Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

After filming Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Breathing, and Focusing over the last 5 days (YES!), I took a step back and did some messy creative work on Celebrating. Today I’m excited to share some thoughts on how I plan to approach that Mastery Series class along with some powerful wisdom from Abraham Maslow. Hope you enjoy and here’s to Radical Acceptance, Profound Gratitude and Ceaseless Celebration!

In our last +1, we got an inspiring (Hoosiers-inspired) pep talk from Admiral McRaven right before engaging in our next most important mission.   I mentioned the fact that I had a chat with an Olympic swim coach shortly after reading that passage from McRaven. He and I chatted about that wisdom in the context of measuring the length of the pool, the number of inches the starting block is off the water. Etc. Etc.   We also talked about flipping the switch and striking an Amy Cuddy-inspired power pose—which can literally change our underlying physiology by increasing our testosterone and decreasing our cortisol while priming us to give the world all we’ve got.   Then I referenced a passage from Cuddy’s great book Presence in which she actually talks about an Olympic swim coach who used that very technique.   Here’s the passage: “In the first month after my TED talk posted, I heard from an Olympic swimming coach who explained how he’d been using a power posing-type strategy—with great success—for y

This morning I prepared for my film session on Focusing for our Mastery Series that is the core part of our 300-day Optimize Coach program. Here’s a super-quick look at some core ideas from that class. Hope you find it helpful!!! Here’s to having an awesome day, one FOCUSED (!) moment at a time!! Remember: Soul Force = T x (E x F x W.I.N.)^C

This morning I prepared for my film session on Breathing for our Mastery Series that is the core part of our 300-day Optimize Coach program. Here’s a super-quick look at some core ideas from that class. Hope you find it helpful!!! Here’s to having an awesome day, one Optimized breath at a time!!  Remember: 1. Nose. 2. Belly. 3. Exhale!!

This morning I was preparing to film a Mastery Series session for our Optimize Coach certification program. We have 7 core fundies: Eating, Moving, Sleeping, Breathing, Focusing, Celebrating and Prospering. Today I was prepping for Sleep. So… Here’s a video with a super-quick overview of the wisdom we’ll be sharing with an emphasis on one of the key practices we want to engage in if we want to Optimize our Sleep. I call it “Training Tranquility.” If you’re having trouble falling/staying asleep you may want to try this out! Hope you enjoy!!! Here’s to some epic sleep.

A couple +1s ago we spent some time pulling some weeds together as we created some new habits.   How?    By STARTING SMALL and MAKING IT EASY!   (Am I repeating myself AND yelling?! Lol. Yes and Yes.)   Today I want to spend a little more time on our new property. We’re going to talk about my new weed whacker and the little running Trail Emerson and I created.    First, a confession.    I’d never used a weed whacker before we arrived at our new place out here in the country. (Note: I did mow the lawn (and our elderly neighbor’s lawn) every weekend growing up but I never got promoted to the weed whacker.)   And…   Just so you know: I’ve spent more time at Home Depot over the last few weeks than I had in my entire life. (Hah.) It’s been awesome.   New Identity: Rancher Bri!    Yeehah!   So…    One of the first things I did after we arrived?    I created a little running Trail around the perimeter of our property. It’s a heavenly little loop that just so happens to be almost exactly a third

Today we’re going to revisit BJ Fogg’s Behavior Design Lab at Stanford.    We’ve already talked about his equation: B = MAP. (Recall: “Behavior happens when Motivation & Ability & Prompt converge at the same moment.”)   Professor Fogg also has some ABCs to help us master the process of Optimizing our behavior: Anchor + Behavior + Celebration.   Here’s how he describes the anatomy of Tiny Habits:    “1. ANCHOR MOMENT An existing routine (like brushing your teeth) or an event that happens (like a phone ringing). The Anchor Moment reminds you to do the new Tiny Behavior.   2. NEW TINY BEHAVIOR A simple version of the new habit you want, such as flossing one tooth or doing two push-ups. You do the Tiny Behavior immediately after the Anchor Moment.   3. INSTANT CELEBRATION Something you do to create positive emotions, such as saying, ‘I did a good job!’ You celebrate immediately after doing the new Tiny Behavior.”   Want to install a habit?    (Yah? Which one? Seriously. Pick o

Admiral William H. McRaven is a Retired U.S. Navy SEAL who served for thirty-seven years and commanded at every level.   As a Four-Star Admiral, his final assignment was as Commander of all U.S. Special Operations Forces. (During this time, he oversaw the covert mission that killed Osama bin Laden.)   In 2014, he gave the commencement address to the graduates of the University of Texas at Austin. Millions of people wound up watching his speech on ten lessons he learned from his Navy SEAL training. (You can watch it on YouTube here.)   He wrote a great little book expanding on those ten lessons. It’s named after the first lesson: Make Your Bed. (Joining 5,000+ 5-star Amazon reviewers, I HIGHLY recommend it. Get a copy here.)   We’ll talk about why that’s his #1 tip soon.   Today we’re going to talk about lesson #4: “Life’s Not Fair—Drive On!” in which we get introduced to the SEAL version of a sugar cookie.    First, the wisdom.    McRaven tells us: “It is easy to blame your lot in life

Today we’re going to go back to Jim Kwik and his great book Limitless one more time.   One of the key themes of the book is that we all have a unique blend of background and passions and skills.   He echoes the wisdom we talked about in a +1 back in the day featuring wisdom from Ken Robinson in which Ken tells us that the right question isn’t “Are you intelligent?” but… “HOW are you intelligent?”   Jim tells us that we’re all unique and that our challenge is to discover our special combination of awesome that makes us shine.   Then he quotes Albert Einstein who once said: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it’s stupid.”   And that’s Today’s +1.   Let’s quit asking ourselves whether or not we’re intelligent.   OF COURSE YOU ARE.   (And so are your kids and colleagues and, well, everyone else you’ll interact with Today.)   The question is: HOW are you intelligent?   Seriously.   How are you intelligen

In our last +1, we talked about the fact that, if we could figure out how to take 30 EXPONENTIAL steps, we’d be able to hop in a rocket and go around the Earth two DOZEN times.   Rather than get 90 feet down the street, we’d get a few BILLION steps further in our joyful jaunt around the Earth.   That’s crazy.   And, well, that’s the power of aggregating and compounding seemingly small changes that can have huge impacts on our lives as we watch the magic exponentially grow.   I LOVE all the metaphors we can use to think about the power of just showing up again and again and again.   We’ve talked about the doubling penny, collecting coins, melting ice cubes, hitting the rock, figuring out combination locks, and rocking marginal gains.   Obviously, the metaphors are just metaphors but they all make the same primary point: It’s all about CONSISTENCY.   We need to show up again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again

Continuing our brief foray through Jim Qwik’s brain and book, let’s talk about the power of getting into Flow.   Jim tells us that being able to flip the switch and drop into a powerful Flow state is one of the keys to tapping into our (Limitless!!) superpowers.   He quotes Steven Kotler in The Rise of Superman to make his point.   Here’s how Steven puts it: “To put it another way: flow is the telephone booth where Clark Kent changes clothes, the place from where Superman emerges.”   I LOVE that image of Clark Kent stepping into the phone booth of Flow and coming out as Superman.   Reminds me of this +1 on Clark Kent flipping the switch and striking a power pose to get his Superman on.   And…   As I read this passage (and chapter from Limitless), I was reminded of our recent +1 on our new Astonishing Work Equation.    Recall, if we want to REALLY crush it, we’d be wise to focus on three variables:    Astonishing Quality Work = Time x (Energy x Focus x W.I.N.)   I made the point th

In our last +1, we had some fun playing with Cal Newport’s Deep Work equation. We modified it from:  High Quality Work Produced = Time Spent x Intensity of Focus to: High Quality Work Produced = Time Spent x Quality of Energy x Intensity of Focus The basic idea: You can get a TON of high quality work produced when you Focus your best Energy.   Today I want to add one more variable to our equation and then do some quick math to bring the point home.   Let’s go back to that last sentence and drop in another variable.   The basic idea: You can get a TON of high quality work produced when you Focus your best Energy on WHAT’S MOST IMPORTANT NOW.   Think about it.   If we have GREAT Energy and we focus that like a laser beam on what’s truly most important right now?    And then we write some algorithms to make THAT our default so we’re accreting more and more value day in and day out?   We can create at an astonishing level.    Enter the latest edition of our equation: Astonishing Productivi

Continuing our brief tour through Kate Hefferon’s textbook on Positive Psychology and the Body, let’s flip open to the chapter on “Positive Nutrition.”   Hmmmm…   I wonder what science has to say about the impact of our diets on our wellbeing…   Guess where Kate starts her discussion?    With sugar.   She tells us: “Sugar has been a component within western diets since the sixteenth century. While 500 years ago, the average human would be lucky to come across sugar, it is estimated that today the average Westerner consumes 3 lb of sugar a week. Overall, our sugar consumption per year has risen from 5 lb per person, per year in 1700, to 152 lb per person in 2000. Recent research has found evidence that sugar, while not only bad for our waistlines, can have deleterious effects on our brain. Sugar has been found to shrink areas responsible for important functions such as memory and mood regulation, wearing on the hippocampus.”   We’ve talked about this before but let’s pause and contemplate that m

In the last couple +1s, we talked about The Shattered Vase (and the power of taking those pieces and making a beautiful new mosaic) then we practiced The Art of Precious Scars (as we chatted about “golden repairs”).   Let’s imagine that art sitting on a desk in our dojo-studio.    We’ve got the mosaic and that golden-seamed vase.   And…   Right next to those pieces of art, let’s put a snow globe.   A snow globe?   Yep.   Stephen Joseph actually introduced this metaphor in his book on posttraumatic growth. He used it in the context of being shaken up after a traumatic event and the fact that it takes time for the metaphorical snow to settle in our lives.   But…   When I imagined that snow globe, the first thing I thought of was our minds and what we often do to them right before we go to bed.   Maybe it was because I was prepping for the PM Bookend session of our Carpe Diem module in our Mastery Series.   We’ve talked (many times!) about the fact that your day begins the night before.

Have you ever heard of “hedonic treadmills”?   We talked about them briefly a few years ago in the context of this +1 on the science of hedonic adaptation.    Basic idea: We adapt to all the “things” we get in our lives. That shiny new car isn’t so shiny a few months after we get it. Same thing with the new phone or TV or whatever.   Sonja Lyubomirksy is one of the world’s leading researchers on the subject of hedonic adaptation. In The Myths of Happiness she tells us: “Indeed, it turns out that we are prone to take for granted pretty much everything positive that happens to us. When we move into a beautiful new loft with a grand view, when we partake of plastic surgery, when we purchase a fancy new automobile or nth-generation smartphone, when we earn the corner office and a raise at work, when we become immersed in a new hobby, and even when we wed, we obtain an immediate boost of happiness from the improved situation; but the thrill only lasts for a short time. Over the coming days, weeks, an

In our last +1, we tapped into some wisdom from Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness as we wrote ourselves a permission slip and then hopped on the bus.   Today we’re going to spend some more time with Brené. And, we’ll invite Pema Chodrön to the party.   Brené tells us: “I love Pema Chodrön’s ‘Lousy World’ teaching on this topic. In it, Chodrön uses the lessons of the Indian Buddhist monk Shantideva to make a very powerful analogy about moving through the world constantly pissed off and disappointed. ...   [She says]: ‘‘We’re laughing, but that’s what we all do. That is how we approach things. We think, if we could just get rid of everything and cover it with leather, our pain would go away. Well, sure, because then it wouldn’t be cutting our feet anymore. It’s just logical, isn’t it? But it doesn’t make any sense, really. Shantideva said, ‘But if you simply wrap leather around your feet.’ In other words, if you put on shoes then you could walk across the boiling sand and the cut glass and th

In our last +1, we blew up some belly balloons with our kids.    We breathed in through our noses, down into our bellies (can you make that balloon pop?!) then we breathed back out through our noses (slightly longer than the inhale).    Ah…   Repeat.   ESPECIALLY when things start to get a little out of control!!!   Which leads us to another little practice we’ve been playing around with at the Johnson House.    (Note to self: This is a REALLY effective practice. Do it more!)   So…   You know those times when your kids start to get a little, shall we say, frazzled, which leads to you (and/or your spouse) (in my case: ME!), getting equally, shall we say, frazzled?    Ahem.   I know that reasonably well.    Hah.   So…   Rather than let it all devolve into a circus, when I’m being Mr. Wise and Mindful Philosopher Guy, I remember to do wise and mindful things to smooth out the rough seas.   This practice has proven to be particularly powerful.   Step 1. Emerson and I leave the scene of th

A little over seven and half years ago, Emerson was born at home.   We had an amazing midwife (named Mary Jackson) for both Emerson and Eleanor’s births.   I’ll never forget the very first moments of Emerson’s life.   I had the blessed honor of being the first to officially welcome him into the world.    RIGHT after he was born (literally a couple seconds after), he looked at me and our eyes met. Then he wrapped his tiny (!) little hand right around my pinky finger.    (MISTY!!!)   We’ve recounted this special moment countless times.   I like to say that we both said, “I LOVE YOU!!!” right when our eyes first connected and he wrapped that tiny hand of his around my pinky.   So…   One of the ways we like to recreate that moment is by holding hands while we’re walking.   That, in itself, will always be one of my favorite things in life.   But…   We like to take it one step further and say “I LOVE YOU!” to each other in our own Top Secret way.    In fact, we developed our own special

Continuing our little series on the science of courage, how about some more wisdom from Robert Biswas-Diener?   In The Courage Quotient, he tells us: “Herein lies the intervention related to failure: accept it. We modern people have fallen in love with the idea that we are in control of our lives, and this worldview gives rise to an impulse to resist failure, to fight against the very notion of it. But just like the modern trend to defy age, the battle against failure is a lost cause. Failure is inevitable. We all experience it, in forms large and small. It is in your past and it is in your future. People with a high courage quotient understand that failure is a risk much of the time and unavoidable some of the time. Rather than trying to tiptoe around failure, they simply accept it as part of the process of success.”   That’s from a chapter called “Be Willing to Fail.”   It’s packed with powerful, practical wisdom.   Like this: “Failure is a fantastic learning opportunity. Think of every time y

In our last +1, we all get issued our magic wand.   It can alchemize any and all challenges into fuel for our growth.   Thank you, Hermes and Epictetus!!   I mentioned the fact that Ward Farnsworth shared that passage in his great book The Practicing Stoic.    He shared it in a chapter on how Stoics deal with adversity in which he tells us: “Stoics avoid adversity in the ways that anyone of sense would. But sometimes it comes regardless, and then the Stoic goal is to see the adversity rightly and not let one’s peace of mind be destroyed by its arrival. Indeed, the aim of the Stoic is something more: to accept reversal without shock and to make it grist for the creation of greater things. Nobody wants hardship in any particular case, but it is a necessary element in the formation of worthy people and worthy achievements that, in the long run, we do want. Stoics seek the value in whatever happens.”   As I read that passage and reflected on the fact that some adversity is NECESSARY for our growth, I tho