Contagious You - 14 Practices to Cultivate your Superpowers

Contagious you by Anese Cavanaugh is an excellent book on leadership. It has also been selected to be one of the best business books of 2020. It is worth a peek for sure. I had reviewed her earlier book Contagious Culture here Contagious Culture. There is a concept which she has called Intentional energetic presence. For every interaction you can ask what your intention is, what impact you are having and the energy you are bringing to it. The key to the whole book is we should engage in self-care and we are contagious with our emotions and energy. All of us can be more aware of the effect our emotions and energy has on others.
There was a chapter on super powers which I liked. I have noted some of them down. Here they are with my take on each. 
Self-awareness - This is the starting point of all leadership. Daniel Goleman’s work also emphasizes self-awareness. To me self-awareness is all about knowing your strengths, goals, purpose and knowing where you must compensate for your areas of improvement. Starting with self-awareness is the key to great leadership.
Choice point- Our choices in life are limitless. To every choice we have the only thing in our control which is the response. As Victor Frankl said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Conscious thinking and beliefs – Every problem we have or any stressful event is due to the thoughts we think. If we become conscious about our thinking we have a better chance in controlling our response to events which are not favorable. Our beliefs are also the product of our thoughts.
Stay in your lane – When you stay in your own lane and don’t bother about what others are doing in their lives you will feel happier. It will also increase your sense of control. Don't compare your life with others lives as everybody is running their own lives in the way they think is right for them.
Intuition – We all have an inner voice which is our intuition or our gut feeling. It makes sense to listen to it most of the time to make better decisions and take more appropriate actions.
Decide – As Tony Robbins said, “It’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.” Everything in our life whether it is good or bad is due to the decisions we made. So, if we make better decisions our quality of life will improve. One book which I found interesting on this topic is Thinking in Bets. Make more important decisions earlier in the day when you have the most will power.
Acting as if – As it is often said fake it till you make it. Think you are already the person you want to be and act accordingly. Visualize in minute detail the person you want to be and take action towards living from your highest self.
Intention service and purpose – If you have a big enough why then you can bear any what. Your why is the purpose of your life. To know the purpose of your life you need to take some time to be alone with yourself. You can work through a journal to understand what your intention and purpose is.
Responsibility – The author advises us to think that “I am able to respond in best way I can.” To me responsibility is all about taking ownership for our life. We are responsible to how we feel about ourselves and our lives. It also increases a sense of control. 
Saying no – We cannot stretch ourselves in all directions. We must say no to the many so that we can say yes to the few important things in our life. As Stephen Covey said, “You can say no to something if you have a big enough yes.” 
Finding the gift and re-frame it – For every setback in your life you can find the gift in the adversity and then re-frame the situation to learn from it. As Napoleon Hill, famously said “Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent benefit.”
Forgiveness – This is not easy but if we think about it no one purposely does anything to hurt another person. I like what Marshall Goldsmith said, “Everyone does something because it is in their best interest to do that and not to hurt us.” Bottom line no one is out there to get us. If we also look in the mirror we will know we are far from perfect and we have made so many mistakes that it doesn’t make sense to get angry with someone else. When I am angry I just tell myself hey I am not perfect and I have done enough things which I can work on rather than being angry with someone else.
Conscious disengagement and play – We all have full calendars and sometimes finding the time to disengage is a luxury we cannot afford. However, it is an absolute necessity to sustain ourselves for our entire lives. For those of us who are at the mid-point in our lives it is more important to keep charging our batteries on a regular basis so that we last the distance. This requires thoughtful scheduling and finding activities are truly renewing. For me it is reading, exercising and writing. I do find time in the week to do all of them.
Behavioral flexibility – Flexibility is the name of the game in the 21st century. We cannot be rigid and with new information we should be able to change decisions immediately.
There you have it some of the superpowers that I enjoyed reading. There is so much in this book that it is worth reading the whole book to get the full benefit. Leadership begins with first caring for ourselves because if we are not at our best we cannot lead anyone else. Thanks for reading this post.
The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.