Energy Giver Or A Shoulder Tightener Artwork

Time & Energy Morning Brief™️

Each weekday morning, I record a short audio reflection on leadership, performance, relationships, values, and what it means to show up well for the people and things that matter most.

It's five intentional minutes before the world starts asking things of you.

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Time & Energy Morning Brief™️

Energy Giver Or A Shoulder Tightener

October 06, 2026 • Nick Lakoduk • Season 1 • Episode 48

0:00 | 4:01

Some conversations don’t just fill time, they change your internal battery. You walk away with more energy than you brought in, or you feel a quiet heaviness you can’t fully explain. We dig into that exact experience through the lens of relational energy, the research backed idea that human interactions can give us psychological energy or take it away.

We talk about what the studies suggest: when people experience more relational energy with leaders, they show higher engagement later on, and performance improves through that engagement. That’s a big deal for leadership, workplace culture, and team communication, because it means the “after” of a conversation matters as much as the content. We also challenge the usual idea of presence. Presence isn’t charisma, volume, or pumping people up. Presence is the impact your presence has on others. When someone finishes a conversation with us, what are they left with: confidence, clarity, possibility, or tension and confusion?

We also make space for reality: you don’t need to be relentlessly positive, and you sometimes have to deliver hard news or say the thing someone doesn’t want to hear. The distinction we lean on is powerful and practical: taking energy from someone versus asking something meaningful of their energy. To bring it home, we share a simple daily check you can use after any interaction to build self awareness and become the person who leaves people better than you found them. If this helped, subscribe, share it with a friend or teammate, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

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Morning Brief And A Simple Question

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Good morning. Here's the time and energy morning brief for Wednesday, October seventh, twenty twenty six. Five intentional minutes before the world starts asking things of us. I've had a lot of conversations lately that I've walked away from feeling better than I did when they started. Nothing remarkable necessarily happened. Maybe it was a good meeting, coffee with somebody I enjoy, a conversation with a client, a buddy I hadn't talked to in a while, but you know, the feeling you leave with a little more energy than you brought in. And we've all experienced the opposite. Nothing terrible happens. Nobody says anything particularly offensive, but somehow you walk away feeling a little heavier. There's actually some interesting research

Relational Energy And The Research

SPEAKER_00 1:01

around this. Researchers use the term relational energy to describe the psychological energy we gain from interacting with another person. And it matters. Across several studies, employees who experience greater relational energy in interactions with their leaders showed greater engagement later on. Another study found relational energy was positively associated with later job performance through engagement. In other words, what happens between people during an interaction can affect what happens after it. I like that because we tend to think about energy as something we bring into

Presence Is Impact Not Charisma

SPEAKER_00 1:34

a room. Did I sleep enough? Am I prepared? Am I stressed? Am I in a good mood? Those things matter, but we're also affecting the energy of the people we're interacting with. That's an important part of what we mean by presence at time and energy. Presence is the impact your presence has on others. Not charisma, not being the loudest person in the room, not walking around trying to pump everybody up. It's the effect we have on people. When somebody finishes a conversation with us, what are they left with? More confidence, more clarity, more possibility, or more tension, more confusion, more weight. The goal isn't to be relentlessly positive. That would be exhausting in its own way and probably pretty annoying. Sometimes leadership requires delivering difficult news. Sometimes being a good friend means having a hard conversation. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can

Hard Truths Without Draining People

SPEAKER_00 2:29

say to somebody isn't what they want to hear. But even in those moments, there's a difference between taking energy from someone and asking something meaningful of their energy. I think that's an important distinction. We interact with people all day long, co-workers, customers, friends, our spouse, our kids. The person behind the counter. Most of those interactions aren't particularly memorable, but they still have an impact. Think about the person who consistently makes you feel a little better when you talk to them. Now think about the person whose name pops up on your phone and you can almost feel your shoulders tighten. We know these people. And if we're being fair, we're one of these people for everyone else too. So here's something to pay attention to

A Daily Check After Conversations

SPEAKER_00 3:10

today. After a conversation, don't only ask yourself how it went, ask what the other person left with. Did they leave with more confidence, more clarity, more energy? Or did the interaction make things heavier? We won't get every interaction right. That's not the point. The point is that how we show up affects other people. The research supports it and we experience it all the time. That's presence. The impact your presence has on others. And presence is the evidence.