In our most recent post, we talked about the trait of Mental Health from the Doescher Advisors Leaders Health Check-up, which uses the acronym SMEP. In this post we’ll consider the third trait, Emotional Health.

Our epiphany with this trait came more than 25 years ago. There was — and is — a very well-known leader who we consider a long-distance mentor through his books and conferences.

At one of his presentations, he shared what he had learned in dealing with a bout of clinical depression. During his talk, he said he had a daily routine of assessing his physical and spiritual health (he knew, like many of us, that he was going at it pretty hard, and he didn’t want to get derailed). What he discovered during his illness was that he needed to monitor his emotional health as well as what was going on physically. These are our takeaways from his talk:

1. All of us have a fixed amount of emotional energy.
2. Just like not eating will cause physical problems, emotional energy can do the same.
3. Some people give you emotional energy.
4. Other people drain you of emotional energy.
5. Know who those people are.
6. Limit your time with the drainers.

Like this leader, we would recommend assessing your emotional energy daily, and we suggest that you monitor your time with drainers. This may sound harsh, but you’re the leader of the whole team, not just this person(s).