91 pages • 3 hours read
Jon GordonThe Energy Bus: 10 Rules to Fuel Your Life, Work, and Team with Positive Energy
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 31-34 and “The Energy Bus Action Plan”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary: “Game Day”
Friday is the big day for George and his team. As he leaves the house, his wife gives him a big kiss, happy that the good George she married has returned. George is also glad that his marriage is healing and his relationship with his children has greatly improved.
George’s car will be ready later in the day. He boards the bus for the last time and is met with applause from the passengers, whom enthusiastically thanks for their support. He admits to feeling nervous; Joy says that fear is natural but weak, and trust is bigger, “the high octane fuel that will take your bus wherever it needs to go” (141). Instead of focusing on the stress, Joy recommends focusing on what George has to be thankful for, which will energize his presentation today.
Joy introduces George to passenger Eddy, a youthful 88-year-old she met at the Alzheimer’s facility where her father receives care. Eddy believes people should spend their time being happy and youthful for as long as possible.
Danny pulls out a copy of the tenth rule: “Have Fun and Enjoy the Ride” (143).
Joy believes too many people worry about possessions, conflicts, and minutiae instead of simply enjoying the wonder of life all around them. Marty describes a study of 95-year-olds that asked what they’d change if they had their lives to live over: they would (1) reflect more, (2) take more chances, and (3) leave a worthwhile legacy.
The Energy Bus arrives at George’s company, and the passengers give him handshakes, hugs, and high-fives. George walks into the building, knowing he is ready.
Chapter 32 Summary: “The Presentation”
George sees skepticism in the eyes of the executives around the conference table. He begins to panic then remembers Joy’s smiling face and her admonition that his positivity must be bigger than all their negativity. At once, he feels calm.
The presentation is a great success, and “the executives all [jump] on for the ride” (148). The team gives itself a group hug. Executives want to know how this change happened; George answers that he decided to be more than a manager and became a Chief Energy Officer. They’re puzzled, but George says he’ll explain later. For now, he showers big thanks on his team and offers them the day off, but they want to stay and bask in the moment. George takes them to lunch, where they celebrate and talk about their future together.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Joy”
The clerk at the car repair shop is a young lady whose name tag reads “Joy.” To George, it’s a good sign. The adversity of the past couple weeks was a stepping stone to his happiness today. The tire trouble led him to Joy and the Energy Bus. He resolves to stay calm in any crisis, to not worry over the future and instead find joy in every moment.
George calls his mother, who has just finished another session of chemotherapy. He wants to tell her to live the rest of her life, however long or short, in joy and not fear. Instead, he says simply, “I love you” (154).
Chapter 34 Summary: “It’s More Fun on the Bus”
On Monday, George jumps on the bus, hugs Joy, and tells the passengers that the presentation was a big success. Cheers and high-fives ensue. George pulls out a sign with the 10 rules printed beautifully, the words larger and easier to see than the handwritten sign at the front of the bus. Joy welcomes it, and passengers install it.
Now that George will be driving to work, Joy promises to tell his story to new passengers, but George announces that he’s decided to take the bus to work from now on. After all, “it’s more fun on the bus!” (156).
“The Energy Bus Action Plan” Summary
The “Energy Bus Action Plan for successful team building has 11 steps:
“Step 1: Create Your Vision” (159). Discuss with your team its goals.
“Step 2: Fuel Your Vision with Purpose” (159). The purpose should be larger than any one project and should benefit the team and others.
“Step 3: Write Down Your Vision/Purpose Statement” (160).
“Step 4: Focus on Your Vision” (160). Make copies of the statement, hand them out to team members, and encourage them to visualize daily the success of the team’s mission.
“Step 5: Zoom Focus” (161). Write down the specific goals and the action steps for each goal. Make copies for each team member.
“Step 6: Get on the Bus” (161). Identify others who can help; invite them to support your project.
“Step 7: Fuel the Ride with Positive Energy and Enthusiasm” (161). Engage positively with team members daily; cultivate practices that create a positive culture. Tools and information are available at jongordon.com.
“Step 8: Post a Sign That Says ‘No Energy Vampires Allowed’” (162). Engage constructively with team members who become negative; give them a chance to recommit; if they persist in negativity, release them from the team.
“Step 9: Navigate Adversity and Potholes” (162). Encourage the team to learn and grow from each challenge.
“Step 10: Love Your Passengers” (163). Engage with them by listening, recognizing them, and encouraging their growth.
“Step 11: Have Fun and Enjoy the Ride” (164). Encourage the team to develop ways to have fun and reach the destination smiling.
Chapters 31-34 and “The Energy Bus Action Plan” Analysis
These final chapters describe the big day for George and his team, how they come together in a shared vision, and George’s decision to keep riding the bus to work.
In a book of this type, the outcome is a foregone conclusion. What matters is how success is achieved. In fits and starts that are all too human, George learns the 10 rules and begins to apply them to his problems. His results are almost astonishingly excellent. This isn’t an overconfident exaggeration but a way of saying that anyone who takes the book’s principles to heart should expect to be pleasantly surprised by the speed and thoroughness of the good results that ensue.
As with George’s wife and kids—who remain unnamed throughout the book so their faces might be sketched in from readers’ own family members—the team’s project is described in very general terms. Many readers are executives or team leaders, and too much detail might interfere with their ability to imagine how they can apply the 10 rules to their own work situations. Instead, they can fill in the book’s vague description of the team’s work with the specifics from their own experiences, visualizing success for their projects.
The Energy Bus contains 10 rules, but it also shares Five Ways to Love Your Passengers, provides 11 steps in the Energy Bus Action Plan, and includes a few other pointers and tips to remember. This cornucopia of techniques may appear daunting, but every rule or technique is simply a useful example of the book’s fundamental principle that a positive vision generates positive results. All the rules, steps, and tips act as guideposts, reminders, and examples of that fundamental positive-energy principle.
Jon Gordon’s specialty is working with teams, and The Energy Bus focuses on team-building and relationships. Some people are loners who work on solo projects, but Gordon argues that no one accomplishes great things alone. Strictly speaking, this is true, though the processes solo artists and thinkers use don’t often intersect with the complexities of team efforts. What’s most important to remember in that case is the central principle of positive energy.
Those who work independently also can use the rules and steps of The Energy Bus to coordinate their activities, collecting their various efforts into a kind of team that supports them. Any one of our goals can come into conflict with another; we can, so to speak, invite each of these goals to “get on the bus” and work harmoniously, pulling together in a common direction and purpose. In that way we reach our objectives not with inner turmoil and struggle but with love, joy, and enthusiasm.
