Optimize With Brian Johnson | More Wisdom In Less Time

In our last +1, we took a quick trip to Michelangelo’s studio and saw the Optimus You sitting there in the uncarved marble. Then we did a little chiseling at some behaviors that might be getting in the way.   Today’s +1 is another super-quick one.   Pop quiz: You know what moment Michelangelo decided to capture when he carved David?    Hint: It wasn’t his moment of celebration right after he “officially” became a hero by defeating Goliath.    It was his moment of DECISION.   It was the moment he DECIDED to step up and do his best to serve profoundly and, ultimately, heroically.   That (and I have goosebumps as I type this) was what Michelangelo (rightly) considered the most heroic moment of David’s life—the moment he DECIDED to step up and strive to be a hero.    Guess what?   (Echo!!)   We get to make those micro-decisions all day every day.   Here’s to choosing wisely, David.

In our last +1, we met Joe De Sena’s kettlebell named Leo. (I laugh as I type that.)   As you may recall, little Leonidas goes everywhere Joe goes. Traveling around the world? Mr. Leo gets checked in. Heading to the office in the morning. Leo’s going, too.    All day every day. Joe and his 44-pound cast-iron little Leo are BFFs.   Now, as I was preparing for Greatest Year Ever 2019, I was reflecting on that epic love story and thinking about the importance of having symbols to capture our most important intentions.    For Joe, that kettlebell represents his commitment to obstacle immunity and to honoring the pledge he’s made to help 100 million people Optimize their lives via his Spartan Races—which I find to be SUPER inspiring.   I wondered: What symbol can I create for myself that will capture my commitment to stepping up and into the next-best version of myself as a social entrepreneur and leader—doing my part to help 100 million (!!) people Optimize their lives by combining the power of Wisdom

Cal Newport joins us as a guest teacher for this class! He is one of my favorite thinkers. He got his Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT and is now a Professor at Georgetown. He’s also a bestselling author of a number of books. Given the fact that the fastest way to Optimize your life is to STOP doing things that are sub-optimal AND the fact that (for nearly all of us) our use of technology is the #1 thing that “Needs work!,” it’s SUPER important for us to figure out how to best use all the technology available to us WITHOUT becoming lost in a tsunami of inputs. Enter: Our new philosophy of technology use: Digital Minimalism.

Meditation.   At this point, most of us are pretty aware of the fact that it’s been proven to be pretty epic for our well-being.    Congrats, high fives, curtsies, etc. if you’re rockin’ a meditation practice already.   If you’re not investing a few minutes of your day into meditation yet, what’re you waiting for?!   Perhaps you’re telling yourself you don’t have the time?   Well, we know that’s a pretty flimsy excuse (hah!) but if you’re not meditating and you have a tough time falling asleep at night, here’s some fun little data from Arianna Huffington’s The Sleep Revolution that will help us quantify the IMMEDIATE time-ROI you’ll get by meditating.   Arianna tells us: “A 2009 Stanford study found that a six-week mindfulness meditation course helped people who have trouble sleeping fall asleep twice as quickly, in fifteen minutes instead of thirty-three minutes.”   Recap: If you have trouble falling asleep, learning to meditate (and doing so consistently) can help you fall asleep twice a

In our last +1, we talked about the Optimize Master’s program (aka Optimize Coach!) and had fun with some wisdom on moving from theory to practice—reminding ourselves that the theory (although important!) is just the rudimentary stuff. The ADVANCED work is the actual PRACTICE.   Here’s what was kinda weird.   As I was drafting that +1, I was doing some quick key word searches on my Mac to find the quotes I wanted to pull. I grabbed one from Ernest Holmes’s Creative Mind and Success and one from Vernon Howard’s The Power of Your Supermind.    But before I found the right quote from Holmes, I opened up another one of our Notes on another one of his great books The Art of Life.    (Fun note: I went through a phase where I was REALLY into understanding what all the old-school New Thought guys thought and read basically all their stuff.)   Anyway…    As I did that little searching and opened up a few PDFs, I noticed that the first Big Idea from both The Art of Life and from The Power of Your Supe

In our last +1, we talked about our inaugural Optimize Coach program (there’s still a little more time to sign up and join hundreds of other passionate Optimizers in making this the greatest year of our lives while helping others in our lives do the same, btw).   Specifically, we discussed the very first email we send out with the very first micro-exercise to invite Optimus Us to the party.   It goes like this:    Stand up. Expand. Relax. Pull the thread thru your head. Take a deep breath (in thru the nose, down into the belly, etc.). Chest up. Chin down. Relax a little more. Expand a little more. Smile.   “Hi, Optimus!!”   We’re going to start (and end) every single one of our 43 weekly sessions together with that exercise. CONSTANTLY remembering to physically flip the switch from the not-quite-Optimus version of ourselves to the “Let’s do this!!!” Optimus version of Us.   As I wrapped my brain around the importance of this little exercise and how to integrate it in our lives, I was thinking

In our last +1, we took a nice stroll down Brian’s Biographical Byway—exploring the power of flipping Identity switches. (You make any distinctions? Flip any switches?)   btw: That Seneca quote with which we wrapped up that +1 always knocks my socks off: “It is not because things are difficult that you do not dare. It is because you do not dare that things are difficult.”    Today I want to go back to Atomic Habits and explore an Idea that didn’t make it into the Note.    It has to do with Michael Phelps. And his genes. And how they impacted his pants inseam length. And how that affected his Olympic greatness.   Get this: At this stage, we all know that Phelps is one of the greatest athletes of ALL TIME. He’s won more gold medals (23!!) than anyone in the history of the Olympics.    He’s a case study in grit. In his autobiography No Limits, he shares the key character traits he believes led to his astonishing success.   But…   One of the things he doesn’t mention is the fact that his body ju

In our last +1, we talked about how to make yourself a quadrillion (!!!) times better. The recap there: Just let the magic of compounding 1% gains work for you. Every day. 10 years. Boom!   Of course the fine print includes the fact that, although inspiring, that’s (obviously) pretty much impossible as NO ONE, not even the best among us, are perfect (thanks, Maslow!) and we won’t be the first. But contemplating the sheer potential force of compounding tiny gains is pretty inspiring.   Now, as I wrapped my brain around that power and imagined each of us stepping into that next-best version of ourselves (then repeating the spiraling up again and again!), Ralph Waldo Emerson came to mind.     In Self-Reliance, he has a great line about the fact that great human beings have an aura about them. He says that it’s almost as if they have a bunch of angels escorting them.    As he puts it: “The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes t

In our last +1, we talked about how the Peak Performance guys recommend we craft our optimal work-to-rest ratio.    Pop quiz: You recall the ratio?    Pop answer: 50 to 90 minutes ON. 7 to 20 minutes OFF. Making nice rhythmic waves…   (More importantly: You practice it yesterday?)   Today, as promised, I want to talk about the importance of creating boundaries lest we teeter into the realm of burnout and/or never leave the realm of sub-awesome performance.   First, let’s talk about the boundaries required to get into true, 100% ON mode.    Guess what… All that multi-tasking? Flitting back and forth from one thing to another? That’s NOT awesome. (Cap’n Obvious here with a friendly public service announcement.)    We need to create bright-line boundaries and focus on ONE Thing—the most important thing—if we want to have a shot at operating in our upper threshold of productive performance.    We all know that. (Right?)   Yet…    Do you still paper cut your attention and never really go deep be

Continuing (and concluding) our trip through Steve Chandler’s wise brain (and great book, Reinventing Yourself), let’s talk about campfires.   Campfires? Yep. Campfires.    So… You’re out camping. It’s night time. You light a fire. It keeps you warm. You wake up the next morning. The fire is out. You’ll need to light another fire tonight to get warm again.   Now, do you complain about the fact that you need to create another fire? Or, do you just accept that that’s how it is?   Unless you pretty much exclusively speak Victimese, you accept that reality and simply make another fire, right?   Well… Steve tells us that the “human spirit” is JUST like that campfire. You need to re-light it EVERY SINGLE DAY.   Most people don’t like that fact. They want their fire to burn all day every day from the moment they wake up until the moment they fall asleep (with pleasant dreams included as well)—with as little effort as possible.   That’s called entitlement. You can also call it wanting to be exone

Ready to make 2019 the Greatest Year of Your Life? Me, too. It’s time to Operationalize Virtue—getting (even more) clarity on what our Optimus selves look like and getting even better at consistently showing up AS that best version of ourselves. In this class, we review why we do what we do together, take a quick trip to hell (yikes!) then to Michelangelo’s studio (yay!) then we get to work sculpting our Energy, Work and Love—taking the time to wrap our souls around our Identity + Virtues + Soul Goals + Algorithms that will drive our Masterpiece Days as we Dare to step thru Fear Doors into all we’re destined to be. Hope you love it and looking forward to LITERALLY making this year the greatest year of your life in an unending string of such awesome years!

Dr. Mercola is a super-popular alternative health physician who runs the equally popular site Mercola.com. In this book, we get a look at his “Mitochondrial Metabolic Therapy” program. MMT for short. As you could probably guess, this is a high-fat (+ “adequate” protein + low-carb) diet. If that approach fires you up, I think you’ll love the book. If not, well… :) Big Ideas we explore include: meeting our mitochondria (the key to health), why “adequate” protein is where it’s at (not low or moderate or high but “adequate”!), mTOR (the cancer switch), good fats (vs. bad ones), peak fasting, and how to win the urge war.

In our last +1, we talked about LeBron James and the fact that he tries to get 11 to 12 hours of sleep per day when he’s training. (So does Roger Federer. And, Tom Brady is in bed at 8:30.)    Let’s talk about LeBron a little more today.    Renowned mental toughness coach Bob Rotella kicks off his book How Champions Think with a story about how LeBron thinks.    It goes something like this.   Once upon a time early in LeBron’s career, Rotella spent some time working with LeBron. He knew the basics. Six-eight. A chiseled two hundred fifty pounds with explosive speed. A proven superstar. But it wasn’t until they sat down and chatted that he REALLY got LeBron’s power.   Rotella asked him about his goals. LeBron told him: “I want to be the greatest basketball player in history.”    Rotella thought: “Beautiful. This is a truly talented guy.”    He tells us what he was MOST impressed by: “It was not that he had physical gifts. It was LeBron’s mind.”    Specifically, it was the way he saw himself

Susan Peirce Thompson is a Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Rochester. She’s an expert in the psychology of eating and creator of Bright Line Eating Solutions, “a company dedicated to helping people achieve long-term, sustainable weight loss.” Plus... She used to be obese and, as she says, addicted to *everything.* She integrates her background in neuroscience with her personal experience conquering her diet and other addiction issues in this super popular book. Big Ideas we explore include why bright lines are where it’s at, the susceptibility quiz, the saboteur, self-perception theory, and the four bright lines of eating.

Solitude. It’s the secret sauce to leadership. But... In their great book Raymond Kethledge and Michael Erwin tells us: “Solitude is a state of mind, a space where you can focus on your own thoughts without distraction, with a power to bring mind and soul together in clear-eyed conviction. Like a great wave that saturates everything in its path, however, handheld devices and other media now leave us awash with the thoughts of others. We are losing solitude without even realizing it.” Big Ideas we explore include the big 4 of solitude (clarity + creativity + emotional balance + moral courage), the threats from our "Input Age," how MLK and Eisenhower used solitude, FOMO (get over it!) and how to change the world (starting with YOU!).

Today I’d like to talk about a little more wisdom from Seth Godin’s Icarus Deception.    As we’ve discussed, his book (and his entire body of work for that matter), is basically a plea for us to step up and into our highest potential.    He tells us: “Your ability to follow directions is not the secret to your success. You are hiding your best work, your best insight, and your best self from us every day.”   That’s inspiringly true.    (Note the references to “your best,” “your best,” “your best.” And, think: Optimus, optimus, optimus.)   But here’s the passage that’s been rattling around in my head: “It’s too bad that so much time has been wasted, but it would be unforgivable to wait any longer. You have the ability to contribute so much. We need you, now.”   It’s funny because when I recalled that passage in my head, I thought he said, “It’s unfortunate that so much time has been wasted. But it would be unforgivable to wait any longer.”   Unfortunate vs. Unforgivable. Unfort