The Energy Bus

The Energy Bus is a fable that will help you create positive energy with ten simple rules and make it the center of your life, work, and relationships.

The hero of this story is George. He works at a light bulb company and is in a similarly negative situation Jon was in several years ago. Worse, one Monday, his car breaks down and he finds out that, for the next two weeks, he’ll have to take the bus. What he doesn’t know is that from the moment he gets on, his life is about to change.

The bus driver, Joy, is committed to unleashing the positive energy in every single one of her passengers. To do so, she shares ten rules with everyone on the bus. The first few are about regaining control over your life if you feel you’ve lost it. Since positive energy is the only proper fuel for a good journey, which is the third rule, we should focus on the upside of everything, Joy says.

She shares the E + P = O formula with George, which means that energy plus perception equals outcome. And if your perception is positive, you’ll always have a positive outcome. This is similar to the Stoic idea of ‘amor fati,’ which means to love your fate, no matter what it brings. It’s the difference between thinking life happens to you and life happens for you.

You can’t control everything that happens, but you can control what you believe about what happens. If you focus on gratitude, solving problems, and learning new things, you’ll always come out on top.

The seventh rule is that enthusiasm is what’ll get other people to join you on your ride on the bus and motivate them as you travel through life. The word is originally Greek – entheos – and means “to be filled with the divine.” Joy tells George that he is the CEO of his bus and life – the Chief Energy Officer. It’s on him to spread his positive energy to as many people as possible. And when your good energy is sincere, that’s easier than you’d think. If you’ve ever heard a friend rave about some product, event, or person, you know how easy it is to get caught in the wave. Enthusiasm is contagious. Over thousands of centuries, humans have evolved to understand emotions from afar. One example is our body language. Jon also quotes a study that showed our heart has its own electromagnetic field, and the waves it sends can be sensed by others, even if they’re up to ten feet away! So don’t just look for the positive, share it with others. We don’t always have a…