PDF Summary:The Energy Bus, by Jon Gordon
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1-Page PDF Summary of The Energy Bus
At times, most of us have felt unmotivated, discouraged, and as though things were falling apart. In this short parable, The Energy Bus, author and motivational speaker Jon Gordon explains how to turn things around when this happens. The allegory about a middle manager hitting rock bottom takes place on a bus, where the driver and passengers share with him 10 rules for reenergizing his life through positive thinking. Practicing these simple principles can help you build successful teams at work and improve your relationships. Like the story’s main character, George, you can learn to enjoy life’s ride.
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5) Don’t waste effort on those who don’t want to join you
Don’t waste energy worrying about people who don’t share your vision or on trying to change their minds. There will always be people who don’t want to ride your bus, or be part of your team. Don’t take it personally—maybe another bus would be a better fit for them, or they’d be a disruptive presence on your bus anyway.
6) Ban “energy vampires”
The people you surround yourself with have a big impact on whether you succeed. Some people increase your energy and your team’s energy, and some people sap it. The latter are energy vampires, who will suck the life out of you and your projects if you allow them to. They’ll make everyone else miserable and even sabotage your bus.
You need to eliminate any negativity—including negative people—standing between you/your team and your goals. That means refusing to tolerate negativity: make clear to everyone where you’re going, that you need a positive team, and that anyone who’s negative is off the project. If the naysayers don’t change, kick them off your team.
7) Be enthusiastic: it attracts and energizes others
You need to project energy in order to succeed personally and professionally. Without it, you can’t inspire or lead others. Successful people are CEOs, or chief energy officers. They exude positive energy, optimism, and excitement about their lives and work. They aren’t discouraged by challenges, but welcome them as opportunities to grow.
Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, which means inspired or filled with the divine. When you bring this level of inspired energy to everything you do, others feel it and want to be on your team.
8) Show you care about your team
To inspire others, you also need to become a “love magnet” by demonstrating caring and commitment to your family, company, employees, and customers. While it sounds trite, the truth is that what everyone wants most is to be loved. Your employees want your love too. You can give them awards, gifts, and raises, but these are soon forgotten. What sticks with them is a sense of whether you really care about them and are committed to their future. When they know you care about them, they respond in kind by being loyal and doing great work. In contrast, if you treat them as just a means to your next promotion, you’ll get cynicism in return.
9) Have a larger purpose
Purpose is the most important fuel additive for your journey. Knowing your purpose keeps you energized and focused and prevents burnout. For instance, Joy saw herself not only as a bus driver, but also as a life coach, helping people find their energy and change their lives. This gave her a sense of purpose that inspired her and her passengers. Purpose infuses your everyday life with passion.
10) Enjoy your ride
Since we have only one life, we should enjoy it. Often, people spend their lives stressing over small or unimportant things—for instance, emails, deadlines, arguments, and trivial inconveniences—and overlook the beauty around them. But on the day you die, you’ll still have a pile of unopened emails. So don’t worry about such small things—focus instead on finding joy in each moment. Live each day with purpose and joy.
George Turns Things Around
To begin generating his own positive energy, George began “feeding the positive dog.” The “positive dog” metaphor came from a story that Joy shared of a man who felt pulled in two directions. It was as if there were two dogs inside him battling for dominance: a positive, kind, gentle dog and a negative, angry, mean dog. The man asked the village elder which dog would win. The elder replied, “the one you feed, so feed the positive dog.”
George fed his positive dog by listing what he was grateful for each day and reminding himself of his biggest success of the day before falling asleep, rather than obsessing about the things that had gone wrong.
To pull his team members together and get them moving in the same direction, he met with each person, shared his vision and expectations, and invited them to get on the bus. He handed out bus tickets from the Energy Bus website and asked each team member who wanted to join him to hand in their tickets once they’d decided.
Three team members refused to join and two others, who were problem employees, joined the team but tried to sabotage it. So George met again with each of these people. He realized the two troublemakers were energy vampires, so he gave them an ultimatum to be positive or to leave. One quit and he fired the other. Of the three who refused to join, one quit and the other two later relented.
After eliminating his energy vampires, George demonstrated caring for his team, particularly for a hardworking member, José, who’d become discouraged because George had never expressed appreciation for his efforts. José was one of the three who initially declined to join the team; he changed his mind when George sincerely apologized for taking him for granted.
Next, George worked with the team to formulate a larger purpose beyond successfully introducing the company’s new lightbulb. They decided their purpose was to bring warmth and brighten people’s lives. Motivated with new passion, George’s team achieved one of the most successful new product launches in the company’s history. They were even more enthusiastic about their potential for achieving more great things in the future. George kept his job and shared with his bosses the secret of spreading positivity.
George’s wife told him she’d noticed a big difference in him—for instance, she said that he complained less, showed his love by spending more time with the family, and was positive and enthusiastic. She felt she’d regained the man she’d married and their marriage was back on track. He resolved that, going forward, he would try to live each day with purpose and joy.
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PDF Summary Introduction
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While this fable has a business setting, it’s written for everyone—the story’s 10 simple “rules” for creating positive energy can lead not only to business success, but also to greater happiness.
PDF Summary Chapters 1-3: Rock Bottom
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Finally, his boss and his wife both gave him ultimatums: shape up or face losing his job and his marriage. With his life in disarray, he needed to pull together his floundering team at work for the introduction of a new lightbulb, on which his and the company’s future depended.
The next day, as George headed once more for the bus stop, he realized Joy was right: his life was a soap opera.
PDF Summary Chapters 4-7: The Energy Bus Rules
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In reality, you have the choice to create your life—it’s your bus, you’re in the driver’s seat, and you determine what kind of ride it will be. As Joy was explaining this, George remarked that other people, like his boss and his wife, seemed to be making most of his decisions for him. The power of choice is your greatest gift, Joy said. When you claim it, everything starts to change.
Energy Is the Key
Understanding the role of energy is important to applying the 10 rules of the road in your life. Energy is always at work in life and the world around you.
For instance, Joy explained, some people increase your energy and some sap it; some foods increase your energy, while other foods make you sleepy; some projects energize you, and some burn you out.
Energy exists in crowds, music, and thoughts. Attendees at a sporting event can feel the energy of the players, teams, and crowd. Announcers often comment that a team is playing with a lot of energy or lacks energy. Coaches know when players are in sync (feeding off each others’ energy) or out of sync.
Thoughts also are a form of energy. People can sometimes sense what a friend or colleague is thinking or predict what...
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Learn more about our summaries →PDF Summary Chapters 8-10: George Chooses a Vision
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Simply put, thoughts are magnetic, Joy said. So she instructed George to focus on his visions for at least 10 minutes each day and visualize himself creating the results he wanted—for instance, revitalizing his marriage or uniting his team at work. Athletes often use this technique to visualize winning performances.
However, she noted that because thoughts attract like energy, it’s important to focus your thoughts on what you want, rather than what you don’t want or are afraid will happen because you don’t want to attract the negative. And don’t be a complainer because complaining brings you more things to complain about. It also uses up mental energy that you could spend creating what you want.
George didn't have a better idea so he decided to give visualization a try. The new lightbulb launch was looming.
PDF Summary Chapter 11: Creating Positive Energy
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To help George generate positive energy, Joy gave him a book of stories and exercises she often shared with passengers called The Energy Book. They read a story aloud before the bus reached George’s office building.
It told of a man who felt pulled in two directions. It was as if there were two dogs inside him battling for dominance: a positive, kind, gentle dog and a negative, angry, mean dog. The man asked the village elder which dog would win. The elder replied, “the one you feed, so feed the positive dog.”
PDF Summary Chapters 12-15: George’s Bus
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Joy directed George to an Energy Bus website where he could generate “bus tickets” for inviting people on board, and email or hand-deliver them to his team members along with a message explaining his vision and expectations for the team. As Joy explained, you not only need to invite people to join you—you must tell them where you’re going and how you plan to get there so they know what they’re signing up for.
George’s plan for the day, Friday, was to:
- Meet individually with each person and share his vision.
- Give each person a bus ticket with the instructions: now that you know where I’m going, return the ticket by Monday at 9 if you’re ready to get on board.
PDF Summary Chapters 16-22: Overcoming Negativity
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Regarding George’s three wolves—the people who declined to get on his bus—Joy told him not to waste energy worrying about them or trying to change their minds (Rule #5). There will always be people who don’t want to get on your bus. Don’t take it personally, she said—maybe another bus would be a better fit for them, or they’d be a disruptive presence on your bus anyway.
The more energy you expend on naysayers, the less you have for those who joined your team and for inviting new people. Successful salespeople understand this—they shrug off rejection and focus their energy on getting new customers.
Rule #6: Ban ‘Energy Vampires’ from Your Bus
George agreed not to waste energy on his three “wolves” who rejected his invitation—however, he still had to do something about the two troublemakers, Tom and Larry, who were already on his bus.
This was where Rule #6—ban ‘energy vampires’—came in, Joy told him. The people we surround ourselves with have a big impact on whether we succeed. Some people increase your energy and your team’s, and some people drain it. The latter are energy vampires, who will suck the life out of you and your projects if you allow them to. They’ll...
PDF Summary Chapters 23-25: Leading from the Heart
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What this means, Joy said, is that we’re broadcasting positive or negative energy from our hearts and people are picking up on it. We can sense or feel people’s hearts (their true feelings) and know if they’re being sincere or fake. Similarly, employees tune in to the energy of their leaders.
Become a Chief Energy Officer
Joy explained to George that to boost his team’s energy, he needed to broadcast his positive energy by tapping into the power of his heart. You lead from the heart by becoming the CEO, or chief energy officer of your workplace, she said. In fact, anyone in a business can be a chief energy officer by sharing positive energy with coworkers, employees, and customers.
Energy is an essential ingredient of personal and professional success. Without it, you can’t inspire or lead others. Emotional intelligence, which is a business buzzword popularized by a book with that title by Daniel Goleman, is another way of referring to energy from the heart. (Shortform note: Read our summary of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.)
Several studies have found that emotional intelligence is the...
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PDF Summary Chapters 26-27: Love is the Answer
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As a starting point, Joy suggested that George focus on bringing out the best in each member of his team; he should help them discover the inner value they possess.
She asked George for the rock she’d given him. After he handed it over, she wiped it with a towel and the black coating came off, revealing it to be gold. The lesson was that everyone has valuable qualities under the surface. Part of caring is bringing out the best in others, or helping them to shine. When a manager discovers and allows employees to use their strengths, the individual’s and team’s value increase.
As George stepped off the bus at his office building, a fellow passenger handed him a sheet of paper listing five ways to love your passengers, or show people you care. He sat down on a bench to read it before going inside.
Five Ways to Show Caring
1) Make time for them: Spend time with your employees. Instead of isolating yourself behind a desk, come out of your office and get to know your team. Meet with them one-on-one and get to know them as individuals. Be engaged with them, rather than thinking of other things or multitasking. Focus your energy on them and they will feel it.
2)...
PDF Summary Chapter 28-30: Teamwork
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Since George had worked late into the night, he overslept the next day and didn’t catch the usual bus to work. However, in his office, he found a letter from Joy, which had been delivered by one of the passengers. The letter explained Rule #9—Have a larger purpose—which turned out to be the key insight George was looking for.
Joy wrote that purpose is the most important fuel additive for your journey. Knowing your purpose keeps you energized and prevents burnout. She told a story about a visit President Lyndon Johnson made to NASA. Johnson is said to have encountered an energetic janitor in a hallway and remarked that the man was the best janitor he’d ever seen. The man replied that he was more than a janitor—by working on the NASA team, he contributed to the moon mission. The janitor was motivated to excel at his job because he felt part of a bigger purpose and mission.
Similarly, Joy saw herself not only as a bus driver, but also as an “energy ambassador,” helping people find their energy and change their lives. This gave her purpose, and her sense of purpose inspired her passengers. Purpose infuses your everyday life with passion.
Many companies and their employees...
PDF Summary Chapters 31-32: Things Come Together
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- Reflect more and live in the moment
- Take more chances
- Leave a legacy
The bottom line is, you should enjoy each day and live with purpose and joy. Joy’s advice to George was that your best legacy isn’t possessions you pass on or your accomplishments, but a positive impact on others.
George was aware that today could be his last day with the company, but regardless of the outcome, he’d taken charge of his life and was ready to enjoy it.
The Presentation
The NRG Company’s leaders expected George’s presentation to be disastrous. His performance had been slipping, and after the presentation, they were prepared to appoint someone else to take over his team and get the product launch on track. It would be George’s last day.
George could see their doubt reflected in their faces. But as his fear started to build, he remembered Joy saying that his positive energy had to be greater than anyone’s negativity.
He pictured Joy’s smiling face and a calm came over him. He knew he would have failures in his life, but today’s presentation wouldn’t be one of them.
George and his team proceeded to deliver one of the best product launches in the company’s history. The...
PDF Summary Chapters 33-34: Living With Joy
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7) Cultivate positive energy and enthusiasm: Engage and energize each other daily so negative energy can’t take hold. Build a culture of positive energy.
8) Confront ‘energy vampires:’ Identify negative team members who are hindering the team’s success. Give them a chance to succeed, but if they continue to be negative, eliminate them from the team.
9) Learn from challenges: Expect to experience challenges. Ask: What can we learn from this; how can we grow from it; what opportunity does this challenge present?
10) Love your team members: Let your team know you care about them and are committed to their success. Ask: How can I bring out the best in them; how can I spend more time with them and listen better?
11) Enjoy the ride: Remember that teamwork doesn’t need to be painful—it should be fun. Ask: How can we have fun and accomplish more; teamwork isn’t only about reaching a goal—it’s about growing as individuals and a team in the process.