our lives and our work more brilliant, but to help the businesses in which we work do the same. And it needs to be done because the only chance for meaningful success is for you to show up every day and truly be yourself.
That way, each person does what they know is right. Each person brings their creativity, resourcefulness and personality into each moment to answer the question, “What is needed here?”
That’s how you get every day to count.
We have everything we need right now to be extraordinary. And when you feel valued, you stop doing unimportant things. You do the stuff that counts, and you do it in your own special way. Of course it’s easier to stay small and fit in. But who wants easy when life could be so much more?
That’s Upping Your Elvis .
11.