Jan 9, 2024
In middle school physics, we learned that an object at rest has
potential energy – an amount of currency it has to spend, if it
wants to move. When you pull back an arrow, the potential energy
flows from your muscles, to the bow, to the string, and then the
string pays all that money in one go to propel the arrow – turning
potential into kinetic energy in a single motion.
Our lives are organized around those same flows of energy, too. We
dream, we store energy, and then we trade in potential for
kinetic.
Ashley Smith has made a career out of translating these flows of
energy – and showing others how to do it, too. It’s in her dance
studio, turning emotion into movement. It’s in her partnership with
her husband, Ryan Smith, the executive chairman and co-founder of
Qualtrics. And it’s in her love for the state of Utah, flowing from
Ashley’s love for community, downstream, to ownership of the Utah
Jazz basketball team with Ryan.
How can we better understand the flows of energy in our own life,
and in our bodies?