Recently, I had the opportunity to be a Guide for the Women Emerging Expedition, where I spent time with Explorers discussing a concept that has been central to my own journey of leading: Energy.
While I have previously written about what Energy means to me and how it shows up, I would summarize it in one line:
For me, Energy is the invisible force that binds your Elements, Essence, and Expression together. It gives a cohesive, comprehensive picture and direction to how you lead.
But this article is not about defining Energy. It is about the questions the Explorers asked during our session, questions that stayed with me long after the conversation ended. They were thought-provoking, deeply relatable, and, I believe, worth reflecting on collectively.
Q. What happens when you are in a room that drains your Energy?
One of the Explorers asked a question that immediately fascinated me:
“What do you do when you are in a room where you are the Energy drainer?”
We often talk about recognizing spaces that drain our Energy and simply walking away from them. But life does not always give us that choice. So what do we do when we have to remain in a space that does not bring out the best in us?
I think the first step is acceptance. Accept that perhaps this space is not for you.
And, more importantly, stop expecting yourself to bring the same Energy into every room.
We put tremendous pressure on ourselves to be consistently enthusiastic, engaged, productive and energetic everywhere we go. But if we enter a space that does not align with our Essence and then expect ourselves to perform exactly as we do in spaces where we thrive, we create a second layer of exhaustion for ourselves.
Not every conversation requires your participation. Not every opinion requires your rebuttal. Not every disagreement requires you to convince the other person. You do not have to convince everyone to see the world the way you do.
Sometimes leading is also knowing when to engage, when to step back, and when to simply preserve your own Energy.
Q. What if the people around you are the ones draining you?
At first, the obvious answer might seem to be: Find new people.
But it is not always that simple. As students, we inevitably spend a significant amount of time with our classmates, batchmates and peers. Your academic environment determines a large part of your social environment, and you cannot always just walk away and find an entirely new circle.
This made me think about something I learned during my own expedition:
Before you look for your people, you need to understand yourself.
Start becoming intentional about who you are, what you enjoy and what gives you Energy.
Find the things that belong to you.
It could be baking, painting, calligraphy, playing a sport, reading, watching a documentary or even simply watching a series that you genuinely enjoy. The activity itself does not matter as much as the intention behind it.
Do it because you enjoy it.
Not because your friends are doing it.
Not because it looks productive.
Not because it is trendy.
Not because you feel guilty about “wasting time.”
This intentionality can even change something as simple as scrolling on social media.
There is a difference between consciously deciding, “I am going to spend 20 minutes watching content that I enjoy,” and mindlessly scrolling for an hour and wondering where the time went.
The latter becomes doomscrolling because we are not conscious participants in what we are consuming. We often finish feeling more depleted than when we started.
The bigger lesson, therefore, is not necessarily to find a new environment. Sometimes it is to build a stronger relationship with yourself within the environment you already have, and you will start attracting people with whom you’d click.
Q. What exactly is it about my Energy that people like?
This was particularly interesting.
She felt that her manager responded positively to her Energy. But she wanted to know:
“What exactly is it about me that they like? How do I find out what it is?”
This question caught me off guard because it reflects something many of us do: we want to identify the exact ingredient that makes us stand out.
But sometimes, there isn’t an identifiable ingredient.
Human beings connect through things that are not always tangible. We pick up on someone’s presence, their mannerisms, their confidence, their sincerity, their curiosity and countless other subtle cues without consciously being able to explain why.
And if it were something completely tangible and replicable, everyone could simply copy it.
What makes your Energy yours is precisely that it comes from your Essence. The more closely you remain connected to your Essence, the more naturally your unique Energy will show up.
The danger comes when we become obsessed with identifying “the thing people like about me.” Because once we identify it, we may start trying to ‘manufacture’ it. What was once spontaneous becomes calculated. What was once authentic starts feeling performative.
Sometimes, the very thing that attracted someone to your Energy was that you weren’t trying to impress them in the first place.
Q. How do I know when my Energy is in sync?
The final question brought us back to the heart of the conversation: How do I know if my Essence, Elements and Expression are actually in sync? My answer is that I don’t think there is necessarily something called the “right Energy.” There is, however, a sense of alignment.
And for me, one of the simplest ways to recognize alignment is to ask:
“Is my heart at peace?”
When what you are doing is not in conflict with your Essence, when your actions reflect what you genuinely believe, and when your Expression feels authentic to who you are, there is a certain sense of peace that follows. It does not mean everything becomes easy. It does not mean you never feel nervous, challenged or uncomfortable. It simply means that beneath all of that, there isn’t a persistent internal conflict telling you that something about this does not feel like you.
The opposite is also worth noticing.
When you repeatedly feel conflicted, unsettled or disconnected from yourself, perhaps that discomfort is worth listening to.
Maybe something needs to change.
Maybe the environment needs to change.
Maybe a boundary needs to be established.
Or perhaps you need to reconnect with a part of yourself that you have been neglecting.
Because when your Elements, Essence and Expression are in harmony, you are able to show up with greater clarity, authenticity and conviction. And that is when you are most capable of bringing your best Energy into the spaces that matter.
What I loved most about this session was that these were not questions with one definitive answer.
They were questions that invite us to look inward.
Which rooms energize me, and which ones drain me?
Am I being intentional about the things that give me Energy?
And, ultimately, am I at peace with the way I am showing up?
These are questions I continue to ask myself too.
Perhaps that is what makes conversations like these so meaningful. We may enter a room thinking we are there to share what we have learned, only to leave having learned something ourselves.
I am grateful to the Explorers of the Women Emerging Expedition for asking questions that made me pause, reflect and reconsider my own understanding of Energy.
Because perhaps leading is not always about bringing more Energy into every room.
Sometimes, it is about knowing which Energy is yours to protect, which Energy is yours to share, and which rooms are worth bringing it into.
About the Author:
Madiha is a Fellow from the WE Expedition for Women in Higher Education. She is a finance graduate from Karachi Pakistan and is working in Financial Planning & Analysis in a petrochemical conglomerate in Pakistan.
