Energy Drivers and Energy Drains Audit
Mine your past for moments that energized or drained you, then turn them into job design requirements
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Instead of chasing job features like salary and title, Moesta has you reflect on specific past moments where you gained or lost energy, then dig beneath the surface to the true cause. Those causes become explicit 'design requirements' for your next role — because when you spend most of your time in energizing work, it stops feeling like work at all. The goal is to shift your ratio of energizing-to-draining work from a typical 5% up toward 40–50%.
Origin
Bob Moesta's method from 'Job Moves,' built by treating a person like a product with discoverable requirements, an extension of Jobs-to-be-Done thinking.
Core principles
- 01You're a product; energy drivers and drains are your requirements
- 02Reflection takes time — memories surface over a two-week window, not in one sitting
- 03Move past the surface 'pablum layer' of language to the causal mechanism underneath
- 04Everyone must do some draining work; the win is improving the ratio, not eliminating it
- 05Your bottom-five weaknesses are where energy drains hide — and often where your superpower's mirror image lives
How to run it
- 1
Collect energizing moments across your history
Go back through your career — even to college or high school — and capture specific moments where you walked into a situation and felt a surge of excitement or came out with 2x-4x the energy you went in with.
Pro tip Give yourself ~2 weeks and take walks; memories of great teams and projects surface gradually. For a fast version, just list a few meetings/projects/teams from the last 12 months that energized you.
- 2
Collect the energy drains
List the moments and tasks that suck the life out of you. Use a StrengthsFinder-style test and look specifically at your bottom five — the things you're so bad at you don't even realize it.
Pro tip StrengthsFinder is a cheat sheet to your drains: the bottom five trigger 'oh yeah, I remember when this happened' recall of draining moments.
Watch out Answers like 'I work too much' are a sign you haven't done the homework — everybody genuinely sucks at something specific.
- 3
Abstract each moment to its causal layer
For each moment, dig past the surface statement. Moesta names three layers of language, the top being the 'pablum layer' ('I love the beach'). Keep asking why until you hit causation ('there are lots of people around' → 'I like being around people').
Pro tip Contrast a good instance with a bad instance of the same thing (a beach day that energized you vs one that didn't) to expose the real cause.
Watch out Most people stop at the pablum layer and never learn what actually causes them to like something.
- 4
Dissect why each drain drains
For draining tasks, ask why: is it because you don't know how, because you've done it a thousand times, or because it's the wrong culture? Different causes imply different fixes.
Pro tip Wrapping a process around work you love ruins it; wrapping a process (or gamifying, or using AI) around work you hate helps you get through it.
- 5
Convert findings into explicit design requirements
Make the causes explicit so they become the criteria for evaluating your next job — and for building a complementary team where others love the work that drains you.
Pro tip A side gig or hobby can supply energy drivers you can't get from any single job — no one job gives you everything.
Watch out Hiring people like yourself creates a large blind spot; deliberately staff your drains with people energized by them.
In the wild
After leaving his job, Lenny made this his number-one framework: after every meeting and interaction he noted whether it energized or drained him, then did more of the energizing and less of the draining every week.
→ It led him to the newsletter and podcast — a life he says he wouldn't have found without this single framework.
Coaching someone energized by constant learning, Moesta tested job types against that requirement — consulting (novel every time) and customer success (every customer is a different situation to learn) qualified, while routine roles didn't.
→ The person could translate their core driver into concrete role options that would keep energizing them.
Common mistakes
Staying at the pablum layer
Saying 'I love the beach' without finding the cause ('I like being around people') gives you no transferable requirement for a job.
Expecting one job to supply everything
People assume work should meet every need; in reality you balance it, and hobbies or side gigs can cover the rest.
Is it for you?
Best for
Someone crafting the criteria for their next role, or anyone deciding where to spend their time to thrive
Not ideal for
A quick, purely financial decision where experience quality is irrelevant
From the transcript
“think of moments where you actually go into a situation and you get energy from it well that's an experience”
“if you can pull that ratio to 40 40% energy driver drain or 5050 like you don't even know you're working anymore”
“one layer is the pablum layer I love to go to the beach it's like okay but you have to understand well why do you…”
“I want to know the bottom five and they're like why is because those are the five things you really suck at that you don't…”
“if I wrap a process around something I love to do I actually ruin it but if I wrap a process about something I really…”
From the episode
How to find work you love
Bob Moesta (Jobs-to-be-Done co-creator, author of "Job Moves