COLOPHON

Author

Hidde de Vries

Editor

Kyra Geerts

Translator

Babette Dunkelgrün

Copy editor

Tracy Brown Hamilton

Design

Niels Stavorinus

Illustrations

Tim Hengeveld

Layout

Present Savvy

ISBN book 978-90-820347-3-8
ISBN e-book 978-90-820347-5-2

Publisher

The Recharge Company

Frederiksstraat 12-1

1054 LC, Amsterdam

Netherlands

First printing 2021 © 2021 Hidde de Vries

© 2021 The Recharge Company

All rights reserved.

Subject to the exceptions provided for in or pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1912, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or made public, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, by photocopying, recording, or by any other means without the prior written consent of the publisher.

www.worksmartplaysmart.nl

Hidde de Vries (1978) is an international public speaker and columnist on wellbeing and personal development. He is the founder of training agency The Recharge Company and originator of the Recharge360 program. Together with his wife and baby boy they live in The Hague, Netherlands.

  LINKEDIN.COM/IN/HIDDEDEVRIES32/

“The pace of change today, is the slowest pace any of us will experience for the rest of our lives. We’ll need to work smarter.”

MATT BRITTIN, PRESIDENT EMEA, GOOGLE

“Finished it in one sitting. Powerful content, easy to read,
and Hidde has made everything practical.”
MARK TIGCHELAAR, BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND FOCUS EXPERT

“Hidde’s book describes how you can achieve more by paying attention to your wellbeing and sharpening your focus. And here’s what I like about that:
You don’t just change yourself, but your environment as well.”
IRENE VERNIE, HR DIRECTOR, RITUALS

“Practical, well-founded, entertaining. We could all use
a bit more of that these days.”
NIELS KOEKKOEK, SENIOR MANAGER, DELOITTE

“For my work with Kukuru, I’ve read a lot in this field lately. But with Hidde’s book, I could have skipped several others. From his own experience, he shares practical advice for something we should all be doing more: Recharging! After every chapter, he keeps the inspiration going with new talks, videos, and books. An important question that gets fully explored in these chapters is: Must I do this now? The answer to the question whether or not to read this book is a resounding yes!”
GIEL BEELEN, DJ AND FOUNDER OF KUKURU.NL

“For me as a newer leader, this book has been incredibly valuable. Well written with so many great tips. Write them down, save them, and don’t forget to keep coming back to them.”
MAAIKE HOMAN, HEAD OF RTL Z / RTL NEWS

“What a lovely variety of angles and philosophies for consciously living life to the fullest! Highly recommended for those who want to enjoy their lives, in business and pleasure, and want to share this with others.”
MASCHA DRIESSEN, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT, MICROSOFT ADVERTISING EUROPE

“Work Smart, Play Smart” is not just another “self-help” book,
but a convincing and timeless document that features theoretical knowledge and practical tips, highlighted by inspiring stories. Undoubtedly a future classic.”
MARCO VAN DEMEN, HEAD OF MARKETING, ENTERTAINMENT CHANNELS, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY

“Clear and relevant. Everything I should have learned in school about mindset, storytelling, and scientific knowledge. We don’t need to work harder, but to relax more. You literally recharge while reading this.”
NIEK VAN DEN ADEL, GLOBAL KEYNOTE SPEAKER AND BESTSELLING AUTHOR

“A must-read for everyone who wants to learn how to have energy left by the end of the day.”
ALBERT SONNEVELT, PSYCHOLOGIST AND EXECUTIVE COACH

“Experiencing energy and flow at work is what provides your life with meaning and joy. In this book, Hidde shares resonant examples of how to do that smarter. Not just to bring about results for individuals, but also for their teams and customers, and the communities of which they are a part. This book needs to be on the bookshelves of all wellbeing leaders!’
HEBE BOONZAAIJER, LEAD HEALTH AND WELLBEING OFFERING, HUMAN CAPITAL CONSULTING, DELOITTE

“Our lives keep getting busier and fuller. Because we’re always available and “on,” it can be hard to find a balance. Hidde de Vries shows you in a conversational and informative way how to stay focused on your most
important qualities, which can clarify your life and make it lighter.”
JUDITH ZILVERSMIT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, PS VAN DE WEEK, HET PAROOL NEWSPAPER

“Hidde shows you how to be a positive influence on your happiness and that of others, by focusing on energy-giving routines. This gives you limitless potential, as an individual and as part of the greater whole.”
CONSTANCE SCHOLTEN, CEO, EARTHTODAY AND VENTURE PARTNER, SLINGSHOT VENTURES

“Read this book if you want to understand why we do what we do.
A clear look at a complex subject. Full of practical guidelines to get better at doing what you do.”
MARCIA GODDARD, HEAD OF PEOPLE AND CULTURE, TONY CHOCOLONELY

“The podcast that Hidde and I recorded in 2018 is one of the most
listened to. As it should be. Hidde has developed an amazing methodology to increase energy, focus, and happiness. Very concrete, which is what
I like. This book is like that. Work smart, Play Smart is an easy read
and offers advice that you can implement right away.”
THIJS LINDHOUT, 100% INSPIRATION PODCAST

“The “one-size-fits-all” strategy from the field of personnel management is so outdated, but it does keep coming back. Hidde provides workers with real insight that helps you to be at the steering wheel of your life. A fun and concrete book, with lots of theory, examples, and practical explanations.”
HANS FABER, GLOBAL HR DIRECTOR, SCOTCH & SODA

“Every athlete knows that after exertion comes rest. I don’t know
anyone who fell ill from working too hard . . . but definitely from
relaxing too little! This book is full of practical tips to recharge fully
and inspire others. Pass it on!”
KLAAS KOSTER, VITALOGIST AND FOUNDER, VITALOGISCH BV / VITACADEMIE BV

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 – The power of the future state

From Afghanistan to the boardroom

Defining your future state

Reminders

Chapter 2 – Your mindset is the foundation

What’s your mindset?

Stress and the stress mindset

Growing instead of getting stuck

One last warning

Reminders

Chapter 3 – Energy management

Why the right kind of energy is so crucial for us

Energy mindset quadrant

Internal energy

Reminders

Chapter 4 – From Focus to Flow

Getting more done in less time really is rocket science!

Focus killers

The path to flow

The art of creating new habits

Reminders

Chapter 5 – How recharging makes us smarter

Relaxation for professionals

Mind fitness

The grace of gratitude

The master of recharge moments

Reminders

Chapter 6 – The final piece of the puzzle

The ultimate feedback tip

Create an energetic environment for better willpower

A more simple way to drastically improve your life

Reminders

My way of paying it forward

Congratulations & acknowledgements

Sources

INTRODUCTION

How big is the market for door-to-door junk mail in the Netherlands? That is the first question I was asked ten years ago at an interview with Google in Ireland. The answer wasn’t important—they were interested in how I’d get there. The intent was to gain insight into my problem-solving skills. At the time, Google was notorious for its strategic interviewing methods. Still, even after this question, and seven additional rounds of interviews, I was invited to pack all my belongings and emigrate to Dublin.

A couple of months earlier, I’d dissolved the media company I owned with a friend. Our business hadn’t survived the 2010 financial crisis. By January of that year, it was clear we wouldn’t make it. We were headed toward bankruptcy, and there were people waiting to be paid and some that had already sent lawyers to visit us.

But, there was one beacon of hope: We were busy planning a large event for October. I knew if we could keep our heads above water until then, we could pay everyone. It was clear what I had to do and why. I worked like a dog, and we were able to avoid bankruptcy, closing our business at the break-even point. But I felt completely burned out. It was the culmination of months of negative energy, long days, stress overload, and a lifestyle that was entirely unsustainable.

I had lost my company, and my income evaporated. My relationship with my then-girlfriend, with whom I was living, hit rock bottom. (No surprise, as I was literally working around the clock.) I found myself crashing on my friend’s couch, with no apartment to go home to. I’d burned my energy along with everything else.

Somehow, none of this convinced me to rest. Maybe you can relate. All I felt was the need to work even harder, to attain a new position in my life— one with a fresh stream of income and a new place to live. I felt enormous pressure, along with the persistent shame that I’d been unable to keep my business afloat through the crisis. I had to turn things around, fast.

One day, the phone rang. It was a friend of mine on the other end of the line, who was almost always bursting with energy and positivity, and was now also burned out. He spoke slowly, repeated himself, and started crying halfway through our conversation. That was my wake-up call. Even before we hung up, I had a realization: I wasn’t stuck. I decided I was no longer willing to work myself into despair just to fit some preconceived notion or picture of success.

At the same time, something shifted in my mindset. I had no work; I had neither a home, nor a relationship. But I realized this loss was also my strength: I was free as a bird, and that felt great. In a matter of minutes, in which nothing had actually changed about my circumstances, the world suddenly presented itself as one full of color and possibility. Ultimately, it would take me another eight years to comprehend what had shifted, and to really grasp how I’d kept going for days and nights while my situation went from bad to worse.

Instead of looking for work, I searched online for an around-the-world airline ticket. I borrowed money to go recharge. I took time to reflect on the previous few years. It would become a fantastic journey, during which I got to know myself and learn about life in general. During my travels, I’d gain two insights rather quickly: One, our lives keep getting busier; and two, the way we deal with that keeps getting worse.

We keep getting busier

Let’s face it: Survival is our primary objective, so we focus on reproduction. And we keep getting better at that, too. In 1925, there were two billion people on earth. In 2025, four years from now, a mere 100 years later, there are already eight billion of us—four times as many! In order for us to reproduce, we need to be seen and start relationships. Within that context, we gather in the same urban areas, companies, and buildings. It’s increasingly hard not to get lost in the crowd. We strive to take up space, to get noticed despite competition. We’re developing new tools to facilitate the process, such as project-management tools, but then we are forced to actually make use of these tools. In the end, we keep getting busier—especially mentally.

The technological evolution designed to support us has been growing faster than humanity. Since the dawn of mankind hundreds of thousands of years ago, it would take until 3500 B.C. until the wheel was invented. From there, it would take until 1885—another 5,000 years—for cars to enter the scene. Yet only 135 years on, we’re able to be driven by cars. In 1903, the Wright brothers took their first flight, which lasted all of twelve seconds. Not even 70 years after that, we were flying to the moon. That’s not even including the digitization of society within the last 30 years or so. Matt Britin, who acted as vice president of Google Europe, once put it succinctly in a conversation about the wellbeing of our colleagues: “The pace of change today, is the slowest any of us will experience. We’ll need to work smarter.”

The way we cope is worsening

More people, better technology, increased stress at work: It’s a recipe for failure. Not necessarily in extreme cases only, but for all of us. This was a visible truth before the pandemic, but became more and more clear during that crisis. Suddenly, there was uncertainty around the globe, elevated workloads and tension for many, negative stress, bad lifestyle habits. It all takes its toll. Consequences including sleep issues, chronic disease, burnout, depression, and other woes have gained a prominent place in society. None of it is necessary. Our task is to learn to ride the wave of innovation instead of drowning in it and ending up washed ashore like debris. Problem solving is the name of the game in lieu of constantly putting out fires. Learning how to work smarter, not harder.

People have the tendency to work harder and harder, especially when we’re under a lot of stress. But working harder doesn’t always equate to getting more done. The way you work has a bigger influence on the outcome. During the last decade, I’ve witnessed an enormous amount of insights that are helpful. Often, these are simple solutions that allow people to work faster, make fewer mistakes, get more done, and, more than anything, enable them to enjoy the process more. And to continue doing so.

In the chapters that follow, we’ll be walking through the Recharge Model that incorporates these insights. I’ll be sharing compelling and inspiring stories, which demonstrate scientific research and are backed by real-world evidence. Each chapter includes practical tips, enabling you to reap the benefits of this program. I’ve also included a “practice what you preach” section, an additional gift to readers like yourself. And, in the spirit of of practicing what you preach, I finish with a little present for you.

In hindsight, I’ve gained so much from the insights in this book. What’s more, without this approach, I probably would have never been hired by Google, never mind being, as I was in 2014, in the top 25th percentile of the company’s best performing employees, globally. Within such an immense organization, that’s quite something. Yet, my high performance wasn’t due to working harder. In fact, it was the year I had the most fun at Google, because I’d been focused on the tasks that energized me.

Thanks to the method I share in this book, I traveled to India to shoot an undercover documentary about child sexual exploitation and human trafficking. With that, we raised more than €1,000 for the cause, supporting 25 girls in their escape from forced prostitution. More recently, we made it through the lockdown thanks to the Recharge Model. It enabled us to adjust our business model in no time. This translated into our team’s expansion, as we went from a team of two to eleven.

But many others have reaped the benefits, too. Individuals have exchanged their dreams for the reality of successful businesses. Employees managed to swap their 9-5 for entrepreneurship or emigration. Even companies have overcome their own crises, heading in an alternate direction and flourishing as a result. You don’t have to work harder. Just smarter.

The bottom line that I’ve weaved through this book is my conviction that working smarter makes a difference, and that anything you want to do intelligently requires three steps:

Realization – You’ll increase your awareness around the systems, realizing where you can find meaningful gains.

Activation – You’re in charge and it’s up to you to make the habits and practices your own. Just like we do at the gym, working smarter is a practice.

Pay it forward – Share your insights with others, in order for your community to grow along with you. In turn, that helps you to keep growing.

Meanwhile, our training business, The Recharge Company, has supported top-ranking companies like Unilever, Google, and Rituals, and more than 30,000 people. They’re getting more done now, and enjoying their lives more at the same time. That result doesn’t only bring me tremendous pride, but it also confirms the fact that this book can provide you new insights and tools. Not by working harder, but smarter. Work smart, play smart.

CHAPTER 1

THE POWER OF THE FUTURE STATE

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

“It’s early morning on this already muggy summer day. Mid 90s, at least. I see drips of sweat running down everyone’s forehead. Through cracks in the sail, I notice dust swirling up in the first rays of the sun. The dust is everywhere. I feel bumps and holes in the road. The atmosphere is tense; everybody stares into the distance in silence. Once in a while you can hear children calling out in the background. I don’t understand what they’re saying. Perhaps it’s just child’s play, it’s hard to tell. Other than that, it’s almost completely silent on the road that leads us out of Kandahar, a large city in southern Afghanistan.

“It will be a rough journey back, 160 kilometers over bumpy terrain. We know the way. We’ll have to pass through multiple large plains and narrow valleys. These are all environments where you’re quick to stand out and can’t get away in a hurry. The convoy is large this time, twenty military vehicles, ten fuel trucks, and almost 200 highly trained men and women with years of experience. Nevertheless, no one is at ease.

“On our way here from Tarin Kowt, we’d already been attacked once. There was minimal harm done, but it does emphasize the presence of Taliban fighters in this area. Last month, more than 1,200 Taliban members escaped from a local prison, and they all seem to be in and around Kandahar. According to the latest information, they’re preparing a major attack on our units in the region.

“In recent months, we’ve suffered many losses in our battle with the Taliban. Unexpected attacks and invisible roadside bombs have cost lives, including two of our own, and they have caused dozens of injuries. This not only causes sadness among our troops, but also frustration and aggression. A soldier would rather fight face-to-face than suffer losses in this cowardly way.

“Knowing that the coming hours can come down to a big fight doesn’t cause fear specifically, it’s more of a palpable tension. A few of us are hoping for a genuine confrontation. But once you realize how many Taliban fighters are present in the region, you get a sense of how the battle could look.”

That’s Armand van Velzen speaking. Armand is the founder of Allied Forces, a training company that implements the marine’s culture in companies as well as in all its training programs. In a previous chapter of his own career, Van Velzen worked for the Dutch Marine Corps as their operations manager (the elite within the armed forces in the Netherlands). His stories always make it clear that he has years of experience in extremely troubling situations, culminating in his ongoing discipline, rationality, and perseverance.

“Our goal,” he continues, “is to create an environment that is safe enough that we can hand over control back to the Afghan authorities and we’d no longer be needed. To get there, we need to have an optimally functioning military operation. Our base in Tarin Kowt is of vital importance; the entire province of Uruzgan is secured from here. And that requires fuel. Not only for all motorized vehicles, but also for electricity for the air conditioning, communication systems, and other equipment.”

Since my training agency works with Allied Forces often, they invited me to take part in a leadership trip to Ghana.¹ One of the recurring components of our programs and theirs is to define your end goal. Your future state, as they efficiently renamed it in the Dutch Marine Corps. What do you want to achieve and why does it matter?

“Defining your own goal is one thing. But holding onto it, particularly when time pressure and stress come into play, is another. We all have the best intentions and most beautiful plans that we articulate well in the boardroom,” Armand says. “But when tensions rise and push comes to shove, you’ll recognize how powerful it can be to maintain a clear focus on your future state, and not to let it go.”

Thus I find myself alongside a few CEOs and entrepreneurs, deep in the jungle of Ghana. The journey took about seven hours after the plane hit the tarmac. As in Armand’s Kandahar, it’s sweltering hot. In addition, it’s so humid that you break out into a sweat with every step you take. A handful of local rangers are with us, equipped with their trusty machine guns and machetes. Their arsenal of weapons is needed, as we risk running into poachers. Besides, we have to make our way through the dense forest. It all adds to this extraordinary experience.

I sit around the campfire under our DIY treehouse with my fellow adventurers, the rangers, and Armand’s colleagues, listening closely to the rest of his introduction on the future state. “Back to Afghanistan. Our future state is to stabilize the region,” he says. “That’s the what. The why is for us to be able to hand over control back to the Afghan authorities. Part of this future state is to get the fuel convoy safely to our army base in Tarin Kowt. From there, this specific project will be completed.”

Here’s Armand’s message: With the bigger picture in mind, decision-making becomes easier. “Attacking Taliban fighters doesn’t directly contribute to our future state,” he says. “In fact, it endangers the future state: An attack like that lowers our chances to establish safety in the region. Even if we might win this battle, one of the fuel trucks might explode. That means less fuel and less power in Tarin Kowt.”

You can lose the battle and win the war. Armand is almost literally repeating French army officer and president Charles de Gaulle (1880-1970). Sometimes you need to let a small thing go in order to achieve your bigger goal. In other words, “kill your darlings.” We’ll run into this concept a few more times, letting go of something you value to focus on your greater goal. If you look at successful people, that credo has proven itself time and again. If you make your future state a priority, you’ll need to make certain sacrifices. But that also creates a space for you to reach your higher goal. In the case of Armand’s fuel convoy, this meant that to achieve their future state—to make the region safe—they had to avoid engaging with local fighters, regardless of whether they could easily win that battle or of whether they would even prefer to fight.

In my own case, my future state at the start of 2010 was the event at the end of the year that would keep my company from going bankrupt. If we could make it until that event, we’d be able to pay off everyone we owed money. That knowledge made the road ahead crystal clear. I could set aside anything that wasn’t serving that purpose. That saved me from mountains of internal meetings, potential opportunities that I didn’t need to deal with, and new ideas that I would have enthusiastically explored in other times. It was almost comparable to the flow state. We’ll cover flow state and how you can reach this optimal state of performance in debt in Chapter 4.

From Afghanistan to the boardroom

When you lose sight of your future state, which happens often, you get sidetracked. For instance, you might have started a job to make money so you could travel, but then you realize that all you do is work, and you have no time left to go anywhere.

The same is true for companies. We start out with wonderful goals; those goals require revenue. Along the way we lose sight of the goal, our why, even while the revenue piece stays in sight. You’ll see this with many startups that initially share a goal, but in time, the goals expand. Slowly but surely, more is at stake, other interests enter the scene, and foundational ideals are exchanged for profit targets.

One of the best examples to demonstrate this is the health technology company Theranos, founded in 2003 by then 19-year-old Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes’ future state was to revolutionize health care. She developed a technology that required nothing but a single finger-prick blood sample to deliver comprehensive health analyses. Normally, this would require a 100-1,000 times as much blood. In addition, the blood sample wouldn’t have to be sent to a lab; it could be analyzed on site. This was revolutionary: You’d have access to a full blood analysis potentially even at the local store, within five minutes! No waiting required. American supermarket chain Safeway saw the benefits right away, ordering Theranos rapid test machines to be installed in each of its 800 branches, and even pre-paying about $350 million.

Holmes became obsessed with her future state and her accomplishments were unprecedented. Within a few years, she built her company into a tenfold unicorn, worth more than $10 billion. She was featured on all the leading media platforms and named the youngest and richest self-made billionaire ever by Forbes.

And yet. After a couple of years, the deception became apparent. The company’s mission turned out not to be achievable at all. The technology that Holmes had been able to sell so convincingly could not do what she’d promised. By now, she’d connected with so many powerful leaders (Stanford professors, CEOs of the largest companies, senators, and other political figures), no one dared to challenge her. Convinced of her own lies, she couldn’t turn back, either. Staff members were threatened with such extreme retaliation, they’d keep their mouth shut. People were blackmailed, followed, and manipulated. In the end, journalist John Carreyrou of the Wall Street Journal exposed the story of deception, revealing the lies behind a great promise.²

With well-known management gurus such as Stephen Covey and Simon Sinek at the helm, the concept of the future state is gaining more and more visibility and traction in the business world. They emphasize how essential it is to know where you’re going and, even more important, why. Simon Sinek’s strategy and the title of his book, Start with Why, has become one of the most popular global management approaches. It seems intuitive as a first step to decide what you’re looking to achieve and why. At the same time, it makes sense on many levels that this approach can go wrong. Leaders decide on a couple of shared objectives that are nicely framed and given a prominent place on the wall, and still nobody feels intrinsically connected to them. Often, these amount to nothing more than nice-sounding promises for the outside world, where everybody’s interpretation differs. People don’t appear to be on the same wavelength at all, because we’re human beings. Each one of us sees the world through our own lens. What we consider truth, what feeling something evokes, what motivates us: all of this varies from one person to the next. Those differences matter more than you might think—and that’s not even factoring in work-related stress.

The way you look at things is influenced by your personal experiences and values. Artist Sandro del Prete created a vase that demonstrates this perfectly.

Just like me, you probably notice right away (and exclusively) that there’s an image of a couple making love. My three-year-old son, though, sees nothing but dolphins. This all comes down to your level of experience (and maybe a slightly naughty mind). Can you spot all nine dolphins now?

Well-known psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) paid a lot of attention to the fact that various patients he knew perceived similar situations differently. For example, try describing to yourself what you see in the following image.

One will objectively notice three horses, adrift and in motion in a natural landscape. Another could describe three horses, running toward their liberation in a freeing landscape. These differences may appear negligible, but they are definitely not. Take the act of making assumptions while working with others, for example. Here we have the discrepancy between fact and fiction. In extreme cases, a difference like this could even ruin someone’s life, as we’ll see in the next chapter.

Your observations and the ideas and feelings you associate with them are largely determined by your experiences and values. But these will also depend on your state of mind at any given moment. When we have a lot going on and let ourselves get carried away by stress, it can negatively impact our perception and actions. In the upcoming chapters, we’ll take a look at what that means for the brain, and how you can take negative stress and turn it into resilience.

The first step is to clarify your future state. That applies to the you who’s an individual, as well as the you who’s part of a team. By discussing the future state together, you gain clarity and end up on the same page and working toward the same goal. What do we want to achieve and why does it matter?