Electric Life: 12 Microsteps to Pay Attention, Be Brilliant and Go Deep

By Bill G. Williams

Stop burning out and start burning brightly

Ever wonder where some people get their energy? You know the ones: who brim with infectious positivity; who approach everything they do with genuine enthusiasm and curiosity, light up every room, and invigorate those around them. You’re about to find out their secret.

In Electric Life, keynote speaker and executive development coach Bill G. Williams—a.k.a. “Electric Bill”—shares how you, too, can tap into a well of endless energy that draws out the value in your everyday life, work, family, and community. Blending engaging personal stories and case studies with research-backed insights, tips, and easy-to-implement steps, Williams gives you the skills to leave work every day with more energy than you arrived with.

You’ll discover transformative but doable microsteps you can take to tap into a source of limitless energy, powering you up to reach your full potential. You’ll learn:

- how to nurture a growth mindset by asking the right questions of yourself
- how to intentionally choose your luck
- how to figure out what you feel—and why “fine” isn’t the right answer
- why giving energy actually helps you receive it
- how being self-ful (not selfish) fills your tank
- why you should make, and celebrate, mistakes
- how to truly see others and create a safe space for them

As you implement these small actions into your daily life, you’ll understand the choices you can make to close the gap between the person you are and the person you want to be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill G. Williams
• Release date: Apr 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781774581728

Bill G. Williams

“I never thought I’d follow in my father’s footsteps. But here I am, the son of an electrician, messing with the same wiring in a different machine.”—Bill G. WilliamsHe’s called “Electric Bill” for a reason. Bill G. Williams is on a mission to shock us out of our static daily routines. He is known for his unique brand of electrified methodologies for the workplace, and is now offering them to you in this book.Bill is the principal and president of the boutique leadership development firm The b4 Group Inc., and the host and brand ambassador for the Art of Leadership and Art of Leadership for Women. Bill caters his solution-based strategies to individuals and corporations in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. This is Bill’s first book. Tap into his energy; it’s positively electric.BillGWilliams.com

Book preview

Introduction

You can call me Bill. Born William Grant Williams, known as Billy Williams, in Fort William, Ontario. That’s who my mother decided I was. But, by the time I was in grade seven, I became Bill.

When I was eleven, we moved from northern Ontario to Kamloops, British Columbia. Kamloops is the anglicized version of the Shuswap word Tk’əmlúps, meaning the meeting of the waters. That year, I was part of the first class at the new South Sa-Hali Elementary School. Mr. Gardner, my grade seven teacher, asked what my name was, and I said, I’m Billy Williams. That’s the name my mom really chose—William was just what her best friend convinced her she should put on the birth certificate.

And he said, You’re too old to be called Billy, so we will call you Bill.

He didn’t win any favours with my mother for that name change. But then Mr. Gardner asked me to deliver the school’s opening speech and represent the students. I wrote out what I wanted to say, practiced in front of a mirror and brought as much energy as I could to the task at hand. I let myself get excited. Later, at the CFJC-TV station with some of my classmates, I told the whole of Kamloops about who I was. On television, no less.

Bill Williams. Someone new, my own person for the very first time. And my parents were very proud of me.

And now, I’m Electric Bill, as some people have defined me. That’s because the question I get asked the most often is: How do you always have so much energy? Sure, it’s your job to energize crowds, but it’s more than that!

Since that first time I spoke in public all those years ago, I’ve been on television and on stages all over the world, and my approach hasn’t really changed that much. Every year I address the crowd at The Art of Leadership, a conference designed to explore the intersection between art and business. I engage audiences as my profession, but I still prepare in the same way I did when I was in grade seven. I write out what I want to say, practice in front of a mirror and bring as much energy as I can to the task at hand. I let myself get excited about what I’m going to do and who I’m going to meet.

My whole life I’ve worked in predominantly female-dominated industries like travel and retail banking, and I’m a gay man. I’ve looked at the world differently from many of my male peers. I see myself as a lifelong learner, which isn’t true of many people, no matter their identity or job role.

Especially at work. And especially when it comes to understanding why we lose faith in ourselves and how we spend our time every day.

I made the choice to keep learning. We all get to choose who we are and how we represent ourselves, and how we learn from our good and bad experiences. In choosing our path deliberately and joyfully, we can discover and keep and even build energy to live with purpose. Our own purpose! It’s not our experiences, but who we are that matters. I identify with and accept my role as Electric Bill, because I want to create and share my energy.

I have created a life infused with energy, my philosophy of what I call the energy to live. I’ve written this book because I know that we can all find our own energy to live, energy that is real and sustainable. An energy that allows us to find the value in our everyday lives, work, families and community. I can’t literally give you my own energy, but I can tell you where my energy comes from, and how yours can grow.

In this book, I’m giving you twelve tiny steps forward. I’m calling them microsteps because they aren’t huge life changes that will require hours of your time to master. Not one of these microsteps is particularly difficult. I want you to gain energy, not lose it in this process!

To find that energy, we need to pay attention, be brilliant and go deep.

This book is about you, and what choices you can make based on knowing where your energy balance lies right now. It’s about who you are, and the disconnect between that person and the person you want to be. We need to talk about our energy burning out, versus having the energy to go and do what we want to do now. We absolutely can create enough energy working so that we feel good every day, and so we have the energy to go and play after work.

In fact, you can leave work feeling like you have more energy than you arrived with.

Hi, friend. I’m Electric Bill.

Who do you want to be today?

Part I

Pay

Attention

Step

1

Find

Your

Hurricane

The art of bringing

your whole self to work

Many of us have heard the legend that, engineering-wise, if you consider the weight of a bumblebee in comparison to the size of its wings, it should be impossible for that bumblebee to fly. In 1934, a French scientist named André Sainte-Laguë made some dinner-table calculations on the ratio of bumblebee wings to their weight, and concluded that flight was physically impossible. Sainte-Laguë’s story continues: no one told the bumblebee that it couldn’t fly, and so it did. It’s a beautiful tale, and a good lesson for us all.

But the story isn’t quite what it seems. And, in fact, there’s a better story about that little bumblebee that hasn’t been told quite so often.

The fact is that bumblebees’ wings are almost magic.

When bees fly, their wings flap in a rotating pattern known as dynamic stall. This pattern creates a little gap in the airflow around them, lowering the air pressure. In that air pressure gap, bumblebees’ wings operate at the perfect ratio to their bodies’ shapes and sizes.

Bumblebees are, in effect, tiny little hurricanes.

Bumblebees know exactly what they are doing. They know how to fly. They know how to perfectly spin the air around them so that they float. And even if a French scientist underestimated them, bumblebees don’t underestimate their own