Tom Rath books build on one another. Are You Fully Charged is his most recent one, and it incorporates what he learned and taught in Eat, Move, Sleep  into a practice that goes beyond health and into happiness.

It is based on three things: meaning, interactions and energy.

1. The pursuit of happiness is our biggest roadblock on the way towards it.
2. Put your phone out of sight when talking to someone.
3. Try to take 10,000 steps a day.

Lead acid or Lithium ion, it doesn’t matter, by the end of this article, you’ll know how to wake up fully charged!

There are many books, movies, and entire cultures built around the pursuit of happiness. It’s what fuels the American Dream (and life in most other Western countries), and while there’s a lot of debate around what it should look like, hardly anyone questions the premise itself:

Is happiness even something that must be pursued?

Well, Tom Rath isn’t “hardly anyone”, so he raises just that question. He believes thinking that, as long as we spend enough time chasing it, we’ll eventually find happiness is one of the biggest misconceptions of the 21st century .

You might have already learned that external motivation ruins internal motivation . But if Tom Rath is right, this means it actively makes you unhappier , instead of just not increasing your happiness.

He says happiness is simply a by-product of a meaningful life, which is centered around internal motivation .

Have you ever seen two people in a restaurant, sitting opposite each other, each staring at their own smartphone? It’s a nightmare. The only thing that’s worse is when just one person stares at their phone, and leaves the other one hanging.

I’ve always tried to avoid using my phone in conversation, but this I didn’t know about, and it takes it one step further:

Have you ever seen two people in a restaurant, sitting opposite each other, each staring at their own smartphone? It’s a nightmare. The only thing that’s worse is when just one person stares at their phone, and leaves the other one hanging.

I’ve always tried to avoid using my phone in conversation, but this I didn’t know about, and it takes it one step further:

A 2014 study found that conversations, where no phone is visually present, are significantly superior to those, where a phone is on the table, in someone’s hand, or otherwise in sight .

This is called the iPhone effect , and it implies that even if people just see a phone while talking to you, they already feel like you’re not giving them your full attention and can’t be as empathic towards you.

Here’s a crazy fact: You sit more than you sleep . On average, people sit for 9.3 hours a day, while sleeping only for 7.7 . According to Tom Rath, this is what happens when you sit for extended periods of time:

• The nerves in your legs stop working and shut down.
• Your calorie burning rate drops to one calorie per minute.
• The number of enzymes, which break down fat in your body, drops by 90%.
• Your good cholesterol (HDL, H igh-D ensity L ipoprotein) drops by 10% every hour.

Here’s how to avoid all of this: take 10,000 steps every day.

Here’s a crazy fact: You sit more than you sleep . On average, people sit for 9.3 hours a day, while sleeping only for 7.7 . According to Tom Rath, this is what happens when you sit for extended periods of time:

• The nerves in your legs stop working and shut down.
• Your calorie burning rate drops to one calorie per minute.
• The number of enzymes, which break down fat in your body, drops by 90%.
• Your good cholesterol (HDL, H igh-D ensity L ipoprotein) drops by 10% every hour.

Here’s how to avoid all of this: take 10,000 steps every day.

It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. 10,000 steps equals roughly 5 miles (or 8 km) a day. According to Tom, walking increases your energy levels by 150%, and since I started paying more attention to it, I feel he’s right. Do this to make sure you hit your 10,000 step goal each day:

It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. 10,000 steps equals roughly 5 miles (or 8 km) a day. According to Tom, walking increases your energy levels by 150%, and since I started paying more attention to it, I feel he’s right. Do this to make sure you hit your 10,000 step goal each day:

1. Design your environment to make you move . For example, when using your laptop in your office, leave your charger in another room, so you have to go and get it when you run out of power.
2. Take detours . When I walk to the café I work in in the morning, I always go right, instead of left, when I leave my house, to make sure I do a full circle of the city center before going there. Extending walks you’re already taking is a lot easier than making up reasons to take more of them.
3. Track your steps . Just seeing the number on a regular basis will make you work harder towards your goal. I guarantee it.

You can do this!

I love that Tom doesn’t compartmentalize life into certain buckets, because fixing just one thing about yourself is never the solution. The only thing I can critique about Are You Fully Charged is promoting a fairly specific diet instead of telling you to find out what works for you. Other than that, everything he does is very focused on giving you principles, which you can then decide how to turn into action for yourself. Consider me a fan!

The 32 year old consultant on his race towards his next pay raise, the 54 year old mum, who’s fascinated with her discovery of Instagram and can’t put her phone down, and anyone who spends most of their weekend walking from the couch to the fridge and back.