Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

A couple +1s ago, while celebrating Yuval Noah Harari’s lack of a smartphone, I mentioned the fact that we don’t need to become smashing Luddites in response to the tsunami of technology that hammers us all day every day.   But… We ALSO want to make sure we don’t become addicted users.    The best solution? Be an Optimizite. Let’s make the best use of technology to sculpt the best possible version of yourself. (Recall that Optimize comes from the Latin optimus which literally means “the best.”)   That’s the central theme of Conquering Digital Addiction 101—which might be my favorite master class so far.    Here’s the deal.   You know how Facebook and Instagram and Google make money?   By, essentially, hacking and then selling your attention.   They work REALLY REALLY REALLY (!!!) hard to make sure you spend MORE and MORE and MORE time on their sites and apps.   Then they SELL your attention to (literally) the highest bidder.   Now, of course, there’s nothing inherently evil

In our last +1, we talked about Professor Harari’s two world maps—one before The Scientific Revolution that was all filled in (including areas they knew NOTHING about) and one after that had plenty of empty spaces (accounting for all they things they didn’t know).    Then we talked about YOUR maps. And, hopefully, we all added a good deal more empty space in our maps—especially that space outside our comfort zones that leads to the unknowable zone of our infinite potential.   Today I want to chat about the importance of running our own scientific experiments. Of course, admitting our ignorance is an absolutely essential first step to gaining new knowledge. But, then we’ve gotta throw on our lab coats and get to work!   Before we go there though, how about another quick little history lesson?    So, we all know that Christopher Columbus “discovered” the continent that became known as America. But... He refused to believe it. When he landed on the Bahamas he thought he had discovered islands

Wallace D. Wattles was an old-school Philosopher-Optimizer who wrote The Science of Getting Rich. He also wrote a little book called The Science of Being Great. (Both of those titles are, of course, finalists for best titles ever.)   In The Science of Being Great he has a great line that has been tattooed on my brain since I read it.   He said: “The world needs demonstration more than it needs instruction.”   The world needs DEMONSTRATION more than it needs INSTRUCTION.   Isn’t that a powerful statement?!   (Kinda makes you wonder what you’re demonstrating, eh?)   For example, we know that kids don’t do what they’re told or taught, they do what they SEE. So, it’s pretty obvious we better model the behaviors we want to see in our kids if we want them to grow up to be great humans.    All of which leads us to a little personal story—one from a couple months ago that features me in a (laughably) low moment in my parenting career.    Short story: My dad cursed like a sailor. In fact, he liter

Today we’re going to talk about walking.   Walking is awesome. In fact, it’s so old-school epically awesome in helping thinkers think that our ancient friends even had a Latin phrase to capture its power: Solvitur ambulando.

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that batting .300 over the course of your Major League Baseball career gets you in the Hall of Fame.   Today we’re going to continue the baseball metaphor.    Pop quiz for baseball fans: You know how many perfect games have EVER been thrown?!    (For those who may not know, a perfect game is defined by Major League Baseball (via Wikipedia) as “a game in which a pitcher (or combination of pitchers) pitches for a victory [in a game] that lasts a minimum of nine innings in which no opposing player reaches base.”)   So… Get this: According to Wikipedia, Major League Baseball has been around for 140 years. Over 210,000 (!) games have been played. And only 23 (!) perfect games have ever been pitched. And… No player has ever thrown more than one perfect game.   140 years. 210,000 (!) games. Only 23 perfect games.    And NO pitcher has ever done it twice.   Yet you and I want to have perfect lives. (Hahahahahhaha!)   I’m also reminded of John Woo

In our last +1, we talked about the science of daydreaming. Quick recap: Stay out of the “poor attention control” and “guilty-dysphoric” realms and in the “positive-constructive” mode.   Here’s another way to think about it. (Thanks again to Manoush Zomorodi!)   When your mind is wandering and you’re kinda randomly thinking about your life, do you imagine yourself as the CONQUERING HERO of your own story (positive-constructive!) or the SUFFERING MARTYR (guilty-dysphoric) of the story?   It’s a big distinction.   We want to get REALLY (!) good at noticing when we’re falling into the “woe is me” helpless Victim orientation and SHIFT it into the “Let’s do this!!” Creator orientation.   How?   Well, again, what do you think we’re doing with all these +1s?    I’m basically trying to give you a super-stocked toolshed/armory of tools and weapons and tips and tricks and hacks you can use THE MOMENT you find yourself losing your connection from the best version of yourself.   It all starts

In our last couple +1s, we’ve talked about your breathing. If you haven’t checked out the full Optimal Breathing 101 master class yet, you might dig it.    For now, how about a quick look at the THREE simple rules of optimal breathing?   Here they are: Breathe through your nose Into your belly And exhale slightly longer than you inhaled 1 + 2 + 3 = Magic.   How about a quick inventory then a closer look?   First, the quick inventory: You breathing through your nose? (Most people don’t. Go look around and/or in the mirror. Do you see a mouth gaping open?) Do you breathe deeply (yet calmly) into your belly? (Most people don’t—especially if you breathe through your mouth!) And, is your exhale slightly longer than your inhale? (This is the fastest way to relax!) Now, for the closer look:   Rule #1. Breathe Through Your Nose (EXCLUSIVELY!)   When? All day. Every day. (Including while sleeping and training.)   Why? Well, check out the class for a full description (and/or th

​​Technology is, obviously, awesome. We’ve been using “tech” tools for 2.5 million years since our protohuman ancestors first picked up a stone and used it as a tool. 1.8 million years ago, “we” figured out how to make an acheulean hand axe which was a pretty epic innovation at the time. ​​ ​​So, with the advent of smartphones in what’s known as the “Input Age,” I’m not suggesting we should all become tech-smashing Luddites. But… (And this is a big but!), I also don’t think we should underestimate just how much we play the role of addicted users caught up in the mix of a $7 TRILLION attention economics (/mind-hacking!) industry. ​​ ​​The solution: Become Optimizites—use technology wisely to become the BEST you rather than mindlessly let your 1 million-year-old prefrontal cortex get hacked all day every day. ​​ ​​In the class, we walk through the costs of addiction, then talk about how to conquer it so we can sculpt our ideal lives.  

Since our time with George Leonard exploring his ideas on Mastery, I’ve been thinking about him a lot.   I realized that I forgot to share another one of my favorite Ideas from his great little book that has most changed my life.    It’s super simple but equally powerful.    First, the context.    In a section on getting energy for mastery, George tells us: “A human being is the kind of machine that wears out from lack of use. There are limits, of course, and we do need healthful rest and relaxation, but for the most part we gain energy by using energy... It might well be that all of us possess enormous stores of potential energy, more than we could ever hope to use.”   Of course, as we discuss often, we need to remember to oscillate and train our recovery, etc. but we’ve also gotta know that human beings GAIN energy by USING energy. We’re the kind of machine that wears out from LACK of use.   Which reminds me of super-energized Leonardo da Vinci’s wisdom: “Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant wa

Breathing. It’s easy to take for granted but when you stop to think about it, it quickly becomes obvious just how powerful it is. Get this: You can live for weeks without food and days without water but, of course, only minutes without oxygen. Plus: Your brain uses 20% of the oxygen you consume while breathing is responsible for 70% (!) of your body’s detoxification. Yet… If you’re like most people, you’re probably doing this simple, should-be-easy fundamental wrong. In this class, we’ll look at why CO2 is (somewhat paradoxically!) actually the variable we want to be Optimizing if we want to get the O2 out of our hemoglobin and into our cells. Then we’ll look at the Three Rules for breathing perfectly as we Optimize your breathing for calm, focused energy.

Continuing our good times with Confucius, here’s one of the gems from his Analects that has tattooed itself on my brain since I read it a decade ago.   “The Master said, He does not mind not being in office; all he minds about is whether he has qualities that entitle him to office. He does not mind failing to get recognition; he is too busy doing the things that entitle him to recognition.”   How great is THAT?   Would you like a little more recognition than you’re getting?   OK. That’s fine.   Now take a deep breath and get back to work doing whatever it is you think will EARN you that recognition.   Repeat that process whenever the desire for (more) recognition arises.    That’s Today’s +1.   Well, that and this passage from James Allen’s As a Man Thinketh—which is also tattooed to my brain along with big chunks of that entire essay.   Imagine working tirelessly and then, one day, things just shift.   Here’s how Allen poetically puts it: “And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vis

I can’t resist. One more +1 on Aristotle.   So… The Olympic Games started in Olympia (not too far outside of Athens) in 776 BC.   A few centuries later, Aristotle told us that you can’t just SHOW UP at the Olympics and look like a great athlete, you have to actually COMPETE.   Here’s how he puts it: “Just as at the Olympic Games it is not the best-looking or the strongest men present that are crowned with wreaths, but the competitors (because it is from them that the winners come), so it is those who act that rightly win the honours and rewards in life.”   To recap his point: You can’t just KNOW how to live virtuously. You need to actually LIVE with virtue.    I repeat: Theory is rudimentary philosophy. Practice is the advanced work.   And, I’m reminded of Donald Robertson’s genius wisdom on the difference between being a warrior of the mind and a mere librarian of the mind.    As we’ve discussed, in The Philosophy of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy he tells us: “The ancients conceived o

In our last +1, we talked about Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and the fact that his word for “happiness” was VERY different than our word.   Eudaimonia, as we discussed, literally means “good soul” and implies a powerful sense of actualizing our potential—succeeding in expressing the best within ourselves.   Today we’re going to focus on HOW Aristotle teaches us to create THAT type of “happiness.”   Pop quiz: Can you guess?   …   Pop answer: In a word: Virtue.    In a Greek word: Areté.   Aristotle tells us that the ONLY way to have a “good soul” and experience the deepest sense of well-being and happiness is to, essentially, express the best version of yourself moment to moment to moment. To live with virtue.   Here’s how he puts it: “But what is happiness? If we consider what the function of man is, we find that happiness is a virtuous activity of the soul.”   “Virtuous activity of the soul.”   Wow. Isn’t that BEAUTIFUL.   “Virtuous activity of the soul.”   Just for a

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that 25 minutes every day = 2 YEARS of your life.    Did you figure out how you’re wasting time and make some progress eliminating that time wasting activity?   If so, high fives.   If not, here’s a tip.   In Bored and Brilliant, Manoush Zomorodi gives people a 7-Day Challenge to invite more boredom and more brilliance into their lives. Challenge #4 is pretty epic. It’s the fastest way to add two years back to our lives.   Here’s how she puts it: “Your instructions for today: Delete it. Delete *that* app. ... You know which one is your albatross. The one you use too much. The one you use to escape—too often, at the expense of other things (including sleep). The one that makes you feel bad about yourself. Delete said time-wasting, bad-habit app. Uninstall it.”   Yep. THAT app.   Which one is it?   Want two years of your life back?   Delete it. Now.    I know it’s going to hurt but so is you looking back on your life from your deathbed and wondering why

George Leonard was an aikido master who wrote a great little book called Mastery.    It’s a tiny little book packed with a ton of wisdom. I highly recommend it.    There’s one particular passage that’s been tattooed on my mind since I read it over a decade ago. We’re going to talk about that tomorrow. Today, we’re going to take a quick look at how Leonard describes mastery and the other paths that can trip us up.   First, pop quiz! When you think of the path of Mastery and the Master who walks that path, what vision comes to mind? How would YOU describe it?   Take a moment and noodle that.   Alright.    Here’s how Leonard describes mastery. He tells us that “We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”   That’s mastery. It’s a PROCESS.    When we commit to the path of mastery

In our last +1, we talked about Rule #1 of Nutrition. You remember what it was?   Basic idea: It’s not what you start eating that has the most positive impact. It’s what you STOP eating. There aren’t any Fountains of Youth in nature; there ARE poisons. And, you can’t eat enough broccoli to make up for all that pizza.   (So, what did you eliminate?)   Although I did share his high-level perspective, I didn’t share John Durant’s perspective on what he thinks we should remove as I wanted to make his general advice apply whether you’re Paleo or Vegan or Pegan or whatever.   Today we’re going to look at his top recs at what qualifies as “poison” and should, therefore, be removed.    *** Note: I share this with a respectful tip ‘o the hat to the Grain Lovers out there. ***   John tells us (and, of course, many others who share his perspective echo this): “Top on this list [of poisons] are industrial foods (sugar, vegetable oils) as well as the seed-based crops they’re made out of (cereal gra

Nathaniel Branden was a fascinating guy. As a teenager he wrote a fan letter to Ayn Rand—which she ignored. Then he wrote another letter a little later which led to an intimate relationship and collaboration.    We’ll save the details of that relationship for another discussion. For now, let’s look at some wisdom from The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem where Nathaniel tells us about a little self-awareness exercise called “sentence completion.”   Here’s how he puts it: “Sentence-completion work is a deceptively simple yet uniquely powerful tool for raising self-understanding, self-esteem, and personal effectiveness. It rests on the premise that all of us have more knowledge than we normally are aware of—more wisdom than we use, more potentials than typically show up in our behavior. Sentence completion is a tool for accessing and activating these ‘hidden resources.’”   How’s it work?   Like this.   Take a sentence stem (like: “Living consciously to me means...”) and create 6-10 completions of th

We’ve talked about how exercise is kinda like taking a little bit of Ritalin and a little bit of Prozac, but somehow we’ve gotten this far into our +1 series without talking about the fact that exercise is as effective as Zoloft in reducing depression.   Get this.   In The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirksy walks us through a little experiment.    Bring clinically depressed individuals into a lab. Split them into three groups. The first group is assigned to four months of aerobic exercise while the second group gets an antidepressant medication (in this case Zoloft) and the third group gets both.    The exercise group does three, forty-five minute sessions per week of cycling or walking/jogging at a moderate to high intensity.   Fast-forward four months.   As Sonja says: "Remarkably, by the end of the four-month intervention period, all three groups had experienced their depressions lift and reported fewer dysfunctional attitudes and increased happiness and self-esteem. Aerobic exercise was just

In Self-Image 101, we talked about how to create the most heroically awesome version of yourself by integrating the “Optimus” you and the “en*theos” you into the “Hērōs” you.   We also talked about Other Image 101—aka: How do you see OTHERS?   Walt Whitman helped us out with this idea.    He once said: “In the faces of men and women, I see God.”   Which begs the question: When you look in the faces of men and women, what do YOU see?   That’s actually Today’s +1.   When you’re out and about today (and, perhaps even more importantly: when you’re in and hanging out with your family today!), take a moment to step back and SEE the absolute best, most divinely awesome essence of the people with whom you’re interacting.   And, remember: It’s hard to see in others what we’re not seeing in ourselves.    Therefore…    Let’s make sure the first person in whom we see God this morning is that person looking back at us in the mirror.    Here’s to bowing to the divine within yourself and to the div