What if the most powerful force in your life isn't what you know or what you doâbut the energy you bring to every moment?
In What's Your Juice?, coach and leadership expert Dr. Troy Urdahl reveals how your "juice"âthe unique mix of your energy, attitude, mindset, motivation, effort, and expectationsâshapes your success and everyone around you.
Inspired by a youth hockey coach's transformative question, this book explores how mastering your energy drives performance, relationships, and leadership. Through powerful storiesâfrom Norman Borlaug's agricultural revolution to Roger Bannister's historic mile, from Nelson Mandela's prison cell to the Wright brothers' first flightâyou'll discover how ordinary people harnessed extraordinary energy to change the world.
You'll learn how to transform limiting beliefs into fuel, maintain control when circumstances spiral, access flow states for peak performance, set expectations that elevate others, design lasting motivation, and master the hidden dynamics of teams.
Each chapter includes practical assessments to help you master your energy and bring your best selfâconsistently, intentionally, and powerfully.
Whether you're a coach, leader, or someone striving to show up better each day, What's Your Juice? will transform how you live, lead, and lift others.
Your energy is contagious. What's your juice going to be?
What if the most powerful force in your life isn't what you know or what you doâbut the energy you bring to every moment?
In What's Your Juice?, coach and leadership expert Dr. Troy Urdahl reveals how your "juice"âthe unique mix of your energy, attitude, mindset, motivation, effort, and expectationsâshapes your success and everyone around you.
Inspired by a youth hockey coach's transformative question, this book explores how mastering your energy drives performance, relationships, and leadership. Through powerful storiesâfrom Norman Borlaug's agricultural revolution to Roger Bannister's historic mile, from Nelson Mandela's prison cell to the Wright brothers' first flightâyou'll discover how ordinary people harnessed extraordinary energy to change the world.
You'll learn how to transform limiting beliefs into fuel, maintain control when circumstances spiral, access flow states for peak performance, set expectations that elevate others, design lasting motivation, and master the hidden dynamics of teams.
Each chapter includes practical assessments to help you master your energy and bring your best selfâconsistently, intentionally, and powerfully.
Whether you're a coach, leader, or someone striving to show up better each day, What's Your Juice? will transform how you live, lead, and lift others.
Your energy is contagious. What's your juice going to be?
I N T R O D U C T I O N
The Energy That Shapes Our World
âThe most important things in life are invisible to the eye.â
âANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPĂRY, FRENCH AUTHOR AND AVIATOR
Right now, in this very moment, if someone asked, âWhatâs your juice?â how would you answer? What type of energy do you carry into your day, and how might that mold the people you touch and the experiences you share?
You may be at a crossroads, whether itâs in your career, a relationship, or in pursuit of a personal goal, and are uncertain how to move forward. So ask yourself, âWhatâs my juice?â Are you paralyzed by fear, negativity, and lack of confidence, or do you show up each day energized with life and enthusiasm?
Your energy is a panaceaâunderstand it, own it, and use it to shape your reality. In everything you do, do it with your best juice.
In Hans Christian Andersenâs tale âThe Emperorâs New Clothes,â a clothes-loving, self-admiring emperor is victimized by two swindlers who promise to weave him magical garments. According to the conmen, these extraordinary clothes will be invisible to those who are imbeciles. As the emperor parades through town in these ânew clothes,â his ministers, courtiers, and subjects all praise the pretend fabric, afraid to admit they see nothing at all, and therefore deemed dimwitted. It takes a child, unburdened by fear, to state the obvious ⌠âThe emperor has no clothes!â
This tale, told across cultures for centuries, reveals an uncomfortable truth. We often conform to collective illusions, too afraid or distracted to see things as they really are. But what if we could strip away these illusionsânot just about others but about ourselves? What if we could actually see and examine the often-unseen forces that drive our behavior and relationships?
Just as an invisible forceâhis subjectsâ fear of being judgedâperpetuated the emperorâs ignorance, a similar invisible force, far more powerful, forms our lives. This force doesnât come from fancy clothes or royal proclamations. It comes from within each of us. It is the âjuiceâ we bring to every moment, the spark that either ignites possibility or douses it.
Your âjuiceâ is what you bring into every interaction, decision, and moment. It is made up of your unique combination of energy, attitude, mindset, effort, motivation, and expectations. Recognizing, harnessing, and directing this life force goes beyond fueling personal growth; it transforms relationships, teams, and the spaces around us.
The significance of this force multiplier became clear to me in an unlikely placeâat a youth hockey rink. My sonâs coach, Chris Carroll, has a remarkable gift for transforming young playersâ energy with a single question ⌠âWhatâs your juice?â With these three words, he asks players to examine the energy and attitude they are carrying. Is it a productive power, or a destructive energy? Iâve watched his use of this simple question instantly shift attitudes, turn frustration into focus, and help players tap into their best selves. Asking this one simple question drives right to the heart of any issue a person or team encounters, bringing what is unconscious into awareness.
When I asked Carroll where his simple, yet brilliant, question came from, he told me there wasnât a single defining momentâjust a desire to find a word that captured the sometimes abstract concept of attitude and energy in a way young athletes would connect with. âI had two in mind, âjuiceâ or âjam,ââ he said. âIâd heard both used by football coaches and a hockey commentator, and it stuck with me.
âOne of my first years coaching, I had a talented team, but they were emotionally immature. I could feel things unraveling, so I pulled a few players aside for a talk. In that moment, âjuiceâ just fit. They embraced it, started using it, and before long, it became part of our teamâs vernacular. Now, we talk all the time about having âgood juice,â and everyone knows exactly what it means.â
I saw this play out after a tough shift of turnovers and missed opportunities. One of Coach Carrollâs mid-teen players came back to the bench visibly upset. As the young man beat himself up, openly berating his poor play, Carroll didnât yell at, scold, or belittle the player. Instead of criticizing him or providing Xâs and Oâs advice, Carroll just asked, in his always upbeat and encouraging coachâs voice, âHey, whatâs your juice telling you right now?â
The question acted like a circuit breaker, stopping the young playerâs negative thoughts cold. He paused and reset, and you could see the shift in his face and body language as it happened. He now understood what had just taken place. His negative thoughts evaporated, freeing him to move forward productively. Thatâs when I realized Carrollâs question wasnât just about sports performance; it was about life performance. We all have this power within us. Do we channel it to make our lives better, or more difficult?
Best-selling author Frank Bettger came to a similar personal crossroad when he was cut from his minor-league baseball team for being âlazy.â What his coach saw as lethargy was actually fear, self-doubt, and anxietyâconditions that left Bettger almost paralyzed and unable to react effectively in the moment. The coachâs parting words to Bettger became his motivation to improve: âWhatever you do after you leave here, for heavenâs sake, wake yourself up, and put some life and enthusiasm into your work!â
This wake-up call changed everything. Bettger transformed himself into what he called a âbarrel of enthusiasm,â and went on to enjoy success in many areas of his lifeâbaseball, business, and in a series of books. Just as Coach Carrollâs simple question changed his young playerâs mindset, the admonition from Bettgerâs coach flipped a switch so Bettgerâs energy could helpânot hurtâhis life.
The same is possible for each of us.
Your juice extends far beyond how you feel in a moment. Good juice elevates both ourselves and everyone around us. Itâs the force that turns obstacles into opportunities and individual effort into collective achievement. Bad juice does the oppositeâit drains our personal potential and, in doing so, pulls others down with us.
History provides ample evidence of how personal and collective juice has shattered seemingly impossible performance barriers, transformed social movements, and reshaped entire nations. In the pages that follow, weâll explore inspirational and triumphant moments when the human spirit transcended all limitations ⌠and examine more sobering examples where energyâs darker side left lasting and destructive imprints on lives and societies. These stories demonstrate how our juice, whether positive or negative, really does change those around us.
Your juice shapes the world in three distinct ways: for yourself, the outward influence you have on others, and how you navigate group and social interactions.
1. Part I. How Your Juice Defines Your Reality. Your juice affects your own performance, resilience, and potential. Discover your unique energy dynamics and how to improve resilience, focus, and performance.
2. Part II. How Your Juice Influences Others. Your juice shapes and creates waves of change in others. Recognize how your juice influences team dynamics, relationships, beliefs, and outcomes.
3. Part III. The Power of a Groupâs Juice. How the influence of other peopleâs juice affects you and the teams or groups you are a part of. Learn to navigate and recognize the collective dynamics of groups, teams, and cultures.
So, âWhatâs Your Juice?â
Whatâs Your Juice? provides tools and ideas to tap into your energy, unlock your potential, and transform yourself and those around you. Filled with practical stories youâll find yourself re-telling, grounded in scientific research, and paired with assessments at the end of each chapter, this book is designed to guide you step by step as you master each level.
Whether youâre a coach trying to spark your team to a better performance, a leader striving to create a thriving workplace, a performer looking to maximize potential, or simply someone trying to show up better for your familyâthis book is for you. Whatâs Your Juice? is written for anyone who has ever felt the difference between a room full of possibility and one drained of hope. Most importantly, itâs for those who are ready to ask themselves that simple but powerful question:
Whatâs your juice?
PART I: HOW YOUR JUICE DEFINES YOUR REALITY
Understanding Internal Energy Dynamics
Every great achievement in human history began with a spark. The juice brought to each moment determined whether to keep going or quit, innovate or stagnate, lead or follow. Our personal energy is what turns possibility into reality, or not.
In Part I, weâll explore how your juiceâthat unique mix of your energy, attitude, mindset, efforts, motivation, and expectationsâforms the foundation of everything you become. Youâll see how beliefs impact your potential, how maintaining control of your response to lifeâs challenges unlocks hidden power, how flow states access peak performance, and why connecting to purpose sustains energy over time.
To transform your career, deepen your relationships, or simply show up as your best self each day, it all begins with understanding your juice.
CHAPTER ONE
How Energy Transforms Everything
âEnergy is contagious: either you affect people or you infect people.â âT. HARV EKER, AUTHOR AND MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER
Have you ever considered that your greatest asset isnât what you know, possess, or even what you do, but the approach you bring to every challenge? How your energy might transform what seems impossible into inevitable?
Letâs imagine you are introduced to a new group for the first time. The aura you cast will determine how they experience you and the connection you create together. Does your juice engage you in the moment, expressing positivity and creative curiosity, or does it leave you distant and detached?
One personâs focused energy can change the world.
July, 1944. Ciudad ObregĂłn, Mexico.
Norman Borlaug, a little-known agronomist, stepped out of an old Pontiac and onto a dusty road, looked out over a field of grain that was struggling to grow, and became determined to solve a problem that seemed impossible. He knew that most agricultural experts predicted that as populations grew, widespread global famine was inevitable. The challenge appeared too complex, and there were too many obstacles to overcome to prevent it from happening.
Yet Borlaug knew he couldnât make the soil any better, and he certainly couldnât make it rain more. Despite this, Borlaug remained undeterred and was determined to do something to prevent the mass starvation others feared. He brought something different to the challenge others had notâhis unflappable belief and attitude that would ultimately help save a billion lives. He knew the problem could be solved. He just had to figure out how.
For the next sixteen years, Borlaug worked from dawn until dusk in hot Mexican wheat fields trying to find a way to boost grain production, sleeping on dirt floors near the fields when he wasnât testing new strains of wheat. It was hard work, and it would have been easy to quit when his early research projects failed or local farmers resisted his new ideas. Yet he persisted and remained hopeful. When others told him ânoâ or âit canât be done,â he intensified his efforts. In time, the yields from the new strains of wheat Borlaug developed began to multiply, and so did support from local farmers and scientists.
Borlaugâs commitment became contagious, spreading from field to field all across the globe. What began in those Mexican test fields eventually revolutionized agriculture worldwide. Borlaugâs âGreen Revolutionâ prevented famines and saved countless lives. It also demonstrated how one single person could change the course of human history. His story tells us a lot about human potentialâhow our energy affects outcomes long before strategy, talent, or skills enter the picture. Borlaug was eventually awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Ancient Signals
Long before humans developed seismic monitors or weather satellites, nature had already evolved an early warning system. The earliest written account of unusual animal behavior before a major earthquake came from Greece in 373 BC. Observers noted that rats, weasels, snakes, and insects fled their homes in search of safety days before a devastating quake struck.
There are many examples of this type of event occurring. Before tsunamis struck Sri Lanka and India in 2004, animals again seemed to know what was coming. Elephants stampeded to higher ground. Dogs refused to take their daily beach walks. Bats flew erratically in the sky. All of it happened before a single human felt the first tremor.
Earthquakes release two main waves, the faster-moving P wave and the more destructive S wave. Humans rarely detect the P waveâitâs too subtle. But many animals detect it through their finely developed senses. They hear or feel delicate changes or vibrations that humans cannot. Some even detect shifts in air pressure or electromagnetic fields before any physical force arrives. The animals feel these invisible shifts and then act quickly on those sensations. Their survival depends on trusting their energetic instincts, and they donât second-guess them. Humans, on the other hand, usually wait for confirmation, evidence, or consensus before responding to a threat.
Energy is real, measurable, and constantly flows everywhere around usâthrough nature, through people, and through every interaction we experience. Like animals sensing storms with subtle vibrations and changes in barometric pressure, humans are also sensing energy all the time. Weâve just forgotten how to listen.
Think about those momentsâthe uneasy feeling when you enter a room, the sudden lift you get around certain people, the drain you feel around others, or that gut feeling when something isnât right even though you canât explain why. These are your biological energy sensors trying to alert you. Animals survive by tapping into that life-giving energy and taking action. What might change in our lives, our teams, our leadership, if we did the same?
When Energy Becomes Personal
As I watched Coach Carroll transform a young playerâs frustration into focus with a single question, I felt something shift inside me, too. Up until that point, I had always believed coaching was about preparation, motivation, skill development, tactics, and execution. While undoubtedly important, in that moment, I realized something more. Coaching, and leadership, are about properly recognizing, managing, and directing energy.
It wasnât just about Xâs and Oâsâit was about helping athletes understand and control their own attitude and energy in real-time. That shift changed everything for me. Instead of just asking my athletes about what effort or attitude adjustment they needed to make, I started asking: âWhatâs your juice telling you right now?â It was a small but powerful reframe that unlocked new levels of self-awareness in my players. And as they learned to reflect, acknowledge, and regulate their energy, the benefits inspired others to do the same.
The more I observed this in action, the more I realized its universal application. In coaching, leadership, and personal relationships, the juice you bring impacts everyone around you. When a player shifts from negative self-talk to focused determination, when an organizationâs energy aligns toward a common goal, or when one personâs enthusiasm lights up an entire roomâthese are all products of the same powerful force ⌠our juice.
The Tigger Test
My good friend and accomplished football coach Andy Kotelnicki keeps a simple cartoon on his office wall that contains anything-but-simple wisdom.1 Itâs an image of Tigger and Eeyore from Winnie-the-Pooh, accompanied by a daily choice: âAre you going to be a Tigger or an Eeyore today?â Will you be a Tigger who makes your team better every day, or an Eeyore who pulls it down every chance you get?
Like Coach Carroll asking, âWhatâs your juice?â the Tigger test zeroes in on the energy we choose to bring. Both coaches understand that the most powerful shifts happen when we become conscious of our energy and intentionally direct it.
This question cuts right to the heart of your juice. Every day, in every interaction, youâre choosing between two fundamentally different ways of showing up in the world.
Tigger Energy:
⢠Bounces into rooms with optimism and possibility
⢠Sees problems as puzzles waiting to be solved
⢠Adapts and adjusts when plans change
⢠Focuses energy on what can be influenced
⢠Lifts others when circumstances get tough
⢠Embraces growth with genuine enthusiasm
⢠Believes the best is yet to come
Eeyore Energy:
⢠Enters spaces expecting disappointment
⢠Views obstacles as proof that ânothing ever worksâ
⢠Resists change and expects the world to conform
⢠Fixates on whatâs wrong rather than whatâs possible
⢠Drains rooms of optimism and hope
⢠Stays stuck rather than growing
⢠Assumes the worst is inevitable and believes the world is out
to get them
The Tigger and Eeyore juxtaposition is a constant reminder that this choice is always ours to make. Circumstances, talent, or luck donât determine your juice. Itâs determined by the energy and attitude you consciously decide to express.
Which character represents the juice you brought to your last team meeting? Your last conversation with family? Your last challenge at work? Eeyore ⌠or Tigger? Itâs up to you.
The Science Behind Your Juice
Modern research confirms what many great leaders and coaches have long suspected. Emotional Intelligenceâself-awareness, empathy, and emotional regulationâoften outweighs raw talent or intellect as a factor that determines success. Likewise, Carol Dweckâs research on mindset reveals that individuals who believe their abilities can improve (rather than viewing them as fixed) approach challenges with greater enthusiasm and exhibit higher resilience, ultimately leading to better energy and outcomes.2 These findings align with studies of flow states that explain how we can harness our energy for peak performance.
The research all points in the same direction. The stories are undeniable and the impact is everywhere. Your mindset, emotional awareness, and attitude matter. It molds how you respond to challenges, how you connect with others, and how you lead.
With awareness and the right tools, you can learn to bring your best energy more consistently, more intentionally, and more powerfully into every area of your life. Learning to master your energy might be the most important skill youâll ever develop. This book is your start.
Dr. Troy Urdahlâs Whatâs Your Juice? delivers a focused message: understanding and maximizing your personal energy is essential for achieving individual excellence and driving collective success. Urdahl defines "juice" as the unique blend of energy, attitude, mindset, effort, motivation, and expectations. Drawing on his storied background as an educational leader, athletics administrator, and Hall of Fame baseball coach, Urdahl presents a framework for identifying and optimizing the energy, attitude, mindset, effort, motivation, and expectations that fuel achievement.
The bookâs structure follows a logical progression from personal development to broader impact. Part one centers on personal energy and self-awareness. It introduces practical assessments to help readers identify their energy patterns. Part two explores how individual energy influences others. Part three examines group dynamics and collective achievement. This structure makes complex ideas accessible and allows readers to build understanding step by step.
Urdahlâs blend of storytelling, research, and practical advice makes this book an engaging read. Historical examples and personal narratives clarify abstract ideas, while evidence-based strategies give the work substance.
As an educator, I found the discussion of belief as a performance driver most applicable. Urdahl emphasized the importance of positive beliefs that foster resilience and growth. In addition, the bookâs focus on psychological safety in teams is highly relevant today. Urdahl shows how aligned group energy leads to high achievement. Negative dynamics can derail even the most talented teams. His advice on creating safe, authentic spaces offers valuable guidance for leaders at all levels.
Practical tools and assessments turn the book into an actionable guide. Readers receive concrete strategies for change, not just encouragement to reflect. Urdahl's authentic, encouraging tone makes the material immediately relevant.
The book targets coaches, educators, and leaders, but its message has a broad appeal. Anyone seeking personal growth or better team collaboration will learn key strategies that are suitable for corporate teams, athletic programs, education, and personal relationships.
Whatâs Your Juice? stands out as both an inspirational call to recognize and harness your core energy and a practical manual for real transformation. Urdahl emphasizes that bringing your best energy to every moment is the foundation of success, and his actionable tools make this attainable. For those seeking to unlock potential and create lasting positive impact, this book clarifies the path forward.