If you are not fully engaged in your business or personal life what else are you doing? Where exactly is your attention? What are you addicted to that isn't productive and what is it costing you? (It's probably not cheap.)

According to Gallup, which has been studying the problem for a great many years, 87% of employees world-wide are not engaged at work and companies with engaged workforces outperform their peers by 147%. And this is just employee engagement. I strongly suspect that a substantial number of people are not particularly engaged at home either and employees are just one faction of stakeholders that an organization needs to keep emotional bonded and paying attention.

Here's what I think full engagement is about: I am in the process of consciously constructing what I say is truly most important. This does not automatically mean I am performing well at it or winning all the time, but it does mean I am playing my big game.

My big game is about working and playing with interesting people looking to create wealth and a higher quality of life by making a bigger impact on the world around them. The quality of my life (and ultimate wealth) is largely the net effect of my good habits, bad habits, good fortune and bad fortune in playing this game. My basic choice in any given moment is whether I do something constructive or not to further this mission. I am either playing my big game or another one.

I think addiction is a process we all use to rob ourselves of our quality of life and wealth and detract (or distract) us from the pursuit of healthier goals. Is there a difference between a bad habit and a full-on addiction? Perhaps it's just a matter of degrees.

I'm increasingly certain that I'm addicted to sugar, even though it might seem strange to consider it an addiction like cocaine or alcohol, even though some addiction therapists consider sugar to be worse than the combination of cocaine and alcohol. Does my consumption and frequent abuse of sugar lead to an unmanageable life? For me it doesn't really, but it is putting my health at risk and costing me a big chunk of my dream life. (There are reams of conflicting data on this, but it appears that sugar abuse is a root cause of a massive number of deaths and health problems and healthcare spending, even if it does not get sexy press as an addiction issue.)

Addictions are patient and they are hunting. My former mother-in-law killed herself with a fatal cocktail of alcohol and diabetes. I know people who've ended their lives when gambling losses overwhelmed them. Drug use rampantly rips families apart and destroys jobs and sometimes entire companies. Sexual misconduct is coming out of the shadows in waves of public revelation and I can only imagine how much is still hidden from view in the form of extramarital affairs. And I think we also need to acknowledge the massive deleterious effects of social media as a mechanism to pull focus away from the very things that we know intuitively add value to our existence. Like the very relationships we are disengaging from. This requires vigilance as social media companies are vigorously "designing for addiction" to pull this focus and keep our attention on advertisements that generate revenue.

I think about "little a" addiction in practical coaching terms as any habit that destroys personal and business value and does not further the constructive pursuit of the mission. Addictions are a complicated mess of early childhood issues, genetics, socialization, neurotransmitters and self-awareness–a significant component of the larger issue of mental wellness within the business community. It's still a difficult topic to discuss openly as it is shrouded in shame.

I am both fortunate and smart to be surrounded by great people. They have helped me largely off the slippery slope from bad habit to full-blown life-destroying "big A" addiction. Do you have something going on that you intuitively know is undermining the life you want to live what do you do next? Maybe going out the front door and engaging the support of some professionals, some coworkers, some friends and some family members may be the place to start. There are lots of us out here waiting for your call.

Another thing I do instead of eating sugar is write! I've put a ton of heart and soul into my book series and I have priced each book at $19.64, the year of my birth. I think it's good value. Order yours here. Please share this article: people are suffering out there.