Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

It’s Hard to Have a Bad Day When I Hit These (Yours?)   Every day I hit 101 Targets in the Heroic App.   As I joke with our team and with some friends, “101 Targets a day keeps the daimon in play!”   I can assure you that it’s *really* hard to have a *really* bad day when you start your day recommitting to being your best self in your Energy, Work, and Love and then do 101 things you KNOW help you stay plugged in.   But…   Don’t take my word for it.    Test it!     Now…   I recommit to over 30 Heroic Energy Targets every morning. I’ve basically breadcrumbed my day with what I KNOW I do when I’m at my best so I can make that prior best my new baseline.    My #1 Energy Target?   “In Bed for 9-10 Hours”    I haven’t missed that ONCE since we launched the app. Sleep is a sport for me and THAT (process!) Target is the #1 reason why my (outcome Target!) average Oura Sleep Score has been 90+ every month for nearly 2 years.    For curious souls, my current Heroic Energy Top 3 includes:   I.

In Permanent Ink Somewhere I’ll Never Miss It     Today I want to chat about how I spent last Father’s Day with the kids.   Hint: We went to Blindside Tattoo in Austin, Texas to add some Heroic targets to my forearm in permanent ink.     Before we go there…   As you may recall, in our last +1, we talked about Admiral McRaven’s Hero Code and the virtue of perseverance.   He told us about the fact that it was PERSEVERANCE that helped many of our favorite Heroes weather the inevitable storms of their Heroic quests en route to the summit of fulfilling their Missions.   I think this is so good that it’s worth repeating: “George Washington was defeated on the battlefield more times than he won. Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections before he won the presidency. Thomas Edison failed ten thousand times before inventing the lightbulb. Henry Ford had two failed companies before he found success. J. K. Rowling was destitute before she got the first Harry Potter book published, and Oprah Winfrey had an extre

Did You Know That George Washington…   In our last couple +1s, we chatted about Admiral McRaven’s and Ryan Holiday’s take on Courage.   Remember: Courage is calling. All we need to do is take JUST ONE STEP.   Today I want to explore some more wisdom from McRaven’s great new book, The Hero Code.   As you may recall, The Hero Code has ten virtues: Courage. Humility. Sacrifice. Integrity. Compassion. Perseverance. Duty. Hope. Humor. Forgiveness.   Let’s shine a spotlight on the sixth virtue, Perseverance.   We’ll invite Admiral McRaven back to the party to share his wisdom on the subject.   He tells us: “I believe history will show that success is not just a function of brains or brawn, of talent or intellect, of skill or resourcefulness, but of perseverance. Genius without resolve is just another passing person with a bright idea. Athletic prowess without determination is just another talent wasted. The world is filled with men and women who amounted to nothing because they gave up on their dreams

Answer the Call, Hero!   In our last +1, we talked about virtue #1 in Admiral McRaven’s Hero Code.   COURAGE.   I reminded us of the fact that Aristotle told us that courage is the most important virtue—the one that vitalizes all the other virtues.    Why?    Because…   If we don’t have the COURAGE to take action in the presence of fear, then all of our supposed Wisdom and Self-Mastery and Love and Gratitude and Hope and Curiosity and Zest is stuck in Theory-land and is, to put it bluntly, USELESS if we don’t have the courage to put it into practice.   Churchill echoed that wisdom when he told us that: “Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because it is the quality which guarantees the rest.”   Note: Churchill also EMBODIED that Heroic Courage in the face of overwhelming odds and looming catastrophe during World War II. We, arguably, have HIM (and his tenacious (!) courage) to thank most for leading in such turbulent times to help create the world we live in today.   And…

Take JUST ONE STEP Forward Today    In our last +1, we spent some time with one of my heroes, Admiral William H. McRaven as we soaked our souls in wisdom from his newest book: The Hero Code.   As you may recall, McRaven’s Hero Code has ten core virtues: Courage. Humility. Sacrifice. Integrity. Compassion. Perseverance. Duty. Hope. Humor. Forgiveness.   Today I want to talk about the #1 virtue: COURAGE.   Let’s talk about one of THE most powerful ways to operationalize that virtue.   Here’s how Admiral McRaven puts it: “None of us are immune from life’s pain and disappointment. But if you doubt for even a second that you have the courage necessary to confront the evil in the world or that weakness that resides deep inside all of us—you’re wrong. ...   We all have our lines in the sand, those fears that keep us from being courageous. But all you have to do to overcome those fears, those obstacles, those challenges in your life is to take one step forward. Just one. Take one step forward and get on th

McRaven’s Ten Core Virtues   Admiral William H. McRaven is one of my very few living American heroes.   We’ve created Notes on three of his great books.    We started with Make Your Bed—a short, brilliant, inspiring manual all about “Little Things That Can Change Your Life... And Maybe the World” that was inspired by the commencement address he gave at the University of Texas at Austin that went viral.   Then we featured his autobiography, Sea Stories, which is all about the wisdom he gained from his nearly four decades in special operations.   So…   When I saw the title to his newest book, I KNEW I had to read it and I KNEW I’d love it.   The book?    It’s called The Hero Code.   It’s a super-quick reading, incredibly inspiring look at “Lessons Learned from Lives Well Lived” in which Admiral McRaven walks us through the lives of everyday heroes who showed up and gave us all they had. I highly recommend it. (Get a copy here.)   McRaven tells us: “I came to realize that there is a

Red Lights? GREEN LIGHTS!    We’ve been having some fun exploring Brian Cain’s wisdom on mental performance mastery.   As you know if you’ve been following along, we started by checking in to see if you’ve been punched in the face lately (), then we broke some arrows with our neck to dominate the Ability + Strategy + GOYA = Results equation, then we did some 1% math (remember: 1% is 14 minutes and 24 seconds of your day and, if you get 1% better every day, you’ll be 998,822,690,009,590 times better in a decade! ) then we questioned why we’d want to be average, then we raised the basement, and, most recently, we focused our telescopes AND our microscopes on our top goals so we can dominate the day AND the decade.   Schew. We’ve been busy!   +1% +1% +1% for the win!     Today I want to wrap up the tour through Brian’s brain with one more Big Idea from 10 Pillars.   This one’s on how to flip the switch and go from red lights to green lights.   Here’s Brian and the characters from his littl

And Heroic Apps to Dominate the Day and Decade   Not too long ago, we spent some time with Brian Cain and some of his wisdom from a couple of his little fables: One Percent Better and The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery.   I want to revisit some of his wisdom.   Let’s talk about your goals.   We’ll invite Cainer back to the party to help us check them out from a couple different perspectives.    In 10 Pillars, he tells us: “Setting big goals is great, but they have to be the right goals or they become traps. Financial goals must be secondary to family goals or you won’t have any family to set goals with. You also need to have telescope and microscope goals. Telescope goals that you can see off into the future, and then you must reverse engineer a process back to your microscope and execute on your microscopic daily goals. Telescope goals are 1, 3, 5+ years into the future and the microscope goals are what you will do in the next 24 hours to move towards your telescope goals. Remember

“True Surrender” = “The Art of Acquiescence”    In our last couple +1s, we talked about Michael Singer and his practical wisdom.   As we discussed, he has quickly become one of my favorite new teachers. He clearly practices his philosophy and his philosophy is a good one.   As I was reading his latest book, I was struck by the parallels of his wisdom and Stoicism.    Although they take different approaches to get there and describe the process in slightly different terms (as is typically the case with universal truths echoed across different cultures and times), they arrive at the same destination.   Check this out, for example.    Here’s Michael Singer from Living Untethered: “One of the most amazing things you will ever realize is that the moment in front of you is not bothering you—you are bothering yourself about the moment in front of you.”   And…   Here’s Marcus Aurelius from his Meditations: “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to

Opportunities to Practice   In our last +1, we talked about using the WEATHER as a prompt to practice our philosophy.   I shared my new favorite temperature which, as you may recall, is WHATEVER THE TEMPERATURE IS RIGHT NOW! (Hah.) (Seriously though! )   I promised we’d chat more about Michael Singer and his idea of practicing “surrendering” to reality by picking some low-hanging fruit.   Here’s some of his wisdom on the subject from his great (!) book Living Untethered.   He tells us: “The best way to let go of stored pockets of pain is to practice. Just as you practice the scales to learn the piano or practice a sport to get good at it, you practice letting go to learn how to do it. You start with simple things. We call these low-hanging fruit. There are many situations each day when you create inner disturbance for absolutely no good reason. Bothering yourself about the car in front of you does no good at all. It only makes you tense and uptight. The cost-benefit analysis is one-hundre

What’s Yours? Emerson just walked into my office zipping up his camo winter jacket to go with his camo pants.   He told me: “It’s COLD! It’s 52 degrees out this morning!”   Fall arrived in a hurry out here in Austin and we went from the 100’s to the 90’s to, for former Californians, chilly quickly!   Now…   Emerson and I have a new joke—which is why I replied by saying, “Oh!! 52 degrees—that’s my all-time favorite temperature!”   To which he laughed and said, “Dadddddddyyyyy. EVERY temperature is your favorite temperature.”   That’s true. My favorite temperature? It’s always EXACTLY what the temperature is at that moment.   Which gets us a little closer to the point of Today’s +1.   Let’s step back for a moment and set some context.   Michael Singer has become one of my absolute favorite teachers.    Although I very much enjoyed The Untethered Soul (check out those Notes), it wasn’t until my friend Joe Okleberry sent me a picture of him and Michael that I picked up this book.    Now,

Stoic Negative Visualization Part Deux Not too long ago, we talked about Happy our Rooster. He wasn’t doing so well then and, I’m sorry to say, he didn’t make it.     We talked about Happy and his crowing in the context of remembering to practice alchemizing things that might (at least on occasion!) annoy us into reminders of just how precious the little things in life are.    As you may recall, I connected that wisdom to the master class I created for Emerson on Conquering Toilet Paper 101.     Today I want to continue the conversation and shine a brighter light on the ancient Stoic practice that the modern Stoic William B. Irvine describes as “negative visualization.”    Then I’ll tell you how I practiced that when we couldn’t find the kids for a few minutes yesterday.    First…   The Stoics.    As we discussed in +1 #851, Stoic philosopher William B. Irvine wrote a great book called A Guide to the Good Life.    He tells us that the Stoics “recommended that we spend time imaginin

And Notice When You’re Not This morning I was on the trail, listening to my 33-minute playlist of 11 of my favorite songs by my favorite band The Score while getting in my 30 minutes of movement and 15 minutes of MAF work.   I had just hammered out 10 pull-ups and 100 burpees and 1,000 meters of rowing. I pulled out my bat phone, which I use to hit Heroic targets when I’m training and in Deep Work mode.    Target swipe.  Target swipe. Target swipe.    That’s like me to have 51 targets hit by the time I come online en route to 101 targets for the day!! (101 Heroic Targets a day truly do keep the daimon in play, folks! )   And…   As I was putting the ol’ bat phone back into the ol’ pocket…   I missed.    The phone fell to the ground and my old-school, corded headphones got disconnected.     And…   The music stopped.    And…   That’s when I knew I needed to create this +1.    Want to hear the music of life?   Awesome.   Stay plugged in.    Period.    Want to more and more consistently show

You Don’t Rise to the Occasion, You Sink to…  Continuing our tour through Brian Cain’s mental toughness fables, let’s talk about another Big Idea from The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery.   Remember: Brian has coached an INCREDIBLE number of SUPER-ELITE athletes and coaches. Eight UFC Champions. Four Cy Young Winners. MVPs. Olympians, etc, etc., etc.   One of the things he teaches them?   The fact that, as he puts it: “You don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to your levels of training and habits.”   Here’s how his guide Coach Kenny puts it in the fable.    He tells us: “‘The key is to make your habits so strong and your training so good that when you sink to your worst day, you sink to a level higher than anyone else on their best day,’ Coach Kenny said. ‘It’s easy to say, hard to do, and only possible if you follow the 10 pillars of mental performance mastery.’”   Then he says: “’Everyone talks about raising the roof. In reality, it’s about raising your basement so that you hav

The Best of the Worst and Worst of the Best In our last several +1s, we’ve been having fun hanging out with world-class mental toughness and peak performance coach, Brian Cain.   And, trust me.   Any time spent with Cainer is going to be fun.   He is EASILY one of the most inspiring human beings on the planet. You can’t help but feel energized just being in his presence.   So…   Today we’re going to talk about one of the lines in his little fable on The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery that jumped out at me and tattooed itself on my consciousness.   It’s about being average.   Coach Kenny is the guide in the fable. He’s coaching a burned-out executive.   He tells him: “‘You are like most people,’ Coach Kenny said. ‘And we call that average. Like I have said, I hate the word average. It means you are the best of the worst and the worst of the best. It’s a terrible place to live.’”   Me: Oh, snap!     Average.    It’s the best of the worst. And the worst of the best.   Stuck right

Want to Get 998,822,690,009,590 Times Better?   In our last +1, we talked about Brian Cain’s wisdom on The 1% Intention.   Let’s review the math.    There are 24 hours in a day. 60 minutes per hour. That’s 1,440 minutes per day.   1% of that?   14 minutes and 24 seconds.   1% of your day.   Here’s the question: What’s the #1 thing you KNOW you could be doing that, if you spent just 1% of your day doing it, would have THE most positive impact in your life?   Seriously. What is it?   How can YOU invest just 1% of your day into getting 1% better Today?   Think about it.   And…   As you do, let’s think about some James Clear wisdom on the subject to bring the point home—because the math is CRAZY.   Actually…   Before we go there…   I have to say that I want your potential investment of 1% of your day into HEROIC to be (goosebumps) at least considered as one of the highest-leverage things you could do to improve your life 1%.   14 minutes and 24 seconds.   Choose your own adventure with how you

Close the Gap TODAY In our last couple +1s, we spent some time hanging out with world-class mental toughness coach Brian Cain.    We broke some arrows, ate some fire and got an invitation to a big UFC event where one of his fighters made Epictetus proud by smiling as he got punched in the face.     Today we’re going to spend some more time with Cainer.    We’re going to talk about getting 1% better.    Let’s head back to his little fable (appropriately called “One Percent Better”) where his characters Sunny and Mr. Big are having a little chat.    “‘Good morning, Mr. Big! It’s time to get juiced. Either we are going to dominate the day or the day will dominate us. Are you ready?’ Sunny asked this with the excitement of a kid on Christmas Day.   As we began walking the halls to the scent of bacon and breakfast, Sunny started asking me about math. ‘Mr. Big, there are 24 hours in a day and 60 minutes in each hour. How many minutes are there in a day?’   I quickly took out my phone and asked,

Break Arrows with Your Neck Lately?   In our last +1, we talked about the fact that Brian Cain recently visited me and the Johnson fam out here in the country outside of Austin.    I casually mentioned that the kids and wifey and I had fun learning how to eat fire and break an arrow with our necks and do other fun things we didn’t think we could do.    Today I’d like to talk more about those broken arrows.   First, a little more context.    As we discussed, Brian is one of the world’s leading mental toughness coaches. He’s also a long-time student of mine and easily tied for first as one of the most inspiring, energized human beings I know.   His client list includes four Major League Baseball Cy Young Award winners, eight UFC world champion mixed martial artists, World Series and Super Bowl Champions and MVPs, Olympic medalists, and countless other elite athletes and coaches.   When he visited, he left a couple books with me as gifts: The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery and One Perce

What to Do the Next Time That Happens   Brian Cain is one of the world’s greatest mental toughness coaches.    His client list includes four Major League Baseball Cy-Young Award winners, eight UFC world champion mixed martial artists, World Series and Super Bowl Champions and MVPs, Olympic medalists, and countless other elite athletes and coaches.    He’s also a friend and longtime student of mine who has his clients read PhilosophersNotes to go to the next level. (Cainer: !!!)   We’re going to be talking about him and his wisdom more in the weeks and months ahead—check out the PhilosophersNotes on his books The 10 Pillars of Mental Performance Mastery and One Percent Better.    Today I want to chat about one of his clients.    Quick context.    Brian recently visited me and the Johnson fam out here in the country outside of Austin. The kids and wifey and I had fun learning how to eat fire and break an arrow with our necks and do other fun things we didn’t think we could do.    Now…   Th

Stay in the Ring and Let’s Go!   In our last +1, we spent some time riding appropriately big waves and reminded ourselves that, when we’re wisely surfing the beautiful oceans of life, we remember to ENJOY the waves.    Today we’re going to bring my all-time favorite teacher (Epictetus!) back to the party to hear his take on the subject.    But…    Before we go there…   Let’s pause for a moment and think about the great big-wave surfer, Laird Hamilton.    The guy is obsessed about finding THE BIGGEST POSSIBLE WAVES HE CAN FIND!    Why?   Because that’s how he knows he can see what he’s made of and HAVE THE MOST FUN!!   Crazy?   Of course.    And that’s how he is fulfilling his idiosyncratic, Heroic destiny and inspiring all of us to do the same in our own unique ways as well.    Side note: Have you seen Finding Joe yet? Laird tells his story in it. Along with Tony Hawk. They talk about all the FEAR they felt pursuing their big, hairy, audacious dreams. Watch the trailer here. Full movie fo