Everything changes when your energy changes
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
At WISF we're embracing fresh opportunities to highlight our community and we're thrilled to feature Dr. Cornelia Kawann in our «Community Member Portrayed» column.
For years, I believed the most valuable resource we could manage was time. As an electrical engineer, I learned how energy powers entire countries. It took me much longer to realise that our personal energy powers every decision we make, every conversation we have and every life we create. Once I understood that, I could no longer look at leadership, success or sustainability in the same way.
The Moment Everything Changed
The biggest turning point in my career didn't happen in a board meeting or at an international conference. It happened one evening at our dining table while I was helping my daughter prepare for her biology exam.
As we revised the nervous system, we talked about the tiny electrical currents flowing through our bodies and the electrical potential of every single cell. I had spent more than twenty years working in the energy sector as an electrical engineer and later on the Board of the Swiss electricity regulator. Electricity was my professional language. Yet, in that moment, one simple thought stopped me.
If electric current flowing through a mobile phone creates an electromagnetic field, why is it so difficult to believe that the human body does the same?
It wasn't a spiritual revelation. It was an engineer asking a question.
And, like every good question, it refused to let go.
From Electric Energy to Personal Energy
The more I explored this idea, the more I realised that the principles governing electrical energy seemed to apply remarkably well to us. Every battery has a limited capacity. Every system needs recovery. When demand exceeds supply for too long, instability follows.
Why should people be any different?
That question became the beginning of years of experimenting, reading, observing and, perhaps most importantly, applying these ideas to my own life. The more consciously I learned to manage my personal energy, the more everything else changed. I became clearer in my decisions, calmer under pressure and more present with the people around me. It wasn't because my circumstances had changed. I had changed.
Why Leadership Is An Energy Issue
This discovery eventually became the foundation of my work in Personal Energy Management and Energetic Leadership.
We often think leadership starts with strategy, communication or executive presence. I believe it starts much earlier. Long before we speak, people experience our energy. It shapes how we listen, how we decide, how we respond under pressure and how safe others feel around us. Before we can lead organisations, teams or families, we have to learn to lead ourselves. And to be a leader in this new era with digitalization and AI it becomes more and more important that you lead with your energy. Because people will feel it and follow you. But leadership always starts with us. In order to lead others with our energy we need to know how to manage our own energy. Everything else builds on that foundation.
Why WISF Resonates With Me
That is also why I feel so connected to the Women in Sustainable Finance community. We spend a great deal of time discussing sustainable finance, sustainable business and the energy transition. I simply like to add another perspective to that conversation.
What about our personal energy?
Because creating a sustainable future also requires leaders who know how to sustain themselves. Sustainable energy is not only about the systems we build. It is also about the people building them.
Three lessons that continue to guide me
✨ Your energy is your greatest leadership asset. Before people follow your ideas, they experience your presence.
✨ Managing your energy is more important than managing your time. Energy determines the quality of everything you do with the time you have.
✨ Everything changes when your energy changes. Not because the world suddenly becomes easier, but because you show up differently within it.
About Dr. Cornelia Kawann
Dr. Cornelia Kawann is an electrical engineer, member of the Board of the Swiss electricity regulator, Personal Energy Strategist and author of Change Your Energy - Change Your Life and the Abundance Journal. Through Personal Energy Management and Energetic Leadership, she helps ambitious women lead with greater clarity, confidence and impact while creating success they still have the energy to enjoy.
Learn more about Cornelia:
Website: https://www.corneliakawann.com/
Check out her books:
And if you are interested to learn more how the food you are eating influences your energy join the Launch Team for her new Book “The Art of Eating Energy” here.
